Suit: local hotel-casinos enabled Nathan Chasing Horse’s sex trafficking

A federal lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges that two local casinos enabled sex trafficking by Nathan Chasing Horse.

Chasing Horse, who played Smiles a Lot in the movie “Dances with Wolves,” was sentenced to 37 years to life in prison Monday after being convicted of sexually assaulting two victims.

The civil suit names as defendants Boyd Gaming Corp., the Cannery, Station Casinos and Santa Fe Station. It does not name the two plaintiffs but identifies their trafficker as Chasing Horse. The allegations span the period from 2014 to 2022.

Alex Acuna, a spokesperson for Station Casinos, declined to comment. Boyd spokesperson David Strow also declined to comment. Boyd owns the Cannery. Station Casinos owns the Santa Fe.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Alex Marcinko said in a phone interview that the goal of the suit is to obtain “institutional accountability.”

“People like Nathan Chasing Horse don’t operate in a vacuum,” he said in a phone interview. “What he was allowed to do to these women and many other women was only capable of being done because these hotels allowed it to continue going on despite obvious signs.”

He declined to identify the plaintiffs.

According to the complaint, those signs included “noticeable traffic” from sex buyers in and out of Chasing Horse’s room, the plaintiffs not being allowed to speak to or make eye contact with casino staff and the fact that “trafficked victim(s) would walk around hotel grounds sleep deprived, hygiene impaired, branded, and malnourished.”

Attorney Craig Mueller, who represented Chasing Horse at trial, was skeptical of the suit.

The plaintiffs would have to show that the Cannery knew or should have known Chasing Horse was up to no good, he said.

“How would anybody at the Cannery know that?” he asked.

The suit said that the defendants knew or should have known about the role the hotel industry plays in enabling sex trafficking. They benefited financially by renting rooms that were used for sex trafficking in violation of federal law, the filing asserted.

Attorneys also alleged negligence and intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

The suit accuses the Cannery’s staff of “acting as lookouts and informants, during the scope of their employment, for the benefit of the Trafficker so as to alert the aforesaid Trafficker of police activity or similar type warning alerts.”

It makes the same claim about the Santa Fe.

Both hotels gave Chasing Horse gifts to maintain his business, court papers said.