A law firm filed $100 million in federal legal claims Monday on behalf of 20 former patients of an ex-military doctor at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, who was sentenced to prison in January after admitting to sexually abusing three dozen men under his care.
The Federal Tort Claims Act administrative complaints, lodged against the U.S. Army and Department of Defense, allege that the Army was liable for Maj. Michael Stockin’s actions due to its negligence, including permitting him to continue to practice as an anesthesiologist and pain-management specialist despite knowing of the abuse.
In a news release announcing the claims on behalf of her clients, attorney Christine Dunn said the Army must be held “accountable for its role in allowing this rampant abuse to persist.”
“The number of victims we represent has nearly doubled in the last two months alone,” said Dunn, a co-managing partner with Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight. “There is no doubt that this is one of the biggest sexual assault scandals ever faced by the military. There will be no justice for my clients – and the many other victims out there – until the Army takes responsibility for what happened to these men.”
The tort claims, typically precursors to lawsuits, each seek $5 million in damages. They also raise to 42 the number of men represented by Dunn who have lodged such complaints since September.
Twenty-two earlier legal claims remained under investigation by the Army, according to the news release. Dunn previously said that not all of her clients were part of Stockin’s criminal case, and there were more victims than Stockin had been convicted of abusing.
The claims accused Stockin of sexually abusing more than 100 patients.
“The Army received 20 new claims this week and is reviewing them for legal sufficiency before investigating their factual allegations,” Army spokesperson Ruth Castro said in an email. “No decision on how to respond will be made until the Army’s review is complete and the claims have been investigated.”
A Department of Defense spokesperson referred an inquiry about the claims to the Army.
Stockin, who had been assigned to Madigan Army Medical Center since July 2019, was sentenced Jan. 15 to more than 13 years in prison after pleading guilty to criminal charges involving 41 male victims at the base hospital.
Stockin, who was 39 at the time of his sentencing, admitted to 36 counts of abusive sexual contact and five counts of wrongfully viewing a person’s private area. Attorney Robert Capovilla, who represented Stockin, previously said that his client had taken full responsibility for his actions and made no excuses.
“The Defense hopes and prays that the victims and Major Stockin will finally be able to heal and to move forward with their lives,” Capovilla had said.
Between 2019 and 2022, victims referred for pain management had said, Stockin asked patients to remove clothing and, without a chaperone present, fondled them or stared at their genitals for no apparent medical reasons during uncomfortable exams.
“Dr. Stockin then instructed me to lower my pants and underwear as he knelt down to eye level with my genitals. Then, he grabbed my penis, pulling and moving it around,” one former patient, who Stockin admitted to sexually abusing, wrote in a claim Monday. “He was not wearing gloves, and he was smiling. This process was deeply uncomfortable and felt less like an exam than a groping.”
Another patient, who wasn’t part of Stockin’s criminal case, wrote in a claim that he was abused in a nearly identical manner during four appointments over 11 months. The man said he initially hadn’t accepted his wife’s suggestion that he was a victim of a sexual assault.
“At first, I thought that she must be mistaken because I trusted that the Army would not let a predator into their ranks,” he wrote, adding that the alleged abuse had hurt his marriage, caused him night terrors and gave him diagnosed sexual trauma and anxiety.
“I am now completely unable to receive medical care from a male provider,” he wrote. “I exhaust myself daily by constantly trying to avoid external reminders and flashbacks of being sexually assaulted by Dr. Stockin.”
The Army has said it spent hundreds of hours investigating Stockin’s criminal case, leading to 23 counts being filed in August 2023 before the number of charges eventually grew.
Multiple complainants alleged they were sexually abused after Army officials received complaints about Stockin in February 2022 and suspended him, according to the news release Monday. Complainants alleged that Stockin continued seeing patients after the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division questioned him about the accusations.
“For years, Dr. Stockin preyed upon countless members of our military on the Army’s watch,” Jillian Seymour, an associate with Sanford Heisler Sharp McKnight, said in a statement. “The Army failed time and again to stop the serial predator it hired, employed, and supervised.”
The Army and Department of Defense have six months to investigate federal tort claims before an individual may file a lawsuit in federal court, the news release said.
Stockin was previously assigned to medical centers in Honolulu and Maryland and deployed to Iraq from October 2020 to February 2021, according to the Army Office of Special Trial Counsel.
After his sentencing, the office said that Stockin would be dismissed from the Army and lose his medical license. It also said his sentence would be served at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and he’ll be required to register as a sex offender upon his release.
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