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Prosecutors say Nathan chased horses to exploit his reputation lakota His defense attorney said in opening statements at his trial on Tuesday that the former actor had been wrongly accused.
Chai Ma, best known for his role as Smiley in the 1990 film Dances with Wolves, has pleaded not guilty to 21 charges, including sexual assault and sexual assault of a minor.
The trial marks the culmination of a year-long prosecution of Chase Horse, a case that has rocked Indian Country since he was first arrested and charged in 2023. Dances with Wolves is one of the most famous movies native american The show premiered in 1990. His trial also comes as authorities have responded more to an epidemic of violence against indigenous women in recent years.
Wearing a blue tie and black suit with his hair slicked back, he sat quietly taking notes while his family sat in the crowded back row. las vegas court.
Chasing Horse was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, home to the Sikangu Sioux, one of the seven Lakota tribes. After starring in the Oscar-winning film, Chasing Horse traveled across North America to perform healing rituals, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said Chai Ma sexually assaulted two victims, who were 14 and 19 years old at the time. In 2012, he allegedly told the 14-year-old girl that the ghost wanted her to give up her virginity to save her mother, who had been diagnosed with cancer. He then sexually assaulted her and told her her mother would die if she told anyone, clark county Deputy District Attorney Bianca Pucci said.
“She wanted to appease the ghost,” she said, referring to the 14-year-old girl. “She wanted to appease the medicine man.”
Craig Mueller, the defense attorney in the horse-chasing case, said prosecutors would not present any evidence of the charges, including no evidence. DNA evidence or eyewitnesses.
Pucci showed photos of Chasing Horse and the 14-year-old girl, who met Chasing Horse when she was 6 and played a revered role as a pipe girl in Lakota ceremonies. Pucci said Chasing Ma symbolically adopted her and she considered him her grandfather.
Chasing Horse, who was 36 at the time, allegedly took the 14-year-old child to different ceremonies, Pucci said. Pucci said he sexually assaulted her multiple times in a hotel room and gave her tattoos of spiders on her arms and hands to remind her not to tell anyone. Chasing Horse also has a spider tattoo on his neck.
Pucci told jurors that chasing the horse got her “caught in his web.”
The 14-year-old girl and her mother moved from California to North Las Vegas to live with Chase Horse and his multiple wives. Pucci said the horse chasers continued to sexually assault her until she and her family found another place to live.
In 2014, when she was 16, she moved back in with him and his wife. Pucci said she changed her last name to his when she was 18 because she believed the Horse Chase organization was doing a good job protecting her mother, whose cancer was in remission.
Mueller likened the woman to an angry wife, saying she made false accusations and lived happily with Chase Horse for five years.
Mueller said prosecutors made Chase look like a monster, but he was actually well-respected. He showed the jury photos, including a family photo with Chase Ma and his wife, as well as a photo of Chase Ma at a ceremony. “Just like any family,” Mueller added.
“This is not some weird pedophile on the loose,” Mueller said.
Pucci said prosecutors will show the jury a video to support their charges.
She said jurors will also hear from another victim who was 19 when Chasing Horse allegedly sexually assaulted her. She has known him through rituals since childhood.
“She felt like he was a protector, a medicine man, part of the Lakota culture,” Pucci said.
The Associated Press generally does not name people who say they were sexually assaulted or abused.