By james art Thursday, October 31, 2024 | 1:39 p.m
A Nevada grand jury has indicted Nathan Chasing Horse again on charges he sexually assaulted Native women and girls, reopening a massive criminal case against the former “Dances with Wolves” actor.
The 21-count indictment unsealed Thursday in Clark County Circuit Court, which includes Las Vegas, expands his previous charges of sexual assault, obscenity and kidnapping to include charges of producing and possessing child sexual abuse material.
It comes after more than a year of delayed legal proceedings that ended last month with the Nevada Supreme Court’s decision to dismiss Chasing Horse’s original 18-count indictment. The court sided with Chasing Horse, saying in its scathing order that prosecutors abused the grand jury process. But the court left open the possibility that the charges could be brought up again.
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson quickly vowed to seek a new charge. Neither Wolfson nor a spokesman for his office immediately responded Thursday to phone or email requests for comment.
Best known for his role as the character Smiles A Lot in the 1990 film Dances with Wolves, Chasing Horse was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, which is home to the Sikangue Sioux, one of the seven tribes of the Lakota Nation.
After starring in the Oscar-winning movie, prosecutors say, Pursuit of the Horse began posing as a self-proclaimed Lakota medicine man as he traveled across North America to perform healing ceremonies.
Prosecutors said his position in the community gave him access to vulnerable women and girls for decades until his arrest last January near Las Vegas. He has been in prison ever since.
Chasing Horse’s arrest reverberated in Indian Country. Law enforcement agencies in the U.S. and Canada quickly followed with new criminal charges, saying his arrest helped confirm longstanding allegations against him, including on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana, where tribal leaders had driven Chasing Horse out in 2015 amid allegations of human trafficking.
Authorities in Alberta, Canada, have acknowledged that their case is largely symbolic. Chasing Horse, who faces decades in prison in Nevada if convicted, may never return to Canada.
“At the end of the day,” Sergeant Nancy Farmer of the Tsuut’ina National Police Service said, “it’s important for us to have these warrants in the system so our victims know they’ve been heard. It is extremely important that we continue to support them in this way.”
In Las Vegas, Chasing Horse pleaded not guilty to the original charges. His new attorney did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment, and his former public defender, Christy Holston, said she had no comment on the new charge.
The latest indictment also accuses Chasing Horse of filming himself having sex with one of his accusers when she was under 14 years old. Prosecutors say the footage, shot in 2010 or 2011, was found on cellphones in a locked safe at the North Las Vegas home Chasing Horse is said to have shared with five wives, including the girl in the videos.
When the Nevada Supreme Court ordered that the original indictment against Chasing Horse be dismissed, the justices said they were not prejudging his guilt or innocence, calling the charges against him serious. But the court said prosecutors improperly provided the grand jury with a haircut without expert testimony and accused them of withholding from the grand jury inconsistent statements made by one of his accusers.
Chasing Horse’s legal troubles unfold at the same time that U.S. lawmakers and prosecutors are directing more resources to cases involving Native women, including human trafficking and murder.