Doctor, scoutmaster was ‘Every parent’s nightmare’ Washington man methodically abused boys for years before one escaped

Craig Morgenstern filled his Spokane-area home with toys, guns and cameras. Then he drugged, molested and photographed boys whose trust he'd won as a Boy Scout leader, Veterans Affairs doctor and youth volunteer. Take a look inside his home. less Craig Morgenstern filled his Spokane-area home with toys, guns and cameras. Then he drugged, molested and photographed boys whose trust he'd won as a Boy Scout leader, Veterans Affairs doctor and youth ... more Photo: Law Enforcement Photos Photo: Law Enforcement Photos Image 1 of / 18 Caption Close Doctor, scoutmaster was ‘Every parent’s nightmare’ 1 / 18 Back to Gallery

For Dr. Craig Morgenstern, it all ended with a call in the night.

The 13-year-old Morgenstern was trying to drug and abuse on camera duped him and fled his home on the shore of the Spokane River. Morgenstern, a Veteran’s Affairs doctor and Eastern Washington Boy Scouts leader, was found out.

He had been abusing children for years before he was exposed in October 2014. The ER doctor had been collecting child pornography years longer, taking about 1 million images from others online while making more than 100,000 of his drugged victims.

“Morgenstern is every parent’s nightmare,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephanie Lister would later say in court papers. “Morgenstern preyed on families by grooming both the parents and children into trusting him so that he could be alone with his victims. …

“The trauma associated with his actions cannot be overstated. The damage caused by (Morgenstern) to the victims, by his sexual exploitation of them and breach of their trust, is immeasurable.”

For at least six years, Morgenstern, 47, methodically abused boys at his half-million dollar riverside home in Nine Mile Falls, a suburb northwest of Spokane. The doctor drugged and molested them while memorializing the abuse in photos and videos.

His arrest days after that middle schooler’s October escape prompted an investigation that saw Morgenstern sentenced to 12 life terms in federal prison.

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Morgenstern put up a good front for years.

To the community, he was an avuncular bachelor and Navy veteran working for the Spokane VA Hospital. He gave back through Boy Scouts and as a tae kwan do instructor. Friends trusted him with their children and welcomed him into their lives.

He kept his home stocked with toys, video games and guns, and like to show them all off to boys he befriended. In court papers, his defense attorney noted that Morgenstern photographed Hoopfest, Spokane’s annual 3-on-3 basketball tournament, and volunteered as a Big Brother.

Morgenstern preyed on children after winning over their parents. He groomed them along with their sons, convincing both that he was trustworthy.

Their confidence gained, Morgenstern created opportunities for abuse. He traveled with the children out of state, invited them over for slumber parties at his home and held himself out as a beloved uncle figure.

In truth, though, Morgenstern is a pedophile who has yet to evidence any remorse.

He downloaded a trove of child pornography without detection. Beginning in 2004, the doctor collected about 1 million images showing the sexual abuse and exploitation of children. He appears to have been poised to continue to grow his collection had it not been for the events that October night.

Prosecutors referred to the boy as “D,” a designator assigned by investigators. They needed a way to distinguish him from the five other boys Morgenstern is known to have molested.

On Oct. 17, 2014, D thought he was in for a sleepover at Morgenstern’s home. He expected videogames and movies. Morgenstern had other ideas.

As he had done to the other children, the doctor planned to knock D out with sedatives and photograph himself molesting the boy.

That night, though, the doped hot cocoa didn’t incapacitate the boy. He was awake as Morgenstern carried him from a guest bedroom into his own room and began to sexually assault him as camera shutters clicked.

Morgenstern retreated into a bathroom when the boy, well aware of the abuse he had already suffered, pretended to wake. The boy grabbed his cell phone and ran, fleeing the house at 2:30 a.m.

D called 911 before arriving at the home of a neighbor, who ushered him inside. Stevens County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived 35 minutes later.

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Later that morning Morgenstern stopped behind a deputy while driving his Porsche through the neighborhood. The doctor asked the deputy if he’d found a sleepwalking boy wandering the area; his would-be victim identified him immediately as his assailant.

In the days that followed, police searched Morgenstern’s home and computers. He was jailed a week after D’s escape. Between the boy’s escape and Morgenstern’s detention, prosecutors say he destroyed or removed camera memory cards, electronics and his sheets. Weeks after Morgenstern’s arrest, Spokane residents were discovering electronics ditched on their properties by Morgenstern.

Court records indicate Morgenstern denied any wrongdoing and claimed he invited the boy into his room to keep him warm. A drug test showed D had been sedated.

He was ultimately undone in part by the hundreds of photographs he had taken of himself abusing the boys. The photos also helped prove Morgenstern abused children in Tennessee and Mississippi, and at a waterpark near Hayden Lake, Idaho.

“Morgenstern is a longtime sexual predator of children and should spend the rest of his life in prison,” said Lister, who prosecuted Morgenstern alongside Assistant U.S. Attorney James Goeke.

“The children that Morgenstern sexually exploited will never be able to forget their abuse and will likely suffer related trauma for the rest of their lives,” the prosecutor continued. “Morgenstern deserves to suffer for the rest of his life as well.”

The boys and their families were equally clear about what future Morgenstern had earned.

“For all the Craig has done, for all that he has broken, he should rot in jail until his dying breath,” one boy said in a letter to the court.

Morgenstern abused boys as young as 7 and as old as 16. Unwilling to admit his crimes, Morgenstern forced a final indignity on the boys and their families as they were called to testify against him.

Defense attorney Bryan Whitaker noted that there was no evidence presented that Morgenstern shared the abusive images he made. Whitaker had asked that his client receive the minimum sentence available – 30 years in prison – while noting that Morgenstern would be an untrusted, unemployable pariah if he lived to be released.

The jury convicted Morgenstern on 33 counts, including aggravated sexual abuse of a child and production of child pornography. He was sentenced in July by U.S. District Judge Fremming Nielsen, who presided over the trial.

Even in the federal justice system, built for the nation’s worst, Morgenstern’s crimes were literally off the charts. Sentencing guidelines called for the stiffest prison term available, which Nielsen delivered.

Morgenstern has filed notice that he will appeal his convictions and sentence. In addition to the prison time, he was ordered to pay $8,144 in restitution to his victims.

Seattlepi.com reporter Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 or levipulkkinen@seattlepi.com. Follow Levi on Twitter at twitter.com/levipulk.