Former Browning Doctor Sentenced for Sexual Abuse Against Children

A former Indian Health Service pediatrician has been sentenced for sexually abusing Native American children while on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. Weber was sentenced last year to 18 years in prison for similar crimes against boys on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Browning, Montana.

Seventy-one-year-old Stanley Patrick Weber of Spearfish, SD was sentenced Monday in federal court to five consecutive life sentences for five aggravated sexual abuse charges. The U.S. Attorney's Office says Weber was sentenced to 15 years on each of three counts of sexual abuse of a minor. Weber was also ordered to pay $800,000 in fines.

According to the Helena Independent Record, several of Weber's victims testified during the trial, describing the impact of Weber's abuse at a young age. The Independent Record wrote that, before sentencing Weber, Judge Jeffrey Viken stated that "innocence was lost and cannot be returned" to these "vulnerable and totally innocent" victims. The full article published by the Independent Record can be found here.