LAS VEGAS — Prosecutors say an alleged cult leader being tried for sexual assault “spun a web of abuse,” but the man’s attorney told a jury on Tuesday that the prosecution has no evidence.

Attorneys gave opening statements in the Las Vegas trial of Nathan Chasing Horse, 49, who is accused of targeting the Native American community and sexually assaulting multiple women.

Authorities say Chasing Horse, a member of the Rosebud Sioux Indian Lakota Tribe who played Smiles a Lot in the 1990 film “Dances with Wolves,” promoted 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.

“From 2003 through 2020, Nathan Chasing Horse spun a web of abuse, caught many girls in that web,” Deputy District Attorney Bianca Pucci told jurors. “And after all of the evidence is presented, that web will be untangled and the evidence will establish the defendant, Nathan Chasing Horse, guilty of all 21 counts” he faces.

Defense attorney Craig Mueller asked the jury for a not guilty verdict.

“There’s quite literally no evidence,” he said.

Pucci said a video in a phone found at Chasing Horse’s house also showed Chasing Horse “having sex with a young girl.”

Prosecutors played the video for the jury and Detective Brandonn Trotter, of the Henderson Police Department, testified over the objection of Mueller that the female in the video appeared to be under 14 years old.

Pucci told jurors that Chasing Horse adopted as his granddaughter one of the alleged victims, who had felt like an outcast because of her mixed Argentinian and Lakota background. He gave her attention and made her feel like she was part of her culture, the prosecutor said.

Then, when the alleged victim was 14, her mother had cancer and Chasing Horse instructed her that the only way to save her mother was to give up her virginity, said Pucci, adding that Chasing Horse sexually assaulted the alleged victim.

The alleged victim’s mother went into remission, solidifying her belief in Chasing Horse, and she eventually became one of Chasing Horse’s multiple wives, according to Pucci and court records.

Mueller described his client as an “honest to God medicine man,” movie star and descendant of Sitting Bull.

He said the alleged victim who became a wife had lived happily with Chasing Horse’s family.

The alleged victim fell out with Chasing Horse and the other wives, Mueller said, and the family stopped paying her bills.

“You’re going to find out that this isn’t some sex cult,” said Mueller. “This isn’t some bizarre pedophile at large, running around. This is an aggrieved wife, one of six, who’s mad at her husband (and) who then files false allegations.”

The alleged victim could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Melissa Webb, a social worker who provides therapy for victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse, told the jury that grooming can involve spiritual abuse, financial control and special attention.

“Sometimes, people think they’re in love with their abuser because to think about the reality of the situation … is really painful,” she said.

Webb told jurors that one of the alleged victims was vulnerable to grooming in part because she was a child when she met Chasing Horse and he held a position of spiritual leadership. She suggested Chasing Horse groomed that alleged victim and another alleged victim.

Under questioning from Mueller, Webb acknowledged she had not met the alleged victims, but relied on documents to form her opinion.

“Grooming is a new idea, is it correct?” he asked her.

Webb replied that it was not new to her, but that it was new in terms of “the history of the world.”

After jurors left, Mueller asked District Judge Jessica Peterson to dismiss the case based on Webb’s grooming testimony. He suggested grooming was a pseudoscientific concept.

“If I ask a woman out on a date, am I grooming her?” he asked. “At a certain point the line needs to be drawn here.”

Chief Deputy District Attorney William Rowles said case law allowed an expert to testify about the effects of grooming on a victim’s behavior.

“This isn’t a situation in which this is the new science or new evidence,” he said.

Mueller disagreed. “This is literally just witchcraft,” he said.

Peterson ruled that Webb’s testimony was proper and refused to dismiss the case.

The Nevada Supreme Court dismissed a previous indictment against Chasing Horse, finding that prosecutors did not present grand jurors with expert testimony about grooming, although a jury instruction described the term.

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