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Achieving fame through his role in Dances With Wolves, actor Nathan Chasing Horse traveled to various indigenous communities in the US and Canada.
He has now been convicted for preying upon women and girls across two decades.
In addition to capitalizing upon his fame, he also used his victims’ faith against them.
The court has sentenced him to life in prison. And prosecutors in other jurisdictions are also pursuing charges.
Convicted and sentenced
In 2023, authorities in Las Vegas first arrested and indicted the actor.
Law enforcement in other states — and in Canada — filed similar charges, which remain pending.
He is charged with a litany of crimes, most of which pertain to sexual assault.
Other jurisdictions may have a bit of a wait on their hands before they get to put Chasing Horse through their own trials.
He has been sentenced to life in prison. The disgraced actor will only be eligible for parole after 37 years behind bars.
Dances With Wolves is a legendary 1990 film that stars Kevin Costner, who also directed the piece after encouraging the writer to adapt it.
Chasing Horse portrayed a young Sioux named Smiles a Lot in the Oscar-wining piece.
After the fact, he traveled to visit various Native Americans across North America, participating in healing ceremonies.
Prosecutors say that he laundered this reputation as a Lakota medicine man in order to prey upon women and girls within these communities.
The jury heard from women who say that they had attended ceremonies or gone to him for help. That, they described, is when he decided to make them into his victims.
He used their faith to keep them quiet for years
Anyone familiar with sexual predators operating within a religious or spiritual role can imagine how this took place.
Prosecutors introduced evidence to the court of one victim who he sexually assaulted, claiming that he would help her mother’s cancer battle.
One victim was first assaulted when she was 14.
The jury in this case heard from three of his victims.
Ultimately, he received some acquittals but convictions on thirteen charges. That was enough, the judge concluded, for a life sentence.
DDA Bianca Pucci told the court that Chasing Horse “spun a web of abuse” to lure victims to him — and to keep them silent.
Even upon his conviction and sentencing, the former actor claims that he is innocent.
Chasing Horse told the judge that his sentence is “a miscarriage of justice.”
He may look forward to other “injustices” in other jurisdictions, in both the US and Canada, in the coming years.
Chasing Horse will be eligible for parole as early as the 2060s. Though further convictions may mean that release from prison merely means a transfer to a new facility.
Nathan Chasing Horse: ‘Dances With Wolves’ Actor Convicted, Sentenced to Life … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.