Nathan Chasing Horse, the actor known for his role in Dances With Wolves, is scheduled to be sentenced next Wednesday after being found guilty of sexually abusing indigenous women and girls, ending a case that deeply affected Native American communities across the country.
The sentencing comes about a month after a Nevada jury found him guilty of 13 of the 21 charges brought against him. Many of the convictions arose from allegations involving a victim who was 14 years old when the abuse began. The jury acquitted him of several other sexual assault charges. Chasing Horse has denied all allegations.
If sentenced to the minimum sentence, he faces at least 25 years behind bars.
After playing Smiles a Lot in Kevin Costner’s Oscar-winning film Dances With Wolves, Chasing Horse, who was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, traveled throughout Indian Country attending meetings and leading healing ceremonies.
Several victims said they participated in those ceremonies or sought medical assistance from him.
The central accuser said she was 14 years old in 2012 when Chasing Horse allegedly claimed spirits demanded she give up her virginity to save her mother, who had cancer. According to Deputy Prosecutor Bianca Pucci, he then attacked her and warned her that if she told anyone, her mother would die. Pucci said the abuse continued for years.
Following the verdict, Mueller requested a new trial. He argued that a witness who testified about the harassment lacked adequate qualifications and that the legal deadline to prosecute the case had passed. The judge rejected that request.
The sentencing marks the end of a years-long prosecution effort, which began in 2023. The initial arrest sparked widespread attention and led authorities in other states and Canada to file additional criminal charges.
Chasing Horse was also charged with sexual assault in February 2023 in connection with an incident that allegedly occurred in September 2018 near Keremeos, British Columbia, a village about four hours east of Vancouver. Proceedings there were suspended in November 2023 while his case in the United States progressed, but resumed the following year.
He has also been banned from the Tsuut’ina Nation in Alberta, where an arrest warrant has been issued against multiple charges of sexual exploitation and assault, according to the Vancouver Island Daily.
Once all appeals in the U.S. case are finalized, British Columbia prosecutors will determine how to proceed, communications lawyer Damienne Darby said in an email to the Associated Press.
In 2015, leaders of the Fort Peck tribe in Montana banned Chasing Horse from holding ceremonies on its reservation following allegations that included human trafficking, drug trafficking, spiritual manipulation and intimidation of tribal members, according to IndiJ Public Media, an Indigenous news outlet.
According to research from the National Institute of Justice, more than four in five American Indian and Alaska Native women have experienced violence, and more than half have been victims of sexual violence.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
