A legislation agency filed $100 million in federal authorized claims Monday on behalf of 20 former sufferers of an ex-military physician at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, who was sentenced to jail in January after admitting to sexually abusing three dozen males underneath his care.
The Federal Tort Claims Act administrative complaints, lodged towards the U.S. Military and Division of Protection, allege that the Military was responsible for Maj. Michael Stockin’s actions resulting from its negligence, together with allowing him to proceed to follow as an anesthesiologist and pain-management specialist regardless of figuring out of the abuse.
In a information launch asserting the claims on behalf of her purchasers, lawyer Christine Dunn stated the Military have to be held “accountable for its position in permitting this rampant abuse to persist.”
“The variety of victims we symbolize has almost doubled within the final two months alone,” stated Dunn, a co-managing associate with Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight. “There isn’t any doubt that this is without doubt one of the greatest sexual assault scandals ever confronted by the navy. There will likely be no justice for my purchasers – and the various different victims on the market – till the Military takes accountability for what occurred to those males.”
The tort claims, sometimes precursors to lawsuits, every search $5 million in damages. In addition they increase to 42 the variety of males represented by Dunn who’ve lodged such complaints since September.
Twenty-two earlier authorized claims remained underneath investigation by the Military, in accordance with the information launch. Dunn beforehand stated that not all of her purchasers had been a part of Stockin’s legal case, and there have been extra victims than Stockin had been convicted of abusing.
The claims accused Stockin of sexually abusing greater than 100 sufferers.
“The Military acquired 20 new claims this week and is reviewing them for authorized sufficiency earlier than investigating their factual allegations,” Military spokesperson Ruth Castro stated in an e-mail. “No choice on how one can reply will likely be made till the Military’s evaluate is full and the claims have been investigated.”
A Division of Protection spokesperson referred an inquiry concerning the claims to the Military.
Stockin, who had been assigned to Madigan Military Medical Middle since July 2019, was sentenced Jan. 15 to greater than 13 years in jail after pleading responsible to legal costs involving 41 male victims on the base hospital.
Stockin, who was 39 on the time of his sentencing, admitted to 36 counts of abusive sexual contact and 5 counts of wrongfully viewing an individual’s personal space. Lawyer Robert Capovilla, who represented Stockin, beforehand stated that his consumer had taken full accountability for his actions and made no excuses.
“The Protection hopes and prays that the victims and Main Stockin will lastly have the ability to heal and to maneuver ahead with their lives,” Capovilla had stated.
Between 2019 and 2022, victims referred for ache administration had stated, Stockin requested sufferers to take away clothes and, with out a chaperone current, fondled them or stared at their genitals for no obvious medical causes throughout uncomfortable exams.
“Dr. Stockin then instructed me to decrease my pants and underwear as he knelt right down to eye degree with my genitals. Then, he grabbed my penis, pulling and shifting it round,” one former affected person, who Stockin admitted to sexually abusing, wrote in a declare Monday. “He was not carrying gloves, and he was smiling. This course of was deeply uncomfortable and felt much less like an examination than a groping.”
One other affected person, who wasn’t a part of Stockin’s legal case, wrote in a declare that he was abused in an almost equivalent method throughout 4 appointments over 11 months. The person stated he initially hadn’t accepted his spouse’s suggestion that he was a sufferer of a sexual assault.
“At first, I believed that she have to be mistaken as a result of I trusted that the Military wouldn’t let a predator into their ranks,” he wrote, including that the alleged abuse had damage his marriage, prompted him evening terrors and gave him identified sexual trauma and anxiousness.
“I’m now utterly unable to obtain medical care from a male supplier,” he wrote. “I exhaust myself every day by consistently making an attempt to keep away from exterior reminders and flashbacks of being sexually assaulted by Dr. Stockin.”
The Military has stated it spent lots of of hours investigating Stockin’s legal case, resulting in 23 counts being filed in August 2023 earlier than the variety of costs ultimately grew.
A number of complainants alleged they had been sexually abused after Military officers acquired complaints about Stockin in February 2022 and suspended him, in accordance with the information launch Monday. Complainants alleged that Stockin continued seeing sufferers after the Military’s Prison Investigation Division questioned him concerning the accusations.
“For years, Dr. Stockin preyed upon numerous members of our navy on the Military’s watch,” Jillian Seymour, an affiliate with Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight, stated in an announcement. “The Military failed again and again to cease the serial predator it employed, employed, and supervised.”
The Military and Division of Protection have six months to research federal tort claims earlier than a person might file a lawsuit in federal courtroom, the information launch stated.
Stockin was beforehand assigned to medical facilities in Honolulu and Maryland and deployed to Iraq from October 2020 to February 2021, in accordance with the Military Workplace of Particular Trial Counsel.
After his sentencing, the workplace stated that Stockin can be dismissed from the Military and lose his medical license. It additionally stated his sentence can be served at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and he’ll be required to register as a intercourse offender upon his launch.
© 2025 The Information Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.). Go to www.TheNewsTribune.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
© Copyright 2025 The Information Tribune, Tacoma, Wash.. All rights reserved. This materials is probably not printed, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
