Courts and Sexual Assault

Opening statements began in the sexual‑assault trial of Dances With Wolves actor Nathan Chasing Horse, with prosecutors saying he used his reputation as a Lakota medicine man to groom and sexually assault Indigenous girls and women — including a woman who met him at age 6, became a "pipe girl," and was allegedly told at 14 that "the spirits" required her to give up her virginity to save her mother from cancer. Prosecutors detailed repeated assaults, tattoos of spiders purportedly used to silence the victim, and relocation to live with him and his multiple wives in North Las Vegas, while the defense says there will be no DNA or eyewitness evidence and has characterized the accuser as an "angry wife"; a 2023 indictment was thrown out in 2024 over improper grand‑jury instructions but the case was refiled.