LAS VEGAS – Canadian police confirmed on Tuesday they are pursuing a criminal case against a former Dances With Wolves actor who was arrested last week and charged in Nevada with sexual abuse and trafficking of Indigenous women and girls.
Nathan Chasing Horse, also known as Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse, was taken into custody January 31 near the north Las Vegas home he shares with his five wives. He was charged with eight felonies in Nevada, including sexual assault, sex trafficking and child molestation.
Authorities said the crimes date to the early 2000s and span multiple states, including South Dakota, Montana and Nevada, where Chasing Horse has lived for a decade.
Before his arrest, the 46-year-old was the focus of a month-long Las Vegas police investigation prompted by a tip last October from Canadian law enforcement officials identifying Chasing Horse as a suspect in a 2018 rape in the British Columbia village of Keremeos , near the Washington border.
Sergeant Kris Clark of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police confirmed in an email to The Associated Press on Tuesday that Chasing Horse has been charged with sexual assault in connection with the 2018 crime. He said a warrant for Chasing Horse’s arrest in Canada was issued two days after his arrest in Nevada, but declined to give further details.
California attorney Alexandra Kazarian, hired by Chasing Horse to replace its public defender, did not immediately respond to email and phone requests for comment on the new case in Canada on Tuesday.
Former Chasing Horse public defender Michael Wilfong has not commented on any of the allegations.
As the number of criminal cases against Chasing Horse mounts, his estranged daughter spoke in support of victims on Tuesday.
In a statement, Quannah Chasinghorse, a model who appeared on the covers of Vogue Mexico and Vogue Japan, distanced herself from her father, saying she had minimal contact with him and was raised by her mother and stepfather, who died in 2017 .
“I stand with the victims of Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse,” she said. “I honor the immense courage it takes for survivors to tell their stories, especially publicly.”
Chasing Horse played the role of a member of the Sioux tribe in Kevin Costner’s Oscar-winning 1990 film Smiles a Lot.
Since then, he has built a reputation as a self-proclaimed “medicine man” among tribes in the United States and Canada.
Las Vegas police said Chasing Horse abused that position, describing him in their search warrant as the leader of a cult called The Circle, which took underage women for over two decades.
He was banned from the Fort Peck Reservation in Poplar, Montana, in 2015 following similar allegations.
Chasing Horse is being held without bail in a downtown Las Vegas jail. He is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday when a judge is due to address his detention status after hearing testimony from investigators, victims and loved ones at Chasing Horse.
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