{"id":9349,"date":"2019-10-05T07:30:26","date_gmt":"2019-10-05T12:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/ihs-doctor-found-guilty\/"},"modified":"2019-10-05T07:30:26","modified_gmt":"2019-10-05T12:30:26","slug":"ihs-doctor-found-guilty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitedresourceconnection.org\/cannon-ball-nd-58528\/ihs-doctor-found-guilty\/","title":{"rendered":"IHS doctor found guilty"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"<\/a>RAPID CITY \u2013 A federal trial jury here convicted former Pine Ridge Indian Health Service pediatrician Stanley Patrick Weber on Sept. 27 of all 11 criminal counts charging him with sexually abusing four boys while employed as a physician at Pine Ridge Indian Health Service from 1995 to 2011.
\nProsecuting Assistant U. S. Attorney Sarah Collins told the jury that Weber\u2019s \u201cprolific sexual abuse of young men for 18 years\u201d was due to \u201ca perfect recipe:\u201d
\nHe carefully selected boys facing problems, isolated them alone, knowing they were susceptible to shame and embarrassment, and groomed them to meet his needs, she said.
\nThis was a case of \u201ca doctor versus patients, an adult versus children, the powerful versus the weak,\u201d Collins said in closing statements. \u201cWhen he got to Pine Ridge,\u201d Weber \u201cwas emboldened\u201d by his previous activities in Montana, she said.
\nA separate federal trial jury there convicted him in 2018 of crimes stemming from his engagement in sexual acts with two boys, beginning in 1992 when he was working for Indian Health Service in Browning, on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation.
\nThe Rapid city jurors, a panel of eleven, reached a unanimous verdict of guilty on each count of the 2017-2018 federal indictment within four hours after closing statements ended at 11 a.m. in Chief Judge Jeffrey L. Viken\u2019s South Dakota U.S. District Court.
\nThe verdict followed two days of testimony in which survivors from both the Blackfeet and Lakota nations, now adults, repeatedly broke down on the stand as they responded to attorneys\u2019 questions about what Collins called \u201cthe sex they were subjected to when they were kids.\u201d
\nWitnesses and attorneys painted a picture of Weber as a masochist who preferred sex and violence perpetrated upon him, but who forced himself upon the minors in order to achieve his ends, after luring them with money, alcohol, drugs, and other rewards.
\nDefense attorney Harvey Steinberg noted, however, that each case was different. He claimed that investigators did not exhaust the means of corroboration or conduct the interviews necessary to verify and prove each charge beyond a reasonable doubt.
\nConducting the investigations were the Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services, the Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce, the Rapid City Police Department, the Spearfish Police Department, and Montana authorities.
\nWeber, 70, is in prison serving an 18-year sentence meted out by Montana U.S. District Judge Brian Morris in January for the conviction there. He faces up to a life sentence for the one in South Dakota.
\nSteinberg is appealing the Montana conviction and sentence. He could not be reached before press time regarding whether he will appeal the South Dakota guilty verdict.
\nUnlike the subjects in the Blackfeet case, those in Lakota Territory are qualified to seek monetary reparations from the federal government, because they have the protection of the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty, according to Rapid City Indian law practitioner James D. Leach.
\nIf they press charges within a certain timeframe specific to each one, \u201cAny person, including a child who was abused sexually by Dr. Weber, may have a substantial claim against the federal government for monetary compensation under the 1868 treaty.\u201d Leach told the Native Sun News Today.
\nThe Rapid City barrister established that the \u201cBad Men Among the Whites\u201d clause in the 1868 Ft. Laramie Treaty between the U.S. government and signatories of the Great Sioux Nation makes a tribal member who suffers a crime at the hands of a non-tribal member on an Indian reservation eligible for federal reimbursement.
\nFound in Art. 1 of the treaty, the clause states: \u201cIf bad men among the whites, or among other people subject to the authority of the United States, shall commit any wrong upon the person or property of the Indians, the United States will, upon proof made to the agent and forwarded to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Washington City, proceed at once to cause the offender to be arrested and punished according to the laws of the United States, and also reimburse the injured person for the loss sustained.\u201d
\nThe ruling Leach obtained applies not only to the Ft. Laramie Treaty signatory tribes, but also for others that have \u201cBad Men Among the Whites\u201d language in their treaties: the Navajo, Kiowa, Comanche, Cheyenne, Arapahoe, Ute, Crow, Northern Cheyenne, Northern Arapahoe, Shoshone, Bannock, and Apache.
\nSurvivors of childhood sex-abuse may be leery of seeking treaty-based compensation, Leach admits. \u201cThe biggest impediment is that people just don\u2019t want to talk about it because it\u2019s humiliating,\u201d he says.
\nOn the other hand, he notes, \u201cThe reason that people might want to bring a claim is because if the federal government has to pay money, it will be less likely to send out someone like Dr. Weber in the future.\u201d
\nThe abused party or a parent or guardian can discuss a potential case with the lawyer in absolute confidentiality before deciding whether to proceed with a claim. \u201cUnless they choose to go forward with it, I am bound by law to say nothing to anyone,\u201d Leach asserts.<\/p>\n

(Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@ gmail.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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Visit Original Source<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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RAPID CITY \u2013 A federal trial jury here convicted former Pine Ridge Indian Health Service pediatrician Stanley Patrick Weber on Sept. 27 of all 11 criminal counts charging him with sexually abusing four boys while employed as a physician at Pine Ridge Indian Health Service from 1995 to 2011. Prosecuting <\/p>\n

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