NJ Suspends License Of Woodbridge Doctor Who Kept 2 Women As Servants

TINTON FALLS, NJ — A Tinton Falls doctor who admitted earlier this year to harboring two undocumented women from India, and using them as unpaid household servants, may now lose her medical license for her actions.

The woman is Dr. Harsha Sahni, 66, a physician. She lives in Tinton Falls and owns this rheumatology practice in the Colonia section of Woodbridge.

As Patch reported, in February she pleaded guilty in federal court to harboring two undocumented women from India. Sahni recruited the women to work for her and her family in their multiple homes in New Jersey, said U.S. Attorneys.

Now this September, the State Board of Medical Examiners voted last Wednesday to temporarily suspend Dr. Sahni's medical license. There is an administrative proceeding currently underway where the state of New Jersey may permanently revoke her medical license altogether in the wake of her criminal convictions. You can read the state's complaint against Dr. Sahni here.

The state Board of Medical Examiners says Dr. Sahni's criminal actions make her unfit to practice medicine.

“Dr. Sahni’s inhumane treatment of the two victims, and her use of her license to perpetrate it, demonstrate a gross lack of judgment that cannot be compartmentalized from her duties as a physician,” said Cari Fais, Acting Director of the Division of Consumer Affairs. “This conduct cannot be tolerated in the medical profession, as it places patients at risk and degrades the profession as a whole.”

Sahni kept the women as household servants from 2013 through 2021.

She allegedly forced one of the victims, who lived in her home in Tinton Falls, to work 15 hours a day, seven days a week, and would not allow the victim to receive potentially life-saving treatment for an aneurysm without the victim first finding someone to cover her daily duties in Sahni’s home, said federal prosecutors.

Sahni paid the victims’ families in India in exchange for their labor; she did not pay the two women directly. She also told the women they would be arrested and deported if they spoke to law enforcement.

The state alleges Sahni required Victim 1, who lived in the doctor’s home, to work from approximately 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. for roughly $240 to $600 a month, which Sahni paid to the victim's family in India.

Sahni pleaded guilty in February to federal criminal charges of conspiracy to conceal and harbor aliens and filing a false tax return, as she did not pay taxes on their wages. She is awaiting sentencing next month. She is facing up to 30 years in prison and has been ordered to pay the victims a combined $642,212 and will pay up to $200,000 towards the treatment of Victim 1’s brain aneurysm. Sahni also will pay restitution to the IRS.

The Dr. scammed free medical care for the women; denied one woman life-saving surgery for a brain aneurysm, state says

Sahni is also accused of committing a number of medical scams for her two household "servants:"

In 2016, Sahni falsely claimed that Victim 1 had been abused by her husband to scam a domestic violence charity into providing Victim 1 with free dental treatment. Knowing that Victim 1 could not speak, read or write English, Sahni allegedly completed the entire charity application form, listing herself as "a patient advocate" and signing a legal certification confirming that she believed Victim 1’s dental problems were the result of domestic violence.

Because of that false application, Victim 1 was treated by a volunteer dentist who gave the woman about $6,000 worth of dental care, for free. Sahni allegedly perpetrated a similar scam against the Visiting Nurse Association of Central Jersey in Red Bank, when she lied about Victim 1’s income, housing and employment status, resulting in Victim 1 receiving services for a reduced fee.

Sahni also faces allegations that she prevented Victim 1 from receiving treatment for a life-threatening brain aneurysm: According to the Verified Complaint, when Victim 1 began developing headaches following a car accident in 2014, Sahni told the woman that rest was not permitted and if Victim 1 had a headache she should take Tylenol and complete her work. As the headaches worsened, Sahni allegedly told Victim 1 that seeing a doctor would be too expensive and since Victim 1 did not have any paperwork showing she was in the United States legally she could not be treated.

Sahni allegedly treated Victim 1’s increasingly severe headaches with Tylenol and unidentified pain medications until 2021, when the headaches became debilitating and threatened to keep Victim 1 from performing her daily work. At this time, Sahni finally brought Victim 1 to an ER where she falsely presented herself as Victim 1’s sister and served as her translator.

When a CT Scan of Victim 1’s head revealed an unruptured aneurysm in her brain, doctors advised Victim 1 that immediate surgery was indicated and that failure to do so could lead to Victim 1’s death. Dr. Sahni, however, advised, Victim 1 to leave the hospital against medical advice. Once home, Sahni allegedly required Victim 1 to work the rest of the evening, completing her regular tasks.

The following day, Sahni took Victim 1 for a follow-up examination at JFK University Medical Center’s Neuroscience Institute, where neurosurgeons concluded that because of the aneurysm's size there was a 1-in-5 chance that it would rupture and Victim 1 could die. Sahni told the doctors she was the woman's personal doctor and she was told the woman had a “high mortality” risk if the aneurysm was not treated.

But still Dr. Sahni allegedly continued to advise Victim 1 to not undergo surgery while continuing to make her complete her normal household workload. After speaking with family members in India, Victim 1 expressed a desire to move forward with surgery, at which time Sahni allegedly told her she could not undergo surgery until she found a replacement to cover her daily duties in Sahni’s home. According to the state of New Jersey, there is no evidence in Victim 1’s medical record that Sahni ever took her for follow-up treatment or scheduled the surgery. It was immediately after this that law enforcement raided Sahni's home in Tinton Falls and physically removed Victim 1 from Sahni’s home.

The woman ultimately did not die from the brain aneurysm.

Tinton Falls Woman Admits Having Illegal Household Servants (Feb. 2023)