Actor Nathan Chasing Horse charged with sexual abuse of women and girls

A grand jury in Nevada has again 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 of producing and possessing child sexual abuse materials.

It comes after the Nevada Supreme Court in September ordered the dismissal of Chasing Horse’s original indictment, while leaving open the possibility for 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 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 Mr Wolfson nor Ms Holston immediately responded Thursday to 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 travelling 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.

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.

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 evidence, 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 politicians and prosecutors around the US are funnelling more resources into cases involving Native women, including human trafficking and murders.