‘Dances With Wolves’ actor, accused cult leader Nathan Chasing Horse charged in Nevada sex abuse case has Santa Rosa ties

As an Indigenous spiritual leader awaits trial in a Las Vegas jail on numerous felony counts relating to sexual assault, The Press Democrat has learned that some of the allegations point to Santa Rosa.

Nathan Chasing Horse, a 46-year-old Lakota man who gained fame as a boy with a role in the movie “Dances With Wolves” (his screen credit was under Nathan Lee Chasing His Horse), is under investigation by four separate jurisdictions — U.S. and Canadian federal authorities, the State of Nevada and the Fort Peck (Montana) Tribal Court.

He is charged with 19 felonies in Nevada’s Eighth Judicial District Court in Las Vegas. Five felony counts in Clark County Superior Court were dropped when the state indictment was announced.

The Nevada charges include 16 counts of sexual assault, with 10 involving sexual assault against a child under the age of 16; plus first-degree kidnapping of a minor; open and gross lewdness; and trafficking a controlled substance.

Chasing Horse has pleaded not guilty. He is being represented by the Clark County Public Defender’s Office. His attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.

Details in his Jan. 31 arrest report describe Chasing Horse as a cult leader who traveled around North America for ceremonies over a period of 20 years or more, positioning himself as a traditional healer while preying on young women and girls.

“Nathan Chasing Horse, by portraying himself as a ‘Holy Man’ or ‘Medicine Man,’ has gained the trust of Indigenous families and their children by using Native tradition, spiritual ceremony, and a historical belief system to bring together a sense of cultural identity that has otherwise been diluted by modern America,” the arrest report reads. “Upon earning this trust, Nathan Chasing Horse used his position to lure vulnerable young girls, often giving them a sense of belonging, to commit sexual assault.”

A search of Chasing Horse’s North Las Vegas residence by a SWAT team on Jan. 31 turned up a cellphone memory card that, according to investigators, contained child pornography.

Responding to an online post that suggested at least one of Chasing Horse’s victims lived in Santa Rosa, The Press Democrat requested a copy of the arrest report in February. That version of the report had no references to Sonoma County, and the newspaper was unable to locate sources who would discuss Chasing Horse’s activities here.

More recently, The Press Democrat acquired a different, less heavily redacted version of the arrest report. That one mentions Santa Rosa several times.

The first reference recalls a relationship between Chasing Horse and one of his alleged victims that began in 2003. Because of redactions, her age at the time is unknown, but it’s clear from the report that she was no more than 7 when they met.

This witness told police examiners she was introduced to Chasing Horse after a spider bite had made her sick. He instructed her mother to perform various Native rituals, including the burning of herbs. The bite healed, and the girl’s mother became a devoted follower of Chasing Horse. The former actor later arranged the girl’s coming-of-age ceremony. It took place in Santa Rosa.

The witness said Chasing Horse “adopted me as a granddaughter … in our spiritual way,” and that it was a critical moment in her life because she had never been fully accepted by her blood relatives. He began to shower the girl with gifts and paid her mother’s rent, she said.

In 2012, the girl — still less than 16 years old — visited Chasing Horse at his home in North Las Vegas to present an offering. He led her into the walk-in closet in his bedroom, she said. Inside, he told her “the spirits were upset with her mother for her angry spirit” and that offering her firstborn child was the only way the girl could save her mom’s life. Chasing Horse laid the girl’s dress underneath her — “to keep blood off the carpet” — and proceeded to rape her, she told police.

That night, Chasing Horse informed the girl that she could not return to her mother, she said. She stayed with Chasing Horse and his several “wives” for a week, then was taken on a road trip to help conduct healing ceremonies. Chasing Horse raped her every night on the road, the witness told police. He filmed her having sex with him approximately 20 times, she said.

Less than a year later, Chasing Horse directed the girl to get tattoos — a black spider on her left forearm, a red spider on her right forearm — to “remind her of the spirits’ requirement to save her mother’s life,” according to the arrest report. She got them at a tattoo parlor in Santa Rosa. The name of the parlor was redacted from the report.

Another witness told investigators that she, Chasing Horse, his “wives” — police have identified at least six — and spiritual helpers all lived in a house in Santa Rosa for approximately two years, beginning around 2009. The sexual partners had rooms upstairs, the assistants slept downstairs.

This witness was 17 when she first had sex with Chasing Horse, she said. She, too, reported Chasing Horse instructing her to get the spider tattoos. They would represent Iktomi, the Lakota spider-trickster.

The Santa Rosa Police Department has no record of Chasing Horse in any “significant” arrest reports pertaining to his current indictment, and no other law agencies have contacted SRPD about the case, Sgt. Chris Mahurin said.

While the police investigation that landed Chasing Horse in jail didn’t begin until last October, talk of his predatory behavior has been an open secret in tribal circles for years.

In 2009, an Indigenous blogger posted a video about Chasing Horse on YouTube. The video is no longer accessible, but in a subsequent blog post she replied to viewers’ comments. Many of them, as well as her responses, alleged that Chasing Horse was having sex with girls as young as 15.

“I agree with all of your comments about Nathan, he comes to Santa Rosa, California saying he's A medicine man,” a commenter using the handle MrJineboy wrote. “He even has an alter out there and has a lot of non-natives following him.”

Tribal leaders of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana voted to ban Chasing Horse from the reservation in 2015, accusing him of human trafficking, drug dealing, spiritual abuse and intimidation of tribal members. Still, he remained free for another 7½ years.

The more recent allegations made against Chasing Horse are sweeping and dark.

Federal, state and tribal authorities say he called his group of insiders The Circle. They say he physically and psychologically abused the women and girls he referred to as his wives (one witness claimed he broke her nose and dislocated her shoulder on separate occasions, and refused her medical care), trafficked some of them to other men for sex, kept unsecured guns around the house and directed the “wives” to commit suicide should he die, or if law enforcement ever tried to arrest him.

As Chasing Horse awaits trial, held on $300,000 bail, many within The Circle have rallied around him. They attend his court proceedings, and were videoed singing moving Native songs outside the jail.

You can reach Phil Barber at 707-521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @Skinny_Post.