NORTH LAS VEGAS (AP) – Former “Dances With Wolves” actor faces no less than five counts He is alleged to have sexually abused Aboriginal girls He is scheduled to face the judge for the first time in the case on Thursday.
Possible charges against Nathan Chasing Horse, 46, include sex trafficking and sexual assault, according to court records. Clark County prosecutors have not said when they will formally charge him or if more charges will be filed.
Las Vegas Police Chasing Horse arrested this week after a month-long investigation into alleged abuses that authorities said spanned two decades.
He was being held in the Clark County Jail without bail on Wednesday night on charges of sexual assault. A judge is expected to consider his custody situation on Thursday and may release him on bail.
Best known for his role as a smiling young Sioux tribe member in Kevin Costner’s Oscar-winning film, Chasing Horse gained fame among tribes across the United States and Canada as a medicine man who performed healing ceremonies.
He is believed to be the leader of a cult known as The Circle with a large number of people who believed he could communicate with higher powers, according to an arrest warrant.
Police said he abused his position, physically and sexually assaulting Aboriginal girls and women, taking underage wives and caste leadership. He was arrested outside the home he lives with his five wives near Las Vegas.
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.
A 50-page search warrant obtained by The Associated Press on Tuesday alleged that Chasing Horse trained his wives in the use of firearms, ordering them to “shoot her” with police officers if they tried to “break up their family members.” If that failed, the wives had to take “suicide pills”.
He was arrested when he left his home in North Las Vegas. The SS officers were seen outside the two-storey house in the evening while investigators were searching the house.
Police found firearms, 41 pounds (18.5 kilograms) of marijuana mushrooms, psilocybin mushrooms and a memory card with multiple videos of sexual assaults, according to an arrest report released Wednesday.
The report said additional charges could be brought in connection with the videos of the underage girls.
There was no attorney listed in court records who could comment on his behalf and Las Vegas police said Chasing Horse was “unable” to be interviewed in jail on Wednesday.
Las Vegas police said in the search warrant that investigators have identified at least six sexual assault victims, including a woman who was 13 when she claimed she was abused. Police also tracked sexual allegations against Chasing Horse in the early 2000s in Canada and in multiple states including South Dakota, Montana and Nevada, where he lived for about ten years.
One of Chasing Horse’s wives gave him a “gift” when she was 15, according to police, while another after she turned 16. for him.
His arrest comes nearly a decade after he was expelled from the Fort Peck reservation in Poplar, Montana, amid allegations of human trafficking.
Tribal leaders in Fort Peck voted 7-0 to ban Chasing Horse in 2015 from applying again to the reservation, citing alleged trafficking, accusations of drug dealing, spiritual abuse and intimidation of tribal members, Indian Country Today reports.
Angeline Chick, an activist and community organizer who has lived on the Fort Peck reservation most of her life, said she vividly remembers the tensions that arose within the council chambers when Chasing Horse was banished.
“Some of Nathan’s supporters told the members that something bad was going to happen to them,” Chick told the AP. “They made threats to our elders sitting in the council chambers.”
Cheek said she remembered Chasing Horse visiting the reserve frequently when she was growing up, especially during her high school years in the early 2000s when she would see him talking with her classmates.
Chick, 34, said she hopes Chasing Horse’s arrest will inspire more Indigenous girls and women to report crimes and prompt lawmakers and elected officials across the United States to prioritize addressing violence against Indigenous people.
But she said she also hopes the medicine men’s cultural significance isn’t lost in crime news.
“There are good medical men and women medicine men among our people who do not try to market the sacred ways of our ancestors,” she said. “They are supposed to heal people, not hurt.”