An Indian Health Service pediatrician convicted of molesting children on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation could lose retirement benefits as federal officials weigh revoking the doctor’s honorable discharge.
The U.S. Public Health Commission Corps disclosed on Wednesday that it is launching a board inquiry into Stanley Patrick Weber.
In January, Weber was convicted by a U.S. District Court in Great Falls of aggravated sexual abuse of a child and two counts of attempted aggravated sexual abuse of a child, all felonies. The charges stem from his 1993 to 1995 employment as an IHS pediatrician on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. He faces a trial on separate child sexual abuse charges at Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
Weber was honorably discharged by the IHS and receives more than $100,000 a year in retirement benefits. The honorable discharge has become a sticking point with U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., who earlier wrote Health Secretary Alex Azar asking that Weber’s retirement with honors be changed.
The board inquiry into Weber is the response to that request, according to Brett P. Giroir, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health, who wrote Daines about the inquiry.
“I’m glad to see HHS (Health and Human Services) respond to my demand and take action in finding a way to prevent this convicted child pedophile from receiving a dime of his government pension,” Daines said in a prepared statement. “This disgusting situation should never have happened in the first place.”