Less than a year after a charge of sexual assault was sworn in a Penticton courtroom against Nathan Chasing Horse, the B.C. Prosecution Service stayed the case.
The information came to light just over a week after the United States dropped federal charges against the former "Dances With Wolves" actor.
Damienne Darby, communications counsel for the B.C. Prosecution Service stated in an email that the B.C. charge had been stayed due to Chasing Horse’s legal proceedings in the United States.
“Should the circumstances change, we will examine the feasibility of reinstating this prosecution,” said Darby.
The B.C. charge was related to an incident that allegedly occurred in Keremeos in 2018.
Charges remain outstanding against Chasing Horse in Las Vegas and the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana.
Best known for portraying the character Smiles A Lot in the 1990 film “Dances with Wolves,” Chasing Horse was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, which is home to the Sicangu Sioux, one of the seven tribes of the Lakota nation.
In the decades since starring in the Oscar-winning movie, authorities say he built a reputation as a self-proclaimed medicine man among tribes and travelled around North America to perform healing ceremonies.
He’s 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.
The most recent state charges in Las Vegas against Chasing Horse allege he filmed himself having sex with one of his accusers when she was younger than 14. He is being held in the custody of Las Vegas police on $200,000 bail.
In at least one video, the girl was “fully passed out,” prosecutor William Rowles said in court.
In Alberta in 2023, he was charged with sexual exploitation, sexual assault and removing a child from Canada under the age of 16. It is currently unclear whether those charges remain active.
The Tsuut’ina Nation Police Service stated in June of 2023 that warrants had been issued for Chasing Horse's arrest to face those charges.
Chasing Horse has been jailed in Las Vegas since his arrest last January. But the case had been at a standstill for more than a year while he challenged it.
With files from the Canadian Press.
