Navy Medical Officer Sentenced for Sex Crimes
Michael Allen Widdroff, Former Navy Psychologist, Sentenced (courtesy Tidewater Regional Jail)
Michael Andrew Widroff, 34, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Eastern Virginia on May 24, almost exactly a year after his posts on the Whisper social media platform were flagged by investigators, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney. He was charged with attempted coercion and enticement of a minor.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) set up a sting operation, allowing Widroff to chat with an undercover investigator portraying themselves as a 14-year-old girl. Widroff arranged to meet at the “girl’s” house.
Widroff’s messages included graphic details about sexual acts he wanted to do with the minor. On June 7, 2023, Widroff was pulled over at a traffic stop in the neighborhood where he had intended to meet the young girl for sex. Widroff deleted his Snapchat texts from his phone as he was being pulled over.
Widroff pled guilty on Oct. 12, 2023, according to a previous press release from the U.S. Attorney.
The case is part of DOJ’s “Project Safe Childhood,” a campaign launched in May 2006 to address the national epidemic of child sexual abuse
The Widroff case is just one of several high-profile cases involving military medical personnel misusing their position of authority and responsibility to sexually abuse their patients.
Others include Army Maj. Michael Stockin, charged with 52 offenses involving 41 patients he allegedly abused as an anesthesiologist at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Seattle over the past several years, according to a charge sheet obtained by the Army Times. He is set for court-martial in January 2025 and has pled not guilty to all charges.
If Stockin were convicted and sentenced to consecutive maximum terms on all charges, it would total 336 years in prison.
While a Google search for articles on this topic yields a disturbing number of articles, the Department of Defense (DoD) says the incidence of sexual assault in the military dropped for the first time in almost a decade in 2023.
The rate of unwanted sexual content on active duty women was 6.8 percent in 2023 (about 15,000 incidents), compared to 8.4 percent in 2021. The rate of unwanted sexual contact on active duty men was 1.3 percent in 2023 (approximately 14,000 incidents), down from 1.5 percent in 2021. These statistics indicate 7,000 fewer claims of sexual assault in 2023 than occurred in 2021, a decline from 36,000 to 29,000.
Beth Foster, executive director of the Office of Force Resiliency for the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, said Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III has focused on preventing sexual assault “and that work is starting to bend the curve,” in a media roundtable discussing the Annual Report of Sexual Assault in the Military.
Austin pointed out that U.S. service members are owed the highest level of protection and support from those they entrust with their and their families’ health, as well as their senior officers and comrades in arms. Austin told the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other military officials the DoD is “making significant progress, but we must double down on our efforts to end sexual assault and sexual harassment,” according to a DoD press release.
“The only acceptable number of instances of sexual assault or sexual harassment in the U.S. military is zero,” Austin said. “We owe it to all our service members to get this right.”
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