Guilty Pleasures
By Associated Press
Nevada high court orders dismissal of Chasing Horse sex abuse case but says charges can be refiled
LAS VEGAS | The Nevada Supreme Court has ordered the dismissal of a sprawling sex abuse indictment against Nathan Chasing Horse, while leaving open the possibility of charges being refiled in a case that sent shockwaves throughout Indian Country and led to more criminal charges in the U.S. and Canada.
Proceedings in the 18-count criminal case have been at a standstill for more than a year while the former “Dances with Wolves” actor challenged it. The full seven-member court’s decision, issued Thursday, reverses earlier rulings upholding the charges by a three-member panel of the high court and a state judge.
Kristy Holston, the chief deputy public defender representing Chasing Horse, had argued that a definition of grooming presented to the grand jury without expert testimony had tainted the state’s case. Holston said prosecutors also failed to provide the grand jury with evidence that could have cast a doubt on the allegations against Chasing Horse, including what she described as inconsistent statements made by one of the victims.
The high court agreed.
“The combination of these two clear errors undermines our confidence in the grand jury proceedings and created intolerable damage to the independent function of the grand jury process,” the court said in its scathing order.
Holston declined to comment. Prosecutor Stacy Kollins did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
The ruling directs the judge overseeing the case in Clark County District Court to dismiss the indictment without prejudice, meaning the charges can be refiled.
“The allegations against Chasing Horse are indisputably serious, and we express no opinion about Chasing Horse’s guilt or innocence,” the order says.
The high court’s order for dismissal won’t take effect immediately. Prosecutors have about three weeks to ask the court to reconsider.
Chasing Horse is charged with sexual assault of a minor, kidnapping and child abuse. He has pleaded not guilty.
The 48-year-old has been in custody since his arrest last January near the North Las Vegas home he is said to have shared with five wives. He is unlikely to be released from custody, even after the high court’s decision, because he faces charges in at least four other jurisdictions, including U.S. District Court in Nevada and on the Fort Perk Indian Reservation in Montana.
Chasing Horse is best known for portraying Smiles A Lot in the 1990 film “Dances with Wolves.” But in the decades since starring in the Oscar-winning movie, authorities said, he built a reputation as a self-proclaimed medicine man among tribes and traveled around North America to perform healing ceremonies.
He is 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.
Judge hears arguments on possible retrial of movie armorer in fatal set shooting by Alec Baldwin
SANTA FE, N.M. | A judge heard arguments Thursday on whether to dismiss a criminal conviction against a movie armorer in the shooting death of a cinematographer by actor Alec Baldwin and said she’ll rule next week on whether to skuttle the case or order a retrial.
In a remote court hearing, an attorney for Hannah Gutierrez-Reed challenged her March conviction for involuntary manslaughter, alleging that prosecutors failed to share evidence including ammunition that might have been exculpatory in the shooting death that occurred on the set of the Western movie “Rust” in 2021.
Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer is reconsidering the armorer’s felony conviction after throwing out an involuntary manslaughter case against Baldwin midtrial on similar grounds.
“This pattern of (evidence) discovery abuse occurred in Ms. Gutierrez-Reed’s case in the same manner that it did in Mr. Baldwin’s case,” said Jason Bowles, lead defense attorney to Gutierrez-Reed.
Baldwin, the lead actor and co-producer for “Rust,” was pointing a gun at cinematographer Halyna Hutchins during a rehearsal on a movie ranch outside Santa Fe in October 2021 when the revolver went off, killing Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza. Baldwin has said he pulled back the hammer — but not the trigger — and the revolver fired.
Marlowe Sommer dismissed the case against Baldwin based on the withholding of evidence by police and prosecutors. The case-ending evidence was ammunition that was brought into the sheriff’s office in March by a man who said it could be related to Hutchins’ killing.
Prosecutors said they deemed the ammunition unrelated and unimportant, while Baldwin’s lawyers alleged that they “buried” it and filed a successful motion to dismiss the case. In her decision to dismiss the Baldwin case, Marlowe Sommer described “egregious discovery violations constituting misconduct” by law enforcement and prosecutors, as well as false testimony about physical evidence by a witness during the trial.
Special prosecutor Kari Morrissey said it Thursday’s hearing that defense counsel for Gutierrez-Reed knew of the ammunition in question prior to the armorer’s trial but declined to enter it into the court record or have it tested to see whether it matched live ammunition on the set of “Rust.”
Bowles said he didn’t collect the ammunition himself because of concerns that it would alter the chain of custody and possibly disqualify the evidence from consideration at trail. He asked the judge to disqualify Morrissey from the case in the event of a retrial and is seeking the immediate release of Gutierrez-Reed from incarceration.
Gutierrez-Reed started serving an 18-month sentence in March and has appealed the jury’s guilty verdict to a state appeals court. Prosecutors blamed Gutierrez-Reed for unwittingly bringing live ammunition onto the set and for failing to follow basic gun safety protocols.
She was acquitted at trial of allegations she tampered with evidence in the “Rust” investigation. Gutierrez-Reed also has pleaded not guilty to a separate felony charge that she allegedly carried a gun into a bar in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where firearms are prohibited. A proposed plea agreement is awaiting court review.
Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys have also said that prosecutors failed to disclose portions of pretrial interviews with “Rust” ammunition supplier Seth Kenney — as well as reports by firearms expert Lucien Haag and correspondence with expert movie armorer Bryan Carpenter — that might have changed the outcome of the armorer’s trial.
Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan finalize their divorce after six years and avoid trial
LOS ANGELES | Actors Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan have reached a settlement to finalize their divorce and avoid a forthcoming trial, six years after she first filed to end their marriage and years after both entered other long-term relationships.
The couple stipulated to the terms in a court filing Wednesday. It means that Tatum and Dewan will avoid a trial, scheduled to begin in December, over the splitting of assets and custody of their 13-year-old daughter, Everly. The proceedings may have made many of their private details public.
Details of the settlement were kept confidential under the agreement, which must still be approved by a judge.
Both have long been in other relationships, Tatum with actor and director Zoë Kravitz and Dewan with actor Steve Kazee, with whom she has had two children.
Both Dewan and Tatum began their careers as dancers in music videos. They met as co-stars of the 2006 dance movie “Step Up.” They married in July 2009.
They announced their split in April 2018, saying jointly on social media that they had decided to “lovingly separate as a couple” but remained best friends.
She filed for divorce six months later, and in November of 2019, a judge declared them divorced and single. But a yearslong fight over finances and custody continued and appeared to be growing more heated as the trial approached.
Before the settlement, Dewan had been arguing for two separate trials, one over custody and one over finances. Tatum had objected.
Tatum starred in the “Magic Mike” movies and “21 Jump Street.” He has an extended cameo in “Deadpool & Wolverine” and recently appeared as the lead in the Kravitz-directed “Blink Twice,” but Tatum acted very little in the years immediately after the split.
“Time just kind of got away,” Tatum told The Associated Press in 2022. “Really, being a dad sort of just swept me away for almost four years. I kind of got lost in doing that.”
Dewan appeared in several other dance films after “Step It Up” and is now a regular on the ABC series “The Rookie.”
Hoda Kotb is leaving NBC’s ‘Today’ show early next year
NEW YORK | Hoda Kotb, a fixture at NBC for more than two decades, says she will leave her morning perch on the “Today” show early next year, telling staffers “it’s time.”
In a memo to her team — and later in an emotional on-air reveal Thursday — Kotb said her 60th birthday this summer helped trigger the departure: “I saw it all so clearly: my broadcast career has been beyond meaningful, a new decade of my life lies ahead, and now my daughters and my mom need and deserve a bigger slice of my time pie.”
Kotb has co-anchored “Today” with Savannah Guthrie since 2018, filling in after Matt Lauer was fired amid sexual harassment allegations. She continued to co-host of the fourth hour of the morning show with Jenna Bush Hager, having previously hosted it alongside Kathie Lee Gifford. Kotb first joined NBC News as a correspondent for “Dateline” in 1998, and later joined “Today” in 2007.
Her daughters are Haley, 7, and Hope, 5.
Kotb was surrounded by her co-workers when she told viewers of her decision, saying, “This is the hardest thing in the world” and “I’ve been practicing so I wouldn’t cry, but anyway, I did.”
“We love you so much,” Guthrie, who has co-anchored “Today” with Kotb for more than five years, said with tears in her eyes. “And when you look around and see these tears, they’re love. You are so loved. We don’t want to imagine this place without you.”
Kotb’s goodbye note mentioned many of her co-workers, like Al Roker: “Savannah: my rock. Jenna: my ride-or-die. Al: my longest friend at 30 Rock.”
“Happily and gratefully, I plan to remain a part of the NBC family, the longest work relationship I’ve been lucky enough to hold close to my heart. I’ll be around. How could I not? Family is family and you all will always be a part of mine,” she wrote.
—From AP reports
