{"id":260294,"date":"2026-08-06T12:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T12:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/260294\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T12:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T12:22:09","slug":"indian-origin-pennsylvania-landlord-sued-by-us-over-alleged-sexual-harassment-of-tenant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/260294\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian-origin Pennsylvania landlord sued by US over alleged sexual harassment of tenant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The federal government in the United States has sued Venkatchalam Mani, the owner of a Pennsylvania rental property, alleging that he sexually harassed a female tenant and retaliated against her when she refused his advances <\/p>\n<p class=\"forfirstp\">The federal government in the United States has sued Venkatchalam Mani, the owner of a Pennsylvania rental property, alleging that he sexually harassed a female tenant and retaliated against her when she refused his advances.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on Wednesday, alleges that Mani, a landlord in the State College borough, made unwelcome sexual advances toward a female tenant, including sexual touching.<\/p>\n<p>After the tenant rejected his advances, Mani failed to respond to her repeated requests for maintenance, including repairing a broken furnace in the middle of winter that eventually caught fire.<\/p>\n<p>\u201dThis conduct is illegal. The Justice Department will uphold the rights of female tenants to housing without the threat of sexual harassment by a landlord,\u201d said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K Dhillon of the department\u2019s Civil Rights Division.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit seeks monetary damages for the tenant and her children, and a court order barring future discrimination.<\/p>\n<p>\u201dAttempts to exploit tenants for sexual favours, sexual assault and retaliation by landlords will never be tolerated in the Middle District of Pennsylvania,\u201d said US Attorney Brian D Miller for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p><img src=\"https:\/\/images.firstpost.com\/dlxczavtqcctuei\/news18\/static\/images\/fp\/revamp_v1\/earth.svg\" alt=\"world\" width=\"32\" height=\"32\" class=\"nvicsvg\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"\/>More from World<\/p>\n<p>The case was referred to the Justice Department after the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) received a complaint, completed an investigation and issued a charge of discrimination.<\/p>\n<p>The tenant had filed a complaint against Mani with the HUD.<\/p>\n<p>After an investigation, the HUD determined that Mani discriminated against the applicant in violation of the Fair Housing Act and issued a charge of discrimination.<\/p>\n<p>After the tenant chose to have the matter decided in federal court, the HUD referred the matter to the Department of Justice.<\/p>\n<p>(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Firstpost staff.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The federal government in the United States has sued Venkatchalam Mani, the owner of a Pennsylvania rental property,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[110430,110433,110435,110425,60890,78276,110427,110428,28,30,110421,29,110432,110423,110434,110424,71928,110431,110426,110429,110420,110422],"class_list":["post-260294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-assistant-attorney-general-harmeet-k-dhillon","tag-civil-rights-lawsuit","tag-doj-lawsuit","tag-fair-housing-act","tag-housing-discrimination","tag-housing-rights","tag-hud-complaint","tag-landlord-retaliation","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-landlord","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-rental-property","tag-sexual-harassment-lawsuit","tag-state-college-pennsylvania","tag-tenant-harassment","tag-tenant-rights","tag-us-attorney-brian-d-miller","tag-us-department-of-justice","tag-us-federal-lawsuit","tag-us-justice-department","tag-venkatchalam-mani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}