Who is Lincoln Erickson? Detroit Ex-Doctor Pleads Guilty to Child Pornography, Sexual Abuse Ring Charges

Lincoln Erickson pleaded guilty to child pornography charges five months after his arrest. The former doctor from Farmington Hills, Michigan was revealed to be part of a larger child sexual abuse network uncovered by the FBI.

Erickson first made headlines after a text message in which he wrote that he loves being a paedo was made public during the investigation.

Cryptic Text Messages Exposed

Erickson worked at Detroit Medical Center's Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan. He sent a message on Telegram saying that he loves other paedophiles and thinks they are attractive.

Erickson's arrest came following a bust operation involving Brett Tooman. Tooman was taken into custody in Ohio after he allegedly travelled to Toledo to sexually abuse a seven-year-old girl and a six-month-old infant he believed existed.

Tooman's arrest exposed a chain of text messages that later led to Jeremy Brian Tacon and Joshua Ronnebaum. The two exchanged texts with Erickson via a Telegram group. In one of their conversations, Erickson told Ronnebaum that he was once intimate with a boy and had fantasies of having a child with another man, claiming the child would be groomed from infancy to adulthood. Tacon and Ronnebaum's cases are ongoing.

'Start em young,' Erickson wrote.

The FBI discovered videos of minors engaged in lewd acts, as well as AI-generated images depicting nude children interacting with adult men on Erickson's phone. Prosecutors also claimed that the former doctor tried to convince a father to allow him to go to their home so he could bathe his young children. According to the Department of Justice, Erickson also confessed to sexually assaulting a three-year-old child belonging to a friend.

'A Pervert Lurking Among Our Trusted Medical Professionals'

US Attorney Jerome F. Gorgon Jr. released a statement at the time of Erickson's arrest. 'This pervert was lurking among our trusted medical professionals. At the same time, he was feeding his disgusting appetites and plotting to abuse little children. Thankfully, the FBI caught him when they did,' he said.

Jennifer Runyan, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI Detroit Field Office, said there are serious consequences for anyone who records, possesses, or distributes child sexual abuse material.

'This defendant, a former doctor, possessed videos of children engaged in sexual activity. We look forward to seeing this predator sentenced. Our FBI Detroit Crimes Against Child Squad, alongside our partner task force officers from the Detroit Police Department, continues to do outstanding work to safeguarding our youth and holding accountable those who seek to harm our most vulnerable citizens in Michigan,' Runyan said.

Who is Lincoln Erickson?

Erickson was a PGY2 Psychiatrist at the Rehabilitation Institute of Michigan. His educational training includes a BS from the University of Michigan- Ann Arbor, which he attained in 2017. He studied for his medical degree at Wayne State University's School of Medicine with a major in Biopsychology Cognition and Neuroscience, which he completed in 2022.

'My undergraduate career introduced me into the medicine of the central nervous system. I attained my curiosity about the CNS, more specifically the white matter, while engaged in neuroscience classes throughout my time in Ann Arbor. In medical school, I found myself staying late after CNS lab dissections to fully understand the groundwork in anatomy and gross simplifications of CNS structure,' he wrote in his personal statement on the ARCM 100th Annual Conference website.

In 2023, he introduced a pilot study on Assessing the Feasibility and Effectiveness of Amniotic Bladder Therapy in Patients With Neurogenic Detrusor Overactivity.

He has been in federal custody since his arrest in December 2025. Sentencing is scheduled for 15 September 2026, after which he will be required to register as a sex offender.