Sanjai Syamaprasad May Avoid Prison After Filming Patients

A former employee who hid cameras in bathrooms at a Long Island sleep center, recording hundreds of patients – including children – may dodge prison.

Sanjai Syamaprasad confessed to hiding cameras inside bathrooms at the Northwell Health Sleep Disorders Center in Manhasset.

Sanjai Syamaprasad, 48, pleaded guilty to unlawful surveillance and tampering with physical evidence in Nassau County Court on Tuesday, July 15.

He admitted to planting hidden cameras disguised a smoke detectors inside restrooms at the Northwell Health Sleep Disorders Center in Manhasset.

Syamaprasad secretly recorded patients and staff between July 2023 and April 2024, downloading the footage to an SD card after each shift, prosecutors said. He watched some of the videos—of both adults and minors—on his work computer.

The camera was also placed in a public restroom at STARS Rehabilitation, which is located in the same building as the sleep center. Five individuals, including a child, have been identified in the recovered footage, though investigators believe the device captured images of hundreds of unsuspecting people.

“Patients who enter medical facilities expect and deserve their privacy to be protected, especially inside of sensitive locations like bathrooms,” said Nassau County DA Anne Donnelly.

“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.”

Syamaprasad was terminated by Northwell Health after a coworker discovered the hidden device. Once he realized he was under investigation, he attempted to destroy the evidence, throwing the smoke detector camera and a broken-up SD card into a trash can at a Brooklyn CVS.

The camera was later recovered from a dumpster by a Nassau County Police detective.

Syamaprasad was arrested in Brooklyn on Friday, April 25, after investigators executed a search warrant at his home and seized multiple electronic devices.

He is expected to be sentenced to five years’ probation when he returns to court in September. The DA’s office had recommended a sentence of one to three years in prison for each of the seven charges.

Investigators continue working to identify additional potential victims. Anyone who may have used the bathrooms at the Northwell Health Sleep Disorders Center during the time of the recordings and wants to know if they were impacted is encouraged to contact the Nassau County DA’s Criminal Complaints Unit.