Shane Stant
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shane Minoaka Stant (born 15 April 1971) is an American criminal. He was hired by Tonya Harding's ex-husband Jeff Gillooly and friend Shawn Eckhardt to assault Nancy Kerrigan in the weeks before the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.
On January 6, 1994, Kerrigan had finished a practice session at Cobo Arena in Detroit during the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. When she stopped to talk to a news reporter, Stant crouched down, struck her on the knee with a retractable metal baton, and ran away. The exit door was locked, so he escaped by breaking through an acrylic glass door. He jumped into Derrick Smith's getaway car. He, along with Shawn Eckhardt and Derrick Smith, were arrested and sentenced to four years in prison. Stant served 14 months before being released.
On December 1, 2005, a judge in Multnomah County, Oregon denied a petition by Stant to have his conviction in the Kerrigan attack expunged. Stant had petitioned to have his record cleared because he wanted to apply for the Navy SEALs, who will not accept anyone with a felony conviction. The petition was odd, as one must be under 28 years of age to qualify for SEAL training, while Stant was 34 at the time of his petition. Kerrigan wrote a letter to the court to oppose the petition because she felt it could send a message that a crime like Stant's could be "swept under the rug".
