An Air Force medical technician convicted of assaulting a patient as she came out of anesthesia at a San Antonio military hospital in June 2013 was sentenced Wednesday to 30 months in prison and a dishonorable discharge.
Hours earlier, a military judge found Airman 1st Class Michael Lightsey guilty of two specifications of causing bodily harm “for the purposes of sexual gratification.”
The judge, Lt. Col. Marvin Tubbs, acquitted Lightsey of inappropriately touching two other Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical center patients that June 2013, said Air Force spokesman Oscar Balladares.
In addition to prison time and a dishonorable discharge, Lightsey was reduced to the rank of airman basic and must forfeit all pay and allowances, Balladares said.
The sentence followed two days of testimony inside a Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland courtroom, where three women testified they were fondled by a hospital worker later identified as Lightsey. The first woman to testify, an Air Force captain, said Monday a worker touched her breasts and sexually assaulted her with his fingers as she came out of anesthesia following an outpatient procedure, according to the San Antonio Express-News. Lightsey was found guilty in that case.
Two other patients testified Tuesday, one of whom said a man reached under her gown and touched her breasts and a third who accused a medical worker of forcing her hand onto the worker’s private parts. Lightsey was acquitted in those cases.
The defense argued that all three women could have hallucinated the events due to the effects of the anesthesia.
Air Force investigators contacted 77 patients who came into contact with Lightsey, according to the Express-News report. Three gave similar stories of being inappropriately touched following their procedures.
Lightsey enlisted in the Air Force in July 2012 and was assigned to the 59th Surgical Operations Squadron, according to his charge sheet.
