Sanjai Syamaprasad recorded patients in bathrooms using a hidden camera while working as a sleep tech at the Northwell Health Sleep Disorders Center.
A Brooklyn sleep tech pleaded guilty to charges of unlawful surveillance and tampering with evidence for surreptitiously recording patients in bathrooms at a sleep center in Great Neck between July 2023 and April 2024 when he worked there as a sleep tech, according to Nassau County District Attorney Anne T. Donnelly.
Sanjai Syamaprasad, 47, pleaded guilty before Judge Meryl Berkowitz to five counts of Unlawful Surveillance in the Second Degree (an E felony) and two counts of Tampering with Physical Evidence (an E felony).
He is expected to receive five years’ probation.
“Patients who enter medical facilities expect and deserve their privacy to be protected, especially inside of sensitive locations like bathrooms. This defendant, a medical professional himself, violated the trust that patients hold in these institutions and the people who care for them with his sickening behavior,” Donnelly says in a release. “Syamaprasad shamelessly and creepily played back the videos he created of patients on his work computer—both adults and children—until he was discovered by a coworker and terminated by Northwell, and later, tried to destroy the evidence of his crimes. Sanjai Syamaprasad wanted to hide in the shadows while he exposed patients at their most vulnerable, but now it is his disgusting conduct and guilt that are laid bare for everyone to see.”
Between at least July 2023 and April 2024, the defendant, a former employee of the Northwell Health Sleep Disorders Center in Great Neck, affixed a hidden camera made to look like a smoke detector using Velcro discs on the walls inside staff and multiple patient bathrooms within the sleep center and in a public bathroom at STARS Rehabilitation, located in the same building as the sleep center, Donnelly says.
Throughout this time period, the cameras captured recordings of hundreds of individuals while they were using the bathrooms.
Based on images recovered and reviewed by Nassau County District Attorney investigators, five individuals were identified on the videos, including a child.
The defendant removed the camera at the end of his shift and downloaded the footage onto an SD card.
Northwell referred the conduct to the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office in April 2024. The office thanks the Nassau County Police Department and Northwell Health for their cooperation and assistance in this prosecution. Northwell has not replied to a request for comment about the guilty plea.
On April 25, 2024, a search warrant was executed on the defendant’s home in Brooklyn. Multiple electronics, such as phones, an SD card reader, and three laptops, were recovered.
Investigators learned that the defendant destroyed evidence, throwing the smoke detector camera and the broken-up SD card into a trash can at a CVS pharmacy in Brooklyn. The smoke detector camera was ultimately recovered from a dumpster behind the store by a Nassau County Police Department detective.
The defendant was arrested on April 25, 2024.
Meanwhile, Northwell and its affiliated entities are being named in multiple civil complaints alleging negligence that enabled the secret recording. In a complaint filed by law firm Slater Slater Schulman LLP in Nassau County Supreme Court, victims allege that Northwell waited more than a year before notifying potential victims, only sending notification letters in late May 2025. This delay, according to the law firm, prevented victims from taking timely action and caused additional emotional distress when they learned of the violations.
Also, “the mediocre sentence in this criminal case doesn’t even amount to a wrist slap – it’s a complete miscarriage of justice,” says Adam Slater, founding and managing partner of Slater Slater Schulman LLP, in a release. “The only way that the victims of Northwell Health Sleep Disorders Center will ever receive true justice is through the civil courts. While Northwell’s carelessness represents an egregious breach of patient privacy and trust, Slater Slater Schulman LLP has a very strong track record of achieving results for patients who have been harmed by medical institutions.”
