The soldiers’ stories were strikingly similar.
On the eighth floor of Madigan Army Medical Center, Maj. Michael D. Stockin would see patients who were in pain, then give a medical reason for why he needed them to take off their pants and underwear.
One patient came in with thoracic back pain in 2020. Stockin touched his genitals, checking for “nerve damage.” Stockin told a retired officer, who was being treated for neck pain, he needed to check his groin for neuropathy in June 2021. A sergeant first class with degenerative disc disease came to Stockin in January 2022. He was told the groping was part of a sensory test.
None of those “exams” were medically necessary, Stockin told a military judge Wednesday.
The anesthesiologist pleaded guilty this week to sexual misconduct involving dozens of soldiers he treated for pain management from 2019 to 2022 at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Lakewood, Pierce County.
Stockin entered guilty pleas for 36 counts — known as “specifications” in military court — of abusive sexual contact and five counts of indecent viewing.
Stockin, an anesthesiologist and pain-management physician, started working at Madigan in 2019. According to the U.S. Army Office of Special Trial Counsel, he would ask male patients to remove their underwear, then touch their genitalia under the guise of medical care. In several cases, he would take them to a separate examination room without any witnesses.
The Army’s investigation into Stockin began in February 2022. After a year-plus investigation, he was charged with 23 counts of abusive sexual contact and indecent viewing. By January 2024, the number had grown to 41 male accusers.
He entered a plea agreement with Army prosecutors in September, according to the office.
He pleaded guilty Tuesday, the day his trial was scheduled to start at the Cascade Courtroom Complex on JBLM. On Wednesday, details of patients’ allegations were outlined in a hearing unique to a court-martial, where a military judge elicits facts from the accused person before accepting the guilty plea.
The touching was intentional, for his own sexual curiosity and arousal, Stockin told Judge Col. Larry Babin on Wednesday.
Some of the former patients heard their own stories in the courtroom Tuesday and Wednesday. The outcome doesn’t take away their pain and shame, but “there will be some semblance of justice,” Ryan Guilds, an attorney representing seven victims, said Tuesday after Stockin’s guilty pleas.
As lawyers, he and his colleagues are proud of their clients, Guilds emphasized Wednesday. It was important for the soldiers to hear Stockin answer specific questions about what he had done, Guilds said, and for them to hear what had happened to other soldiers.
Stockin, who is in his 30s, was previously an Army anesthesiologist at Tripler Army Medical Center in Honolulu and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland. After he started working at Madigan, he was deployed to Iraq from October 2020 to February 2021, according to the Army Office of Special Trial Counsel. He was suspended from patient care when the Army began its investigation in February 2022.
His court-martial is expected to continue this week, with the judge interrogating him on each count. His sentence, if the judge accepts his guilty plea, isn’t clear.
At least 22 people who say they were sexually abused by Stockin have filed Federal Tort Claims Act administrative complaints against the Army and Department of Defense, alleging the U.S. military was liable in failing to protect patients.
Those complaints are in the early stages.
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