Nevada
Chasing Horse’s sex abuse trial on hold indefinitely
LAS VEGAS (AP) — The sexual abuse trial of a “Dances With Wolves” actor charged in Nevada with abusing Indigenous women and girls for more than a decade is on hold indefinitely, a state judge announced Wednesday.
Nathan Chasing Horse, 46, was originally set to stand trial May 1. He is charged with 18 felonies, including sexual assault of a minor, kidnapping, lewdness and child abuse.
Shortly after a grand jury in Las Vegas indicted him in February, Chasing Horse invoked his right to a trial within 60 days. But on Wednesday, his public defender, Kristy Holston, asked to put a pause on proceedings while they ask the Nevada Supreme Court to toss
his indictment.
Clark County District Judge Carli Kierny said she would set a new trial date if the high court upholds her recent decision denying Chasing Horse’s request to dismiss the case. Chasing Horse and his attorneys argued that two women identified as his victims wanted to have sex with him.
Kierny, in her ruling issued Friday, said state prosecutors presented enough evidence for “a reasonable grand juror to conclude that the sexual assaults occurred.” While Kierny upheld the sexual abuse charges, she dismissed a drug trafficking charge, saying that there was no substantive testimony tying Chasing Horse to the psilocybin mushrooms investigators found while searching his home.
Holston and lead prosecutor Stacy Kollins declined to comment further after the hearing.
Kierny set a new hearing for May 10 to check on the status of Chasing Horse’s appeal to the high court, which had yet to be filed on Wednesday.
Chasing Horse was born on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota and is widely known for his portrayal of Smiles a Lot in Kevin Costner’s 1990 film.
But police and prosecutors have said that in the decades since appearing in the Oscar-winning movie, Chasing Horse marketed himself to tribes nationwide as a medicine man with healing powers who could communicate with higher beings. They accuse him of using his position to lead a cult, gain access to vulnerable girls and women, and take underage wives starting in the early 2000s.
Chasing Horse’s indictment in state court stems from allegations made by two women — including one who says she was 14 when the sexual abuse began — but court records show authorities have identified at least four other victims in the U.S and in Canada.
The former actor’s arrest on Jan. 31 in Nevada sent shockwaves throughout Indian Country and led to more criminal charges in other jurisdictions, including in Canada and the U.S. District Court in Nevada, as well as on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana.
Chasing Horse is being held on $300,000 bail at a county jail in Las Vegas. If he posts bail, he likely would be turned over to federal authorities in Nevada.
Missouri
Man gets life in prison for killing 2 women, boy
ST. CHARLES, Mo. (AP) — An eastern Missouri man has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for the stabbing deaths of two women and a 7-year-old boy nine years ago.
Prosecutors in Warren County sought the death penalty for Shawn Kavanagh, 32, but Judge Rebeca Navarro-McKelvey on Tuesday sentenced him to four consecutive life terms. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the sentence prompted sobs in the courtroom that was filled with family and friends from both sides.
Navarro-McKelvey said Kavanagh’s decision to call 911, his confession and evidence of mental disorders led her to the lesser sentence.
“Today I’m going to give you what you don’t deserve,” she told Kavanagh. “I’m going to give you mercy.”
Kavanagh and his then-wife, Jessica Powell, had planned to be together for Valentine’s Day in 2014, but she backed out. Kavanagh tracked her down at the trailer home of Powell’s friend. He stabbed Powell, 22-year-old Tara Lynn Fifer and 29-year-old Lexy Vandiver, along with Vandiver’s 7-year-old son, Mason, and her 18-month-old daughter.
Powell and Vandiver’s daughter survived.
Maryland
Sheriff charged in illegal gun rental scheme
FREDERICK, Md. (AP) — A Maryland sheriff repeatedly lied to federal authorities to help a local firearms dealer illegally obtain machine guns and rent them out to his customers, forming a partnership that was profitable and politically beneficial, according to a federal grand jury indictment filed last week.
Frederick County Sheriff Charles “Chuck” Jenkins pleaded not guilty Wednesday to several charges, including conspiracy and making false statements to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
After initially pledging to remain in office while the case proceeds, Jenkins said Wednesday he is taking a leave of absence.
“I have full confidence in the system, and I know that my innocence will prevail at the end of all of this,” Jenkins said in a statement
released by the agency.
He was released pending trial on several conditions, including that he refrains from possessing a firearm or other dangerous weapons.
Federal law generally prohibits firearm dealers from importing machine guns unless they are being used as demonstration models for law enforcement agencies, which can legally purchase such weapons. But in order for dealers to use that exemption, the interested law enforcement agency must submit a letter to ATF requesting a sample of the machine gun they are considering purchasing.
According to the indictment, Jenkins wrote such letters on behalf of his co-defendant, Robert Krop, whose Frederick County business The Machine Gun Nest offered machine guns for rent. The business made over $100,000 in profits from the rentals in 2018 and 2019 alone, the indictment says.
Krop offered Jenkins political support in exchange for the favor, according to federal prosecutors.
In several letters dating back to 2015, Jenkins falsely claimed the Frederick County Sheriff’s Office wanted samples of various machine gun models, according to the indictment. The requests were approved, allowing Krop’s business to obtain the weapons.
In a 2018 letter, Jenkins requested machine gun models that are “suitable only for use in combat,” not for law enforcement purposes, the indictment says.
Jenkins was first elected sheriff of the largely rural county in 2006. He started his career with the agency in 1990.
Kansas
Man’s lawsuit says he was chased, tased for speeding
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — An 80-year-old Kansas man was pursued by police and tased by a deputy — all for driving 3 mph (5 kph) over the speed limit, a federal lawsuit claims.
John J. Sigg sued Monday, naming Allen County Sheriff Bryan J. Murphy and former Deputy Joseph Stotler. Sigg’s lawsuit seeks $250,000 in actual damages and an equal amount in punitive damages.
Murphy and Stotler do not yet have attorneys. An email message left Wednesday with the sheriff wasn’t immediately returned. No phone listing for Stotler could be found and it wasn’t immediately clear when, or why, he left the department.
On April 16, 2021, Sigg was clocked by an Iola, Kansas, officer going 38 mph (61 kph) in a 35 mph (56 kph) speed zone. A pursuit began. The lawsuit said Sigg was unaware police were following him even though law enforcement vehicles from other departments joined the pursuit in an area that is about 100 miles (161 kilometers) southwest of Kansas City, Missouri.
Sigg drove to a car lot operated by his family. When he got out of his car, officers surrounded him and two officers from nearby Chanute, Kansas, drew their guns, the lawsuit said.
“Sigg looked at them quizzically and raised his hands,” the lawsuit stated. That’s when Stotler demanded that Sigg get on the ground and without warning, used the Taser on him, even though the maker of the stun gun had warned against using it on the elderly, the lawsuit stated.
“At no time after exiting his vehicle did Sigg make a hostile motion or make physical or verbal threats,” the lawsuit stated. “There was no risk that the 80 year old man was going to run from the officers and they had no concern that Sigg had a firearm.”
The lawsuit said Sigg began mumbling in a way that was “hard to understand,” and told an officer he didn’t feel right. Sigg was treated at an emergency room.
Wisconsin
Man pleads not guilty in anti-abortion office firebombing
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The man accused of firebombing a prominent Wisconsin anti-abortion group’s office has pleaded not guilty.
Investigators believe Hridindu Roychowdhury, of Madison, threw two Molotov cocktails into the Madison office of Wisconsin Family Action last May. He entered a not guilty plea Tuesday to one count of attempting to cause damage by means of fire or an explosive. He also waived his right to appear in court for an arraignment once he is returned to Wisconsin.
One of the firebombs thrown into the anti-abortion group’s office failed to ignite; the other set a bookcase on fire. No one was in the office at the time. The message “If abortions aren’t safe then you aren’t either” was found spray-painted on the building.
Police arrested Roychowdhury in a Boston airport last month after investigators matched his DNA to samples from the crime scene. He had a one-way ticket to Guatemala, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.
Myra Longfield, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Madison, said Thursday that Roychowdhury is being held in federal custody but has not yet been returned to Wisconsin. A date has not been set for his initial appearance in court.
Iowa
Teens charged in fatal school shooting get separate trials
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Two Iowa teenagers charged in a shooting at a Des Moines school will be tried separately so one of the teens can testify in defense of the other.
A judge ruled this week that the trials of Preston Walls, 18, and Bravon Tukes, 19, should be separated so Walls could be called to testify by Tukes’ defense lawyers.
Both teens are charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and criminal gang participation in the shooting deaths of students Gionni Dameron, 18, and Rashad Carr, 16, on Jan. 23 at an alternative school for at-risk students called Starts Right Here.
Walls is accused of shooting both students and injuring Will Keeps, who founded the school. Walls then left the school in a car driven by Tukes.
Tukes’ attorneys sought to separate the trials at an earlier hearing. They noted Walls has said Tukes wasn’t involved in the shooting. Tukes’ attorneys want Walls to testify in Tukes’ defense and asked for separate trials so that such testimony is possible.
The judge agreed to separate the trials but denied a request to delay Walls’ trial, which is scheduled to start May 1. A trial date for Tukes hasn’t been scheduled.
The Starts Right Here program reopened in February with additional security. Keeps, an activist and rapper whose given name is Will Holmes, is back to work at the school even as he recovers from gunshot wounds to his hip and right hand.
