‘Dances with Wolves’ actor is again indicted on sexual abuse charges in Nevada

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A grand jury in Nevada has once more indicted Nathan Chasing Horse on fees that he sexually abused Indigenous girls and ladies for many years, reviving a sweeping legal case in opposition to the previous “Dances with Wolves” actor.

The 21-count indictment unsealed Thursday in Clark County District Court docket expands on the 48-year-old’s earlier felony fees of sexual assault, lewdness and kidnapping to additionally embrace fees of manufacturing and possessing little one sexual abuse supplies.

It comes after the Nevada Supreme Court docket in September ordered the dismissal of Chasing Horse’s authentic 18-count indictment, whereas leaving open the chance for fees to be refiled. Proceedings within the case by then had been at a standstill for greater than a yr whereas Chasing Horse challenged it.

The courtroom sided with Chasing Horse, saying in its scathing order that prosecutors had abused the grand jury course of.

Clark County District Lawyer Steve Wolfson shortly vowed to hunt one other indictment. Neither Wolfson nor Chasing Horse’s lawyer, Kristy Holston, instantly responded Thursday to cellphone or emailed requests for remark.

Greatest identified for portraying the character Smiles A Lot within the 1990 film “Dances with Wolves,” Chasing Horse was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, which is dwelling to the Sicangu Sioux, one of many seven tribes of the Lakota nation.

After starring within the Oscar-winning movie, authorities have stated, he propped himself up as a self-proclaimed Lakota drugs man whereas touring round North America to carry out therapeutic ceremonies.

He’s accused of utilizing that place to realize the belief of weak Indigenous girls and ladies, lead a cult and take underage wives. Chasing Horse had pleaded not responsible.

His lawyer had additionally argued that the fees needs to be dismissed as a result of, the previous actor stated, the sexual encounters had been consensual. Authorities say certainly one of his accusers was youthful than 16, the age of consent in Nevada, when the abuse started.

Chasing Horse’s arrest final January reverberated round Indian Nation and helped regulation enforcement within the U.S. and Canada corroborate long-standing allegations in opposition to him, resulting in extra legal fees, together with 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 docket ordered the dismissal of Chasing Horse’s preliminary indictment, the judges stated they weren’t weighing in on his guilt or innocence, calling the allegations in opposition to him severe. However the courtroom stated that prosecutors improperly offered the grand jury with a definition of grooming with out skilled testimony, and faulted them for withholding from the grand jury inconsistent statements made by certainly one of his accusers.

Chasing Horse’s authorized points have been unfolding on the identical time lawmakers and prosecutors across the U.S. are funneling extra sources into circumstances involving Native girls, together with human trafficking and murders.