Nathan Chasing Horse was sentenced to life in prison on Monday in Las Vegas after a Nevada jury convicted him of 13 charges, mostly related to sexual assault. He denied the allegations and told the court, as he was sentenced, that it was a miscarriage of justice.
Judge Jessica Peterson heard victim statements before imposing the sentence. Three women accused Chasing Horse, including one who was 14 when the assaults began in 2012, and accusers and their families told the court they continue to live with trauma tied to his conduct.
Prosecutors said Chasing Horse used his reputation as a Lakota medicine man to prey on Indigenous women and girls. Deputy District Attorney Bianca Pucci said he had spent almost 20 years spinning a web of abuse, a description that matched the pattern described at trial and in the sentencing hearing.
The case reached this point after his first arrest and indictment in 2023, but it did not end at Nevada’s borders. Law enforcement in other states and Canada followed with additional charges after that arrest, including a sexual assault case in British Columbia tied to an alleged offense in September 2018 near Keremeos, British Columbia.
British Columbia prosecutors said he was charged in February 2023, and the case was paused in November 2023 because of the U.S. charges before resuming the following year. A warrant also remains outstanding in Alberta, according to the Tsuut’ina Nation Police Service. Born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, Chasing Horse was once known to moviegoers as the young Sioux tribe member Smiles a Lot in Kevin Costner’s film Dances With Wolves.
The Nevada sentence closes one chapter, but the wider legal response is still moving. Canadian prosecutors say they will decide their next steps after Chasing Horse’s appeals are exhausted, leaving his fight with the justice system far from finished.
