Nathan Chasing Horse, a Native American former actor who appeared in the Oscar-winning film Dances With Wolves (1990), was sentenced to life in prison on April 27 in the US state of Nevada on charges including the sexual assault of women and girls and the possession of child sexual abuse imagery.
Chasing Horse, 50, was arrested in January 2023 after the police raided his home in Las Vegas.
According to a criminal complaint, officers recovered cellphones at the home that contained child sexual abuse imagery, including video recordings appearing to show Chasing Horse engaging in sexual intercourse with minors.
At his trial in January, three women testified that Chasing Horse had sexually assaulted them. The prosecutors said he had used his position as a respected spiritual leader and medical healer in the Native American community to take advantage of women and girls for nearly two decades.
“This man spun a web of abuse, and these victims were caught in it,” Bianca Pucci, a deputy district attorney in Clark County, Nevada, said at the trial.
Chasing Horse pleaded not guilty to all of the 21 charges against him and maintained his innocence at the sentencing hearing on April 27.
“I did not do these things, and this is a miscarriage of justice,” he said.
A jury in the case had convicted Chasing Horse of 13 of the charges against him, mostly involving a woman who said he first assaulted her in 2012, when she was 14. She said the abuse had continued for years.
Judge Jessica Peterson of Nevada District Court said at the sentencing hearing: “You preyed on these women’s trusts and their spirituality, and you manipulated them for your own personal gratification.”
In Dances With Wolves, Chasing Horse, then 14 years old, portrayed Smiles A Lot, a brave, long-haired ally of Lieutenant John Dunbar, played by American actor-director Kevin Costner.
The epic Western won seven Academy Awards – including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay – and helped start the careers of several Native American performers. Chasing Horse later appeared in the miniseries Into The West (2005) and the HBO film Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee (2007).
He also travelled across the United States and Canada offering services as a medicine man and performing healing ceremonies. Prosecutors in the Canadian province of British Columbia filed a separate sexual assault charge against Chasing Horse in February 2023. That case is pending.
At the hearing, Judge Peterson addressed the victims in the room – some of whom had testified at the sentencing – before reading her sentence.
“The message that I’m going to send today, I hope will bring you peace, I hope will bring you some healing, and I hope will allow you to move forward and move on,” she said. - ©2026 The New York Times Company
