LAS VEGAS (AP) — Nathan Chasing Horse trained his wives to use firearms and instructed them to “fire” with cops if they ever tried to “break up their family,” according to records from The Associated Press. When that failed, the Dancing With Wolves actor said they should take “suicide pills.”
The abuse, which authorities said spanned two decades, led to Chasing Horse’s arrest Tuesday after a months-long investigation by Las Vegas police. He was taken into custody leaving the home he shares with his five wives in north Las Vegas. SWAT officers were seen outside the two-story home in the evening as detectives searched the property.
During the raid, police found memory cards containing video of the sexual assault, firearms, 41 pounds of marijuana and psilocybin mushrooms in the home, according to an arrest report released Wednesday.
Best known for his role as a smiling young member of the Sioux tribe in the Oscar-winning Kevin Costner film Dances With Wolves, Chasing Horse gained a reputation among tribes in the United States and Canada as a so-called Medicine man performing healing ceremonies. However, police said he abused his position, physically and sexually assaulted Indigenous girls and women, took underage wives and ran a cult.
Chasing Horse, 46, is charged with at least two counts of sex trafficking and one count each of sexually assaulting a child under the age of 16, child abuse or neglect and sexual assault, according to court documents. Authorities have not said when he will be formally charged.
He was checked into the Clark County Jail before midnight, where he was being held without bail on sexual assault charges while awaiting his first court appearance, which is expected in north Las Vegas on Thursday. Chasing Horse’s court records did not list an attorney who could speak on his behalf, and Las Vegas police said he was “unfit” to give a prison interview Wednesday.
According to a 50-page search warrant obtained by the AP, Chasing Horse is believed to be the leader of a cult called The Circle.
At least two women told police Chasing Horse showed his wives a stash of “little white pills,” which he called “suicide pills,” sometime in 2019 or 2020, years before his arrest.
The women were instructed to “take a pill to kill himself if he dies or law enforcement tries to break up their family,” the warrant said.
One of Chasing Horse’s former wives also told police that she believed his current wives would “carry out orders” to take the pills and open fire on law enforcement if officers came to the home to find Chasing Horse to arrest.
Las Vegas police said in the document they have identified at least six sexual assault victims, some as young as 14 when they say they were abused, and the sexual allegations against Chasing Horse in several states, including Nevada , traced back to the early 2000s. where he has lived for about a decade, and South Dakota and Montana.
“Nathan Chasing Horse used spiritual traditions and their belief system as a tool to sexually assault young girls on numerous occasions,” detectives wrote in the warrant, adding that his followers referred to him as a “medicine man” or “holy person” because of their belief he could communicate with higher beings.
One of Chasing Horse’s wives was offered to him as a “gift” when she was 15, police say, while another became a wife after she was 16.
Chasing Horse is also accused of recording sexual assaults and arranging sex with the victims for other men who paid him.
He was arrested on human trafficking allegations nearly a decade after his exile from the Fort Peck Reservation in Poplar, Montana.
Fort Peck tribal leaders had voted 7-0 to ban Chasing Horse from entering the reservation, citing allegations of human trafficking, drug trafficking, spiritual abuse and intimidation of tribal members, Indian County Today reported.
Attorneys general and legislators in the US are considering establishing specialized units to handle cases involving Native American women.
In South Dakota, where police said Chasing Horse committed some of its crimes, the attorney general’s office has put a new focus on crimes against Native Americans, including human trafficking and killings.
Chasing Horse was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, home of the Sicangu Sioux, one of the seven tribes of the Lakota Nation.