A former Washington nurse has been charged with four felony counts of indecent liberties after prosecutors say he kept treating patients for roughly six months after the first one reported him to hospital staff.
Stephen Odingo, 61, of Marysville, worked as a registered nurse at EvergreenHealth Monroe, a hospital in Snohomish County east of Seattle. According to reporting first published by The Daily Herald in Everett, a patient told hospital staff in July 2024 that Odingo had touched her inappropriately during her care. Odingo continued working with direct patient access after that complaint. It wasn’t until January 2025, when two more patients came forward with similar accounts, that EvergreenHealth suspended him and opened an internal investigation.
A chief nursing officer called 911
One of the women who came forward, according to police reports cited by KIRO 7 and MyNorthwest, was recovering from shoulder surgery and unable to bear weight on her own when Odingo allegedly cleaned and touched her genital area without asking her permission. On Jan. 22, 2025, the hospital’s chief nursing officer called 911 to report that Odingo had sexually assaulted a patient. During the investigation that followed, Odingo submitted a letter of resignation.
The case then sat with investigators and prosecutors for more than a year and a half. Snohomish County prosecutors filed the four felony charges in September 2026, and the case was first widely reported starting Sept. 24, 2026. Odingo is scheduled to be arraigned in Snohomish County Superior Court on Oct. 7. He is not currently in custody, and no plea has been entered.
The six months between the first complaint and the suspension is the part of this story that should bother every nurse reading it, not just the allegations themselves. I’ve worked units where a single credible complaint about a coworker’s conduct with a patient triggered an immediate pull from the schedule while HR sorted it out — that’s not optional, it’s how you protect the next patient on the list. If the reporting here is accurate, two more women had contact with Odingo in the months between that first complaint and his suspension. Whatever your facility’s policy says on paper, the test is always what happens the day a patient says someone touched them somewhere they shouldn’t have. If the answer is “he kept his assignment,” the policy failed.
What the hospital is saying
EvergreenHealth confirmed to reporters that Odingo “is no longer employed” and said in a statement that “patient safety and the trust our community places in our care are of the utmost importance.” Asked whether the hospital took any disciplinary action against Odingo after the first 2024 complaint beyond reassigning him away from that specific patient, EvergreenHealth said it could not comment further because of pending litigation — at least one patient has also filed a civil lawsuit over the alleged assaults.
Odingo’s nursing license status with the Washington Department of Health was not addressed in any of the reporting reviewed for this story. A felony conviction, if it comes to that, would typically trigger a separate licensure review independent of the criminal case. For now, the four counts against him are allegations: Odingo has not been convicted of anything, and he is entitled to a presumption of innocence through whatever the Snohomish County court process produces.