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Dancing with Wolves actor Nathan Chasing Horse has once again been indicted by a Nevada grand jury on charges that he sexually abused Indigenous women and girls for decades.
In a new 21-count indictment unsealed on Thursday (October 31) in Virginia’s Clark County District Court, which includes Las Vegas, the 48-year-old Native American actor has once again been charged with sexual assault, lewdness and kidnapping. It also adds felony charges of producing and possessing child sexual abuse materials.
The new charges come after the Nevada Supreme Court in September ruled for the dismissal of Chasing Horse’s original indictment, though it left open the possibility for charges to be refiled. The court had originally sided with Chasing Horse, saying that prosecutors had abused the grand jury process.
Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson quickly vowed to seek another indictment.
The initial 18-count indictment charged Chasing Horse with more than a dozen felonies. He had pleaded not guilty.
His lawyer, Kristy Holston, had also argued that the case should be dismissed because, the former actor said, the sexual encounters were consensual. One of his accusers was younger than 16, the age of consent in Nevada, when the abuse began, according to the indictment.
Neither Wolfson nor Holston immediately responded to the Associated Press’s phone or emailed requests for comment.
Best known for portraying the character Smiles A Lot in the 1990 movie Dances with Wolves, Chasing Horse was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, which is home to the Sicangu Sioux, one of the seven tribes of the Lakota nation.
After starring in the Oscar-winning film, authorities have said, he propped himself up as a self-proclaimed Lakota medicine man while traveling around North America to perform healing ceremonies.
He is accused of using that position to gain the trust of vulnerable Indigenous women and girls, lead a cult and take underage wives.
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Chasing Horse’s arrest last January reverberated around Indian Country and helped law enforcement in the US and Canada corroborate long-standing allegations against him, leading to more criminal charges, including on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana. Tribal leaders had banished Chasing Horse in 2015 from the reservation amid allegations of human trafficking.
His arrest was the culmination of a months-long investigation that began after police received a tip in October 2022. According to a 50-page search warrant obtained by Associated Press, Chasing Horse is believed to be the leader of a cult known as The Circle.
He has remained jailed in Las Vegas since his arrest.
When the Nevada Supreme Court ordered the dismissal of Chasing Horse’s indictment, the judges said they were not weighing in on his guilt or innocence, calling the allegations against him serious. But the court said that prosecutors improperly provided the grand jury with a definition of grooming without expert testimony, and faulted them for withholding from the grand jury inconsistent statements made by one of his accusers.
Chasing Horse’s legal issues have been unfolding at the same time lawmakers and prosecutors around the US are funneling more resources into cases involving Native women, including human trafficking and murders.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press.
