A prominent Woodstock doctor wanted on a Canada-wide warrant for child pornography charges has turned himself in to police.
Police arrested Robert Stern, 58, a longtime physician who is no longer practicing, on charges of distributing, possessing and accessing child pornography, Woodstock police said Monday. He turned himself in Monday morning and is being held in custody pending a bail hearing, police chief Rod Wilkinson said by email.
The charges against Stern were laid after investigators obtained roughly 50 devices during a search of Stern’s home on July 7, Det. const. Mike Haegens previously told The Free Press.
No images of patients had surfaced from the search, he said, adding police were still working through them but had “no reason to believe they are patients of his.”
Stern started practicing as a family doctor in Woodstock in 1991, serving at times as the chair of emergency medicine and family practice at the Woodstock Hospital. He hasn’t had medical privileges there since 2014, hospital officials have said.
Stern had chaired the regional wing of the Ontario Medical Association and was president of Oxford County medical society for more than 20 years, according to a now-deleted biography on a medical education website. His primary location was listed as Tillsonburg Memorial Hospital, but he no longer practices there.
A spokesperson for the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, the regulatory body for doctors in Ontario, has confirmed Stern is no longer practicing medicine.