Inside a $32.5M Child Sex Abuse Case Built on 170-Year-Old Treaty Promises

From 1992 to 2016, Dr. Stanley Patrick Weber worked as a pediatrician for the Indian Health Service on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana and the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. During that period, he sexually abused Native American boys who came to IHS facilities for medical care. Weber was convicted in Montana in 2018 and South Dakota in 2019 and is now serving multiple life sentences.

The civil cases that followed focused not just on Weber’s crimes, but on how the system around him responded after warning signs emerged. “The word ‘betrayal,’” Peter Janci says, “I don’t think is strong enough.” He is referring to evidence that supervisors received complaints, punished staff who raised concerns and transferred Weber to a new reservation without warning, where he continued working for nearly two more decades.

Janci, a trial lawyer in Portland, Oregon, has spent 18 years representing survivors of sexual abuse. In a recent episode of the Make Your Case podcast, he describes how litigation over Weber’s conduct expanded from a single survivor’s call into a broader examination of institutional decision-making. He explains how cases connected to Weber resulted in $32.5 million paid to at least 20 victims, including an $18 million settlement for a group of 12 men represented by his firm, Crew Janci LLP.

You can listen to full podcast here: https://www.cleareyedmedia.com/post/inside-a-32-5m-child-sex-abuse-case-built-on-170-year-old-treaty-promises