A Brooklyn man and former sleep technician was sentenced for unlawfully recording patients in bathrooms at a Great Neck sleep center for nine months and later destroying the evidence of his crime.
Between July 2023 and April 2024, Sanjai Syamaprasad, a former employee of the Northwell Health Sleep Disorders Center in Great Neck, affixed hidden cameras made to look like smoke detectors 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.
Throughout this period, the cameras captured recordings of approximately thousands of individuals while they were using the bathrooms. Based on images recovered and reviewed by NCDA investigators, five individuals were identified on the videos, including a child.
Syamaprasad removed the cameras 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.
On April 25, 2024, a search warrant was executed on Syamaprasad’s home in Brooklyn and multiple electronics such as phones, an SD card reader, and three laptops were recovered.
Investigators learned that Syamaprasad destroyed evidence, throwing a smoke detector camera and broken-up SD card into a trash can at a local 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 by NCDA Detective Investigators on April 25, 2024.
Syamaprasad, 48, pleaded guilty on July 15, 2025, before Judge Meryl Berkowitz to five counts of Unlawful Surveillance in the Second Degree (and two counts of Tampering with Physical Evidence (all Class E felonies).
NCDA recommended that Syamaprasad be sentenced to one to three years in prison consecutively for each count of the indictment, for a total of seven to 21 years in prison. The court sentenced the defendant today to six months in jail and five years’ probation.
“Sanjai Syamaprasad is a creep, and for his truly nauseating behavior and violation of patients’ privacy rights, he deserved far more time behind bars,” said Nassau DA Anne Donnelly. “Night after night this purported medical professional preyed on innocent patients through a spy camera lens, taking sick pleasure in exposing them — and he did it for nearly a year. Sanjai Syamaprasad exploited these victims at their most vulnerable and he stole from them the security they are entitled to when seeking medical care. Now, he will learn what it feels like to be watched, when correction officers are patrolling past his cell for the next six months.”