The Florida federal inmate accused of stabbing Larry Nassar multiple times on Sunday was allegedly provoked after the disgraced sports doctor made a lewd comment while watching Wimbledon.
A person familiar with the situation told The Daily Beast that the inmate accused of stabbing Nassar 10 times is Shane McMillan, who has a history of convictions for other prison attacks. The source said McMillan attacked Nassar, 59, inside his cell in the U.S. Penitentiary Coleman with a makeshift weapon. He allegedly told prison workers afterwards that Nassar made a comment while watching a women’s match.
“I wish there was girls playing,” Nassar allegedly told McMillan, the person familiar said.
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The source added to The Daily Beast that the timing between when Nassar said the comment and when the attack occurred wasn’t clear. It took four other inmates to pull McMillan off Nassar, the source added. The Associated Press first reported the news of the comment that sparked the altercation.
Joe Rojas, the president of the union that represents staffers at the Florida prison, previously told The Daily Beast that Nassar was “stabbed twice in the neck, six times in the chest, and twice in the back” and suffered a collapsed lung from the attack, but he was in stable condition.
“He is lucky to be alive, and the only reason he is alive, in my opinion, is because of the staff members who were there,” Rojas said Monday.
Since the attack happened in Nassar’s cell, it wasn’t captured on surveillance cameras that monitor the corridors and common area, AP reported. The source who spoke to The Daily Beast on Wednesday said there was no evidence that other inmates were involved.
“It was a one-on-one situation,” the source said.
Court records show that McMillan was convicted of assaulting a correctional officer at a Louisiana federal prison in 2006 and attempting to fatally stab another inmate at a Colorado supermax prison years later.
Lawyers who represented McMillan in previous cases did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. A Bureau of Prisons spokesperson told The Daily Beast that “for privacy, safety, and security reasons, [the agency] does not discuss information on an individual inmate’s conditions of confinement to include whether a particular inmate is the subject of allegations, investigations, or sanctions in prison.”
The BoP previously confirmed to The Daily Beast that a Coleman inmate was assaulted at about 2:35 p.m. Sunday and that staff “immediately initiated life-saving measures.” No other staffers or inmates were hurt at the high-security facility that houses 1,214 men.
Nassar, 59, is serving decades in prison after being convicted of sexually assaulting young gymnasts, including several Olympic medal winners. He admitted to abusing the athletes while employed with USA Gymnastics and at Michigan State University, and separately pleaded guilty in 2017 to possessing child sexual abuse material.
