One of former child star Nathan Chasing Horse’s alleged sexual assault victims is revealing details and demanding a new indictment after the Nevada Supreme Court dismissed her case.
The 48-year-old Chasing Horse star, who won the Oscar in 1990’s Dances with Wolves, had charges dismissed last week, however the court left open the possibility of refiling them in a case that led to more criminal charges in United States and Canada.
Kristy Holston, the chief deputy public defender representing Chasing Horse, successfully argued that a definition of grooming presented to the grand jury without expert testimony tainted the state’s case.
Ren Leone-LaCroix, who says Chasing Horse began assaulting her when she was just 14, eventually became a “spiritual wife” and became pregnant with his child before leaving, is undeterred and will fight to get a trial.
“It took me a long time to realize the magnitude of what he took from me,” she said. ‘He took my whole life away, everything I knew. And I want that for him.
One of former child star Nathan Chasing Horse’s alleged sexual assault victims is revealing details and demanding a new indictment after the Nevada Supreme Court dismissed her case.
Ren Leone-LaCroix, who says Chasing Horse began assaulting her when she was just 14 years old, eventually became a “spiritual wife” and became pregnant with his child before leaving, is undeterred and will fight to get a trial.
Leone-LaCroix, a Lakota Sioux, first met Chasing Horse after she was adopted and raised in a white home and wanted to access her Native roots.
She met the actor and spiritual leader in December 2005, when Leone-LaCroix was seven years old.
‘I remember thinking she was one of the most beautiful people I had ever seen in my life. “He had a way of swallowing energy wherever he was,” he told ABC News.
Leone-LaCroix and her mother Melissa Leone eventually joined ‘The Circle’, Chasing Horse’s group, which required large cash payments for membership, between $15,000 and $20,000 a year.
“It was like the lights came on in a dark room,” Melissa Leone said. ‘It felt so open. It felt so loving.”
When Leone was diagnosed with cancer in 2012, 14-year-old Leone-LaCroix was called to visit the Chasing Horse home in Las Vegas and taken to a closet for a “healing ceremony” for her mother.
“He said it would cost me my virginity, I had tried to say no at first, and he said if I didn’t, my mother would die and I wouldn’t get help,” Leone-LaCroix said.
Chasing Horse allegedly raped her “shortly after that.”
Leone-LaCroix, a Lakota Sioux, first met Chasing Horse after she was adopted and raised in a white home and wanted to access her Native roots.
“He said it was a sacred promise between him, me and the spirits and that if I told him, my mom would get sick again.”
Chasing Horse’s attorneys claim that Leone-LaCroix consented to having sex with him “transactionally” to help cure Leone and “did not testify that she told Nathan no.”
“It makes me feel like the worst mother on the planet,” said Leone, who eventually recovered but had no idea what she had done to her daughter. ‘As if it were unforgivable. And how he kept it up for so long.
When she turned 16, Leone-LaCroix was asked to become one of Chasing Horse’s “spiritual wives,” of which she would have seven at a time.
“He had told us that it was traditional for holy men to have multiple wives because they, the healers, needed more help than most people,” Leone-LaCroix said. “And that’s why I needed more love and more care.”
She finally told her mother that she wanted to be one of them.
“I considered it an honor. When she told me she loved him, that was enough,” Leone said.
Leone-LaCroix said Chasing Horse often became violent and attempted to confront each of the wives.
Leone-LaCroix and her mother Melissa Leone eventually joined ‘The Circle’, Chasing Horse’s group, which required large cash payments for membership, between $15,000 and $20,000 a year.
Nathan Lee Chasing Horse, 47, was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota.
A male member of the group, Fernando Trujillo, says he never saw any sexual abuse, but said wives were forced to wear bells so they could be heard and men were told they would go blind if they looked at them.
Leone-LaCroix said the abuse became almost ritualistic.
“He had strangled me and hit my head on the floor to the point where I was unconscious for three days. I was never allowed to go to the hospital for any of my injuries. If the bruises started to go away, they always got more,” he said.
She eventually left after discovering that she had become pregnant at the age of 23 in 2021.
“Knowing that I am just as insecure, that I am not loved and that I am just as unprotected,” she said. ‘Why don’t I value myself more? That was intense.’
Proceedings in the 18-count criminal case have been stalled for more than a year while the former ‘Dances with Wolves’ actor contested it.
The seven-member court’s decision, issued Thursday, reverses earlier rulings upholding charges by a three-member panel of the high court and a state judge.
Holston said prosecutors also failed to provide the grand jury with evidence that could have cast doubt on the allegations against Chasing Horse, including what he described as inconsistent statements made by one of the victims.
Chasing Horse is best known for playing Smiles A Lot in the 1990 film ‘Dances with Wolves’.
Nathan Chasing Horse will appear in court on April 3, 2023 in Las Vegas. Now he faces new charges
The high court agreed.
“The combination of these two clear errors undermines our confidence in grand jury procedures and created intolerable harm to the independent function of the grand jury process,” the court said in its scathing order.
The ruling orders the judge overseeing the case in Clark County District Court to dismiss the indictment without prejudice, meaning charges can be refiled against Chasing Horse.
But the dismissal order will not take effect immediately, as prosecutors also have the option of asking the high court to reconsider within 25 days.
“The allegations against Chasing Horse are unquestionably serious and we express no opinion as to Chasing Horse’s guilt or innocence,” the order says.
Holston declined to comment. District Attorney Steve Wolfson, in a statement Thursday, described the court’s decision as “just a minor setback.”
“My office is committed to resurrecting the charges in this case,” Wolfson said, “and we will not rest until we obtain justice on behalf of the victims of this matter.”
Chasing Horse is charged with sexual assault of a minor, kidnapping and child abuse. He has pleaded not guilty.
Kristy Holston, the chief deputy public defender representing Chasing Horse, successfully argued that a definition of harassment presented to the grand jury without expert testimony tainted the state’s case.
Leone feels intense guilt for allowing her daughter to be around Chasing Horse.
The 48-year-old has been in custody since his arrest last January near the North Las Vegas home he was said to have shared with five wives.
He is unlikely to be released, even after the high court’s decision, because he faces charges in at least four other jurisdictions, including the U.S. District Court in Nevada and the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana.
Chasing Horse is best known for playing Smiles A Lot in the 1990 film ‘Dances with Wolves’.
But in the decades since he starred in the Oscar-winning film, authorities said, he has earned a reputation as a self-proclaimed healer among tribes and traveled across North America to perform healing ceremonies.
He is 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.
Authorities have said one of the wives was offered to Chasing Horse as a “gift” when she was 15, while another “became a wife” after turning 16.
Chasing Horse is also accused of recording sexual assaults and arranging sex with victims for other men who allegedly paid him.
Their legal problems have been developing at the same time that lawmakers and prosecutors across the United States are channeling more resources into cases involving Native women, including human trafficking and murders.
Chasing Horse was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, home of the Sicangu Sioux, one of the seven tribes of the Lakota Nation.