West News Wire: A “Dances With Wolves” actor is facing a growing number of accusations, including decades of alleged trafficking and assaulting Indigenous women and girls in Canada and the United States.
Nathan Chasing Horse was charged with 19 counts by a grand jury in Nevada on Wednesday, adding kidnapping, lewd behavior, and drug trafficking to the original allegations of sexual assault, human trafficking, and child abuse. The most recent prosecution was launched by prosecutors on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana. Chasing Horse, 46, is now accused in four different counties.
Chasing Horse, according to Las Vegas police, was a cult leader who utilized his status as a self-described medicine man to obtain access to Indigenous girls and women, whom he then sexually and physically attacked and married as minors. Prosecutors also accused him of grooming young girls to replace his older wives. His followers in the cult known as The Circle believed he had healing powers and could communicate with higher beings.
Chasing Horse’s public defender, Kristy Holston, told news reporters that she was looking forward to revealing holes in the state’s case during a preliminary hearing that was canceled Wednesday morning ahead of the indictment. She declined to elaborate.
“Since the public is so interested in this case and because only select details of the accusations have been released, we think it would be most appropriate for the State to present their evidence in a public hearing where the defense can reveal the weaknesses of the State’s case on the record in court,” she said in an email.
Holston didn’t immediately respond Wednesday afternoon for comment on the additional charges filed against her client. An arraignment is scheduled March 1 in Clark County District Court.
Chasing Horse has declined multiple requests from the AP for an interview from the Las Vegas jail where he’s being held on a $300,000 bond.
Born on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota, Chasing Horse is widely known for his role as Smiles a Lot in Kevin Costner’s 1990 Oscar-winning film, “Dances With Wolves.” He was arrested Jan. 31 near the North Las Vegas home he shared with his five wives.
Authorities searched the home and found firearms, psilocybin mushrooms, 41 pounds of marijuana and two cellphones containing videos and photos of underage girls being sexually assaulted, according to an arrest report.
The footage of the assaults led to federal child pornography charges in U.S. District Court in Nevada.
