New charges filed against Chasing Horse just as sprawling sex abuse indictment was dismissed

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Louise Thomas

Editor

Prosecutors in Las Vegas have filed a new case against Nathan Chasing Horse that accuses the former “Dances With Wolves” actor of possessing and producing explicit videos of a minor.

The charges were filed late Friday, the same day authorities finalized the dismissal of Chasing Horse 's sweeping sex abuse indictment in Clark County District Court under an order from the Nevada Supreme Court that leaves open the possibility of charges being refiled.

District Attorney Steve Wolfson has said his office intends to refile the charges, which included sexual assault of a minor, kidnapping and child abuse.

In the new case, Chasing Horse faces one felony count each of possessing and producing child sexual abuse materials. He is being held on $200,000 bail.

Prosecutors said Monday in court that Chasing Horse, 48, recorded videos of himself having sex with one of his accusers when she was younger than 14. In at least one video, the girl was “fully passed out," prosecutor William Rowles said.

When Rowles described the videos, Chasing Horse closed his eyes and shook his head.

Rowles said the footage, taken in 2010 or 2011, were found on cellphones in a locked safe inside the North Las Vegas home that Chasing Horse is said to have shared with five wives, including the girl in the videos.

His defense attorney, Kristy Holston, declined to comment after court Monday. Rowles also said he had no comment.

The dismissal of his 18-count indictment was ordered in late September by the Nevada Supreme Court, after Holston successfully argued that a definition of grooming — presented to the grand jury without expert testimony — had tainted the state's case, and that prosecutors should have shared with the grand jury inconsistent statements made by one of the victims.

The indictment was dismissed without prejudice, meaning prosecutors can refile the charges. Prosecutors haven't said when they plan to present their case to a new grand jury.

Chasing Horse has been jailed in Las Vegas since his arrest last January. But the case, which sent shockwaves throughout Indian Country and led to more criminal charges in the U.S. and Canada, had been at a standstill for more than a year while he challenged it.

Best known for portraying the character Smiles A Lot in the 1990 film “Dances with Wolves," the former actor was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, which is home to the Sicangu Sioux, one of the seven tribes of the Lakota nation.

In the decades since starring in the Oscar-winning movie, authorities say he built a reputation as a self-proclaimed medicine man among tribes and traveled around North America to perform healing ceremonies.

He's accused of using that position to gain access to vulnerable girls and women starting in the early 2000s, leading a cult and taking underage wives.