‘Dances with Wolves’ actor faces new sexual assault charges in Nevada

LAS VEGAS – A grand jury in Nevada has re-indicted Nathan Chasing Horse on charges that he sexually abused indigenous women and girls for decades, reviving a sweeping criminal case against the former “Dances with Wolves” actor.

The 21-count indictment unsealed Thursday in Clark County District Court, which includes Las Vegas, again charges the 48-year-old with sexual assault, lewdness and kidnapping. It also adds felony charges for producing and possessing child sexual abuse material.

It comes after the Nevada Supreme Court in September ordered the dismissal of Chasing Horse’s original complaint, while leaving open the option for the charges to be refiled. The court sided with Chasing Horse, saying in its scathing order that prosecutors had abused the grand jury process.

Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson vowed to file new charges soon.

The initial 18-count indictment charged Chasing Horse with more than a dozen crimes. He had pleaded not guilty.

His attorney, Kristy Holston, had also argued that the case should be dismissed because, the former actor said, the sexual encounters were consensual. According to the indictment, one of his accusers was under 16, the age of consent in Nevada, when the abuse began.

Neither Wolfson nor Holston immediately responded to telephone or email requests for comment Thursday.

Chasing Horse, best known for playing the character Smiles A Lot in the 1990 film “Dances with Wolves,” was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, home to the Sicangu Sioux, one of the seven tribes of the Lakota -nation.

After starring in the Oscar-winning film, authorities say, he set himself up as a self-styled Lakota medicine man as he traveled across North America performing healing ceremonies.

He is accused of using that position to gain the trust of vulnerable indigenous women and girls, leading a cult and taking underage wives.

Chasing Horse’s arrest last January reverberated across Indian Country and helped law enforcement in the U.S. and Canada confirm long-standing allegations against him, leading to more criminal charges, including against the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana. Tribal leaders had banished Chasing Horse from the reservation in 2015 amid allegations of human trafficking.

He has been imprisoned in Las Vegas since his arrest.

When the Nevada Supreme Court ordered the dismissal of Chasing Horse’s charges, the justices said they were not considering his guilt or innocence and called the charges against him serious. But the court said prosecutors improperly gave the grand jury a definition of “grooming” without expert testimony, and faulted them for withholding inconsistent statements from one of his accusers from the grand jury.

Chasing Horse’s legal issues are unfolding at the same time as lawmakers and prosecutors in the U.S. are devoting more resources to cases involving indigenous women, including human trafficking and murders.