Actor Nathan Chasing Horse accused
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Actor Nathan Chasing Horse is charged with sexual assault of underage Native girls, sex trafficking and spiritual abuse, according to new documents released Wednesday.
Las Vegas Metro Police arrested Chasing Horse in North Las Vegas on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, Canadian authorities announced they were also investigating the ‘Dances With Wolves’ actor.
Chasing Horse, 46, had multiple victims, three of whom were allegedly sexually assaulted in Clark County, documents show.
“This is a very serious situation as events and information begin to spread,” said Sgt. Nancy Farmer of the Tsuut’Ina Nation Police Department at a press conference in Canada on Wednesday. “It’s tragic.”
He presented himself as a ‘holy man’ or ‘healer’ to gain the trust of Indigenous families and children, using that trust to give young girls a sense of belonging before assaulting them, detectives wrote in documents.
Detectives noted that Chasing Horse was considered a “holy man”, “leader” and “leader” within the group, but the title was never given to him by the Lakota tribal government.
Chasing Horse’s victim group was called “The Circle”. Some members of the indigenous community accused them of being a cult.
“Much of this stems from Nathan’s practice of acquiring multiple wives, many of whom investigators believe were forced to have sex with Nathan when they were minors,” the detectives wrote in the documents.
A victim has come forward to report that Chasing Horse sexually assaulted her in September 2018 in British Columbia.
The victim said he was told to contact Chasing Horse for medical assistance for a family member and that Chasing Horse healed the family member’s injury. After that, the victim joined “The Circle,” according to documents.
Chasing Horse allegedly told the victim that they were meant to meet and that she was “different and special”. Shortly after, he adopted the victim as his granddaughter in a “spiritual” way in a ceremony, according to documents.
Chasing Horse traveled the United States and Canada for spiritual ceremonies in Native American communities, documents show.
Chasing Horse showered the victim with “lavish” gifts and paid for some of his expenses, and the victim considered them very close. During that time, she had met three of Chasing Horse’s wives and was instructed to call them “grandmother”, according to documents.
The victim detailed a time Chasing Horse’s fourth wife, who was 15 at the time, was presented to him in an offering ceremony, documents show.
Chasing Horse, which allegedly has up to six wives, allegedly severely physically and sexually abused them, with one woman claiming he raped her when she was 9, documents show.
Chasing Horse moved to North Las Vegas in 2012 and told the victim to come see him. The victim was instructed to bring cash and gifts and cook for him when he arrived, documents show.
Once home, the victim was instructed to take the food up to a room, where he told her she was “going to do a favor” and that she “should offer her body to the spirits”, so that he could helping one of his family members with an illness, according to documents.
“He told me my body wasn’t mine anymore…he said I had to say ‘yes’ or my [family member] was going to die,” the victim told police, according to documents. “He told me that my virginity was the last pure part of me and that it had to be given away.”
Chasing Horse then allegedly raped the victim and gave her an emergency contraceptive pill. She was 14 at the time, according to documents.
He allegedly continued to rape the victim multiple times for about one to three months and documented the assaults multiple times, documents show.
The victim became one of Chasing Horse’s wives after he turned 16 and moved in with him and his other wives. Detectives noted that there was no documentation of the marriage and that Chasing Horse did not want any documentation, according to the documents.
Years later, when the victim said she wanted to leave Chasing Horse, he allegedly physically assaulted her and forced her into sex trafficking.
Chasing Horse forced the victim to engage in sex acts with other men for several months, documents show. He also allegedly forced several of his other wives to engage in sex trafficking.
Additionally, Chasing Horse gave his wives narcotics in varying doses and gave them “suicide pills” to take in case he died or law enforcement attempted to separate them. He also showed wives how to shoot guns so they could “shoot” with the police if they had to, according to documents.
Chasing Horse is also accused of having several unsecured firearms and ammunition in his north Las Vegas home, where there were often children between the ages of 2 and 12, documents show.
One victim described seeing Chasing Horse befriending mothers who had young daughters and bringing young girls to his home, documents show.
In 2015, a Chasing Horse victim came to police to report that he had sexually assaulted her in 2014. The case was dismissed without detectives ever speaking to Chasing Horse. A detective explained in the report: “Because during the sexual incident [the victim] didn’t say no, push back, shout or run away, I found that I didn’t believe he could be sued in court.
The victim in that case told detectives investigating Chasing Horse Now that she considers him a father figure and attended ceremonies with him before he began physically abusing and raping her.
At one point, a member of the group told the victim she should be “grateful” to have been assaulted by Chasing Horse, documents show.
Investigators have learned that Chasing Horse was banned from the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana for human trafficking, spiritual abuse and intimidation of tribal members, according to documents.
In this case, detectives discovered that Chasing Horse had been accused of sexually assaulting two other children in 2005 in the area. He told investigators “we’ll see” if he was willing to take a polygraph test before refusing to speak to law enforcement. No charges have been brought against him, according to documents.
On January 23, North Las Vegas police were notified of a victim who said she was sex trafficked while living with Chasing Horse as her wife in Clark County.
The victim also claimed he physically assaulted her to make her comply with his demands or when he got angry, noting once he broke his ribs after punching her under the hood. armpit because he didn’t like his mood, according to documents.
On Tuesday, Jan. 31, detectives served a search warrant at Chasing Horse’s home in North Las Vegas, where they found several electronic devices containing child pornography, several firearms and an “undetermined amount” of narcotics, including marijuana and mushrooms, according to documents.
Chasing Horse declined to speak to detectives after his arrest. The Tsuut’Ina Nation Police Service said it was working with law enforcement partners in Alberta and Calgary, as well as investigators in Las Vegas.
“We encourage anyone who has been the victim of a sexual assault to report it to their local police department and would like to remind everyone that there is no statute of limitations for reporting a sexual assault in Canada,” said said the Calgary Police Service. in a statement Wednesday.
He was being held Wednesday at the Clark County Detention Center on $20,000 bail. He was due to make a first court appearance Thursday at 8 a.m.
Police believe other Chasing Horse victims will come forward because of these initial charges.
Resources for people experiencing physical or verbal abuse or domestic violence can be found through this link. Resources for survivors of sexual assault or abuse can be found at this link.
