‘We were property’: Accusers testify in Chasing Horse sexual assault trial

An alleged victim of Nathan Chasing Horse testified Thursday that she had “fallen in love with everything he represented to me before the abuse started.”

“It felt like my brain was trying to rationalize how someone I respected and loved could hurt me that way,” said Corena Leone-LaCroix of the man prosecutors have accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting her.

Although the Las Vegas Review-Journal typically does not identify alleged victims of sexual assault, it is choosing to name Leone-LaCroix and publish her photo because she has previously given interviews to news outlets including the Review-Journal.

Chasing Horse, 49, who played Smiles a Lot in the 1990 film “Dances with Wolves,” is in the midst of a sexual assault trial.

Authorities say Chasing Horse, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Indian Lakota Tribe, presented himself as a “medicine man” and committed crimes in the U.S. and Canada while running a cult called The Circle that had up to 350 followers at its peak.

He was arrested in 2023 after a police raid on the North Las Vegas home where he lived with multiple women he viewed as wives.

Leone-LaCroix’s decision to disclose what happened to police led to the current case, she confirmed under questioning from Chief Deputy District Attorney William Rowles.

She told jurors that Chasing Horse would take her to the Cannery and Sante Fe Station for sex at least weekly.

On one of the first trips to the Cannery hotel-casino, she recalled that Chasing Horse told her to wait in the car while he checked in. The two then walked through a side door, she said.

“He had started like groping me and touching me until we got to the room and then, once we got to the room, the sexual abuse kept happening,” she testified.

She did not want to have sex with him, she said, but was scared to tell him no. When she was 14, Chasing Horse had told her she must give up her virginity to cure her mother’s cancer, she testified Wednesday.

Was seventh wife, alleged victim testifies

She said she was scared that if she refused him, her mother’s health would suffer and she would lose her mind, concerns Chasing Horse reinforced.

Eventually, she decided she wanted to be one of Chasing Horse’s wives and moved in with him when she was 18 or 19 years old, she said.

She became his seventh wife, she testified.

“He called us companions,” she said. “But we were wives. We were property.”

In 2019, she said, she realized “how stuck” she was. She felt depressed and tried to kill herself, she told jurors.

Leone-LaCroix testified that she eventually made a profile on the dating app Tinder. “I just wanted to talk to someone,” she said.

Chasing Horse found out and was upset, she told the jury. “He would always ask me questions about ‘What was it like to be with another man?’ and he would hit me,” she said.

She said he began arranging for her to have sex blindfolded with men.

“I wasn’t to move, I wasn’t to touch, I wasn’t to respond,” she said. “I was just supposed to let whatever happened happen.”

After she left Chasing Horse, her life improved, she testified. She started working and became more social.

“Once I realized that life was mine to choose, it was really beautiful,” she said.

Cross-examination

On cross-examination, defense attorney Craig Mueller suggested she had been motivated by money and “made up the entire story.”

He had argued in his opening statement that she had lived happily with Chasing Horse’s family. But she fell out with Chasing Horse and the other wives and the family stopped paying her bills, he said.

“After (another wife) stopped paying your bills, that’s when you decided that you had been a victim and went to the police department,” he said to Leone-LaCroix.

“Incorrect,” she told him.

Mueller also questioned the evidence to support her allegations.

“There’s no DNA. There’s no physical examination. There’s no independent eyewitnesses,” he said. “There’s quite literally nothing that supports your story.”

“Correct,” Leone-LaCroix replied.

Other accuser

Another alleged victim told the jury that she believed Chasing Horse could speak with spirits.

The Review-Journal is choosing not to name the second alleged victim who testified Thursday because she has not given the news organization permission to do so.

In South Dakota when she was 19 years old, the second alleged victim said, Chasing Horse told her to go to his teepee. Once inside, he told her he would always be there for her as a medicine man, mentor or father figure, she said.

“I begin to break down crying because I didn’t have that relationship with my dad at this time, and seconds later, he says, ‘Or as a partner,’” she testified.

Chasing Horse pulled her down, took off her skirt and underwear and began to touch her, she said.

“He tells me that the spirits told him he had to do this and he took off his pants,” she told the jury, sobbing. “He got on top of me. He held my wrists down. And he laid his whole body weight on top of me, pinned me down and penetrated me.”

She told him no, she said, and he became upset because she was crying.

A month later, she visited Chasing Horse in Las Vegas because she had a positive pregnancy test, she said. He was the only person with whom she had sex, she testified.

She said Chasing Horse touched her breasts and penetrated her again.

She was “screaming inside,” she told the jury.

If you’re thinking about suicide, or are worried about a friend or loved one, help is available 24/7 by calling or texting the Lifeline network at 988. Live chat is available at 988lifeline.org. Additionally, the Crisis Text Line is a free, national service available 24/7. Text HOME to 741741.

Contact Noble Brigham at nbrigham@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BrighamNoble on X.