An army gynecologist made secret intimate videos of a patient under his care Fort Hood in TexasThis is evident from a lawsuit filed on Monday.
The lawsuit says the woman is believed to be one of dozens who were preyed upon by Dr. Blaine McGraw and that Army leadership had allowed him to continue training despite receiving sexual misconduct complaints for years.
“In doing so, the military provided cover for a uniformed predator,” says the lawsuit, which was filed in Bell County District Court.
McGraw has been suspended and is being investigated by the Army Criminal Investigation Division, or CID, according to a statement on the Fort Hood media center website. It said researchers would contact “potentially affected patients.”
At least 25 women were contacted by Army investigators after finding photos and videos on McGraw’s electronic devices showing female body parts, a military official told NBC News. The lawsuit says the allegations against McGraw also include inappropriate touching, rude comments and performing unnecessary procedures.
The woman filed the lawsuit under the name Jane Doe to protect her identity. According to her attorney, she is married to an active-duty soldier who has been in uniform for more than 20 years. Andreas Cobos. He said he represents more than 45 women who have approached him with claims against McGraw.
“Based on information and belief, investigators recovered thousands of photographs and videos from his phone, taken over the course of several years, depicting dozens of female patients, many of whom remain unidentified,” the lawsuit said.
The plaintiff in the case learned about the surreptitiously recorded videos last month when she received a call from Army investigators asking her to come in for an interview, the lawsuit said. They told her that McGraw had secretly filmed several female patients during their appointments, the lawsuit said.
During the subsequent meeting, CID investigators presented her with several frame recordings from videos recovered from McGraw’s phone — images that “unmistakably depicted” her body during an investigation that took place three days earlier, the lawsuit said.
Investigators told her that McGraw “recorded almost her entire final appointment, including both the breast and pelvic exams, without her knowledge or consent,” according to the lawsuit.
When the interview was over, the investigators gave the woman a pamphlet with the phone numbers of various military branches. She left the meeting “disoriented and confused.”
“She sat in her parked car and cried,” the lawsuit says. “Her sense of security was shattered.”
In a statement to NBC News, the woman said she felt “violated, exposed and scared” when she learned she had been filmed without her consent.
“It’s a wound that won’t heal,” she added. “How can someone feel safe again when the very institution that is meant to protect them becomes the source of their trauma?”
Daniel Conway, an attorney for McGraw, said in a statement that the doctor “has fully cooperated with the investigation.”
“We have expressed our concerns to the government that plaintiffs’ attorneys are holding press conferences citing inaccurate information apparently obtained from government sources,” Conway added. “At this time it is best to complete the investigation before commenting.”
The Army referred to the Fort Hood statement posted on its website October 28.
It said the CID launched an investigation “within hours of a patient’s allegations against this former medical provider.” Fort Hood officials are contacting all of the doctor’s patients and giving them the number to a special call center to answer any questions, the statement said.
In a subsequent statement to NBC News after this story was published, Fort Hood said the doctor was suspended on October 17, the same day he learned of a patient’s allegations, and that “leadership met with the patient in person.”
“In addition to Army CID’s criminal investigation, multiple additional investigations are underway to examine all facets of the issue, including systems, clinical processes, policies and other areas,” the statement said. “These investigations are intended to ensure that the strict standards in place are being adhered to.”
Cobos said he also plans to file a federal claim against the military.
“Major Blaine McGraw used his uniform and his position as an Army doctor to prey on the very women who entrusted him with their care,” Cobos said in a statement. “The military received repeated warnings and yet chose to protect its reputation over the safety of its soldiers, their wives and their daughters.”
This is not the first time the military or Fort Hood officials have been accused of ignoring or downplaying reports of sexual harassment or misconduct.
One of the most high-profile recent cases involved an Army specialist based at Fort Hood Vanessa Guillén. After she was killed by a fellow soldier in 2020, an army report discovered that the 20-year-old soldier had been sexually harassed by a supervisor, but unit leadership took no action.
Previous complaints
Before he began practicing at the base in Texas, McGraw treated patients at Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii beginning in 2019, the lawsuit said. One of his female patients filed a complaint there alleging he secretly recorded her pelvic exam on his cell phone, the lawsuit said.
“Rather than investigate him or remove him from patient care, McGraw’s chain of command dismissed the complaint, laughed it off, and allowed him to continue practicing medicine,” the lawsuit said.
It accuses McGraw of robbing his patients in various ways. In one case, McGraw induced the delivery of a pregnant patient “against her wishes,” the lawsuit said. In another instance, he told a patient during an examination that her “vagina looks nice,” touched her genitals for no medical reason and made sexually suggestive comments, the lawsuit said. For example, he called that patient’s clitoris her “happiness spot,” according to the lawsuit.
The allegations represent the “tip of the iceberg in a widening scandal that has left dozens of military wives and daughters violated, voiceless and searching for answers,” the lawsuit said.
Before meeting CID investigators, the military spouse said in her lawsuit, McGraw had been seen about seven to eight times. She went to Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center, where he practiced, for treatment of pelvic pain, hormonal irregularities and concerns about uterine health, the lawsuit said.
After a procedure was performed under anesthesia, McGraw made a comment about seeing all of her tattoos, which were on parts of her body that he had no reason to look at, according to the lawsuit. In another instance, McGraw made an inappropriate comment to her during what was supposed to be a routine breast exam, the lawsuit said:
“Your surgeon did a great job – your breasts look great!” he said, according to the lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, during a separate appointment on Oct. 14, McGraw managed to film the woman’s body parts without her consent.
While in the exam room, McGraw pretended to receive a call from a nurse and then put his phone in his shirt pocket — “camera facing outward and recording,” the lawsuit says.
McGraw performed a pelvic exam and then continued to perform a breast exam even after the woman said she had no such concerns. All the while, McGraw’s camera filmed her body, the lawsuit said.
In her statement to NBC News, the woman said she hopes her lawsuit will bring about meaningful change within the military.
“When I walked into the exam room, I trusted that the military hospital would take care of me, just as it had done so many times before,” she said. “I never thought that trust would be broken in such a profound way.”
“I ask for accountability – not just from the service provider, but also from the military itself,” she added. “We deserve to be seen, to have our voices heard and to be protected. Going forward, I want to see real safeguards in place to ensure this never happens again.”
Laura Strickler contributed.
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