A Pedophile On the Reservation

[Valin]

Power Line

John Hinderaker

February 9, 2019

The Wall Street Journal reports the appalling story of Dr. Pat Weber, a pediatrician who apparently preyed on young Indian boys for decades without being held accountable. The story caught my attention because it featured, in a positive role, one of my closest boyhood friends:

Quote

At first, officials at the U.S. Indian Health Service overlooked the peculiarities of their unmarried new doctor, including the children’s toys he hoarded in his basement on the reservation. They desperately needed a pediatrician at their hospital in Browning, Mont.

By 1995, after three years, they became convinced Stanley Patrick Weber was a pedophile and pushed for his removal from the government-run hospital.

“You’re going to have to leave,” Randy Rottenbiller, its clinical director at the time, recalled telling the doctor after learning a child patient had stayed the night in his house.

But the Indian Health Service didn’t fire Mr. Weber. Instead, it transferred him to another hospital in Pine Ridge, S.D. He continued treating Native American children there for another 21 years, leaving behind a trail of sexual-assault allegations.

The villains of the story are Dr. Weber, of course, and the Indian Health Service. My old friend, Dr. Mark Butterbrodt, was a fellow pediatrician on the Pine Ridge reservation and tried repeatedly to turn Weber in:

(Snip)

You would think this sort of revelation from a colleague would be the end of Dr. Weber’s association with the Indian Health Service. But no:

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After a clash with Mr. Weber, Dr. Butterbrodt was pulled into a supervisor’s office and, within weeks, transferred to a remote facility in North Dakota and stripped of bonus pay, which amounted to around one-third of his annual salary, according to personnel records and Dr. Butterbrodt.

“I was chased off by a pedophile and the people who chose him over me,” said Dr. Butterbrodt, who retired soon after.

(Snip)

Frontline will air a documentary on this investigation on PBS on Tuesday. This is a trailer for the documentary, in which Mark appears briefly: