Former Dances with Wolves actor Nathan Chasing Horse is set for trial on several sexual abuse charges.
According to AP News, Chasing Horse has been charged with the sexual abuse of Indigenous women and girls. His trial date at Clark County District Court is January 13 next year.
On Wednesday, the actor pleaded not guilty to “21 felony charges including 10 counts of sexual assault with a minor under 16 years of age, six counts of sexual assault, two counts of possession of visual presentation depicting sexual conduct of a child, and one count each of use of a minor under the age of 14 in producing pornography, open or gross lewdness and first-degree kidnapping of a minor,” per KLAS.
One of his alleged victims, Corena Leone-Lacroix, revealed that she met Chasing Horse as a child, when he was presenting himself as a self-proclaimed Lakota medicine man. He is accused of using this persona to gain the trust of – and then victimize – vulnerable Indigenous women and girls.
In Leone-Lacroix’s case, her mother was diagnosed with cancer and she believed the actor could help to cure her. She said this ultimately led to him sexually assaulting her when she was just 14. “He said that it’s what the spirits had wanted, that that was the price of helping my mom,” she said.
Eventually, she noted that she even moved in with him and became a “wife” to him. The abuse only continued from there, she alleged, adding that when she was 19 Chasing Horse found Leone-Lacroix’s Tinder profile and punished her for it.
“He had said that since I had wanted to be with other men so badly that he could make that happen and that that could be a way I could repay the betrayal that I had done by serving other men and being a vessel by letting men have sex with me,” she said. “He said that the rules were that I was not allowed to see them, so I would be wearing a blindfold. I was not allowed to say anything and I was not allowed to move or touch them in return. I was just supposed to lay there and allow it to happen and that would be a way I could pay back my betrayal.”
This is just one of many reported cases of the actor’s victimization and abuse of Indigenous women and girls. The most recent indictment involves Chasing Horse filming himself having sex with one of his accusers, who was under 14 at the time.
Chasing Horse maintains he is not guilty of any of the alleged crimes.
The post Former ‘Dances with Wolves’ Actor Set for Trial in Sex Abuse Case appeared first on VICE.
The post Former ‘Dances with Wolves’ Actor Set for Trial in Sex Abuse Case appeared first on VICE.
