Brown County Sheriff's investigators recommended hate crime charges in prison homicide; DA didn't include them

Editor's note: Scolman's trial has been rescheduled to Feb. 9-16.

GREEN BAY – A white prisoner at Green Bay Correctional Institution was under investigation for "extremely concerning racist activity" before officials say he fatally stabbed a Black prisoner, according to an investigation by the Brown County Sheriff's Office.

The sheriff's investigator referred charges to the Brown County District Attorney's Office with hate crime enhancers. However, a criminal complaint filed in November 2022 in Brown County Circuit Court includes no mention of racial motives.

Joshua Scolman, 40, is charged with first-degree intentional homicide and attempted first-degree intentional homicide in Brown County for the October 2022 death of 25-year-old Timothy Nabors, a Black man, and attempted homicide of a second person, who is also Black. His trial is set to begin Dec. 4, and he has a status conference scheduled for Friday morning.

The sheriff's office incident report states that a captain at Green Bay Correctional Institution knew of "numerous letters" written by Scolman regarding attempts to become a member of a white supremacist prison gang, for which a condition to be accepted was "to kill a black male," the report states.

A handmade knife recovered from the scene had two symbols carved on the blade, including a swastika, records say.

These details are not included in the criminal complaint, which simply states that investigators believe Scolman killed Nabors because he got in the way of Scolman's intended target, the person he injured.

The Brown County District Attorney's Office did not respond to requests for an interview about why the charges filed against Scolman did not include the sheriff's investigation recommendation of homicide as a hate crime.

Under Wisconsin law, a felony charge with a hate crime modifier increases the maximum prison sentence by up to five years and the maximum fine by up to $5,000. Wisconsin defines a hate crime as a crime someone commits against another person "in whole or in part because of the actor's belief or perception regarding the race, religion, color, disability, sexual orientation, national origin or ancestry of that person."

Around 6:40 a.m. Oct. 21, 2022, deputies from the Brown County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to Green Bay Correctional Institution for a stabbing, according to records.

The attack happened in the prison's South Cell Hall, as prisoners were released from their cells for morning medication distribution, records show.

According to the the investigation, correctional officers realized a fight had broken out around 6:30 a.m., when an officer saw Scolman chasing another prisoner down the stairs leading to the ground floor. At the bottom of the stairs, correctional officers pepper sprayed the prisoner and Scolman.

Officers then found Nabors lying on the second floor with a single stab wound to his chest. While he initially was able to respond to officers, he became unresponsive and was taken to HSHS St. Vincent Hospital in Green Bay, where he underwent emergency surgery. Nabors stayed at the hospital for five days, until he was declared braindead Oct. 26, 2022.

The other man was treated for his wounds at the prison's health services unit.

According to the incident report and criminal complaint, the man who survived told investigators he and Nabors were confronted by "a white guy" — who investigators identified as Scolman — when they were headed down the stairs to receive their morning medications, and Scolman was walking up the stairs back to his cell.

Prison surveillance cameras caught the incident from multiple angles. Investigators said it appeared the prisoner and Scolman "had some sort of verbal interaction" and Nabors tried to deescalate the situation by grabbing the other prisoner around the waist and pulling him away. Scolman started to go up the stairs, but the other prisoner appears to have said something and Scolman charged him and Nabors, the reports say.

After Nabors was stabbed, Scolman chased the other man to the main floor, the report says. At one point before the two men were pepper sprayed, surveillance footage shows Scolman grab the other prisoner by his shirt and try to stab him in the side of the neck and face, but "barely" miss as he moves his head, the criminal complaint and incident report state.

Initally, the other prisoner said he didn't know why he was attacked, and that neither he nor Nabors had any issues with Scolman. But during a second interview with investigators, he said he had a confrontation with Scolman two days prior to the stabbing.

According to the incident report, the metal used to construct the knife was believed to come from a different prisoner's bedframe. That person refused to talk to investigators about the stabbing, but investigators noted metal missing from his bed frame seemed to match the knife. A captain at the prison informed investigators the prisoner was a friend of Scolman's and a member of another white supremacist prison gang. He does not face any charges in connection to the incident.

The report also says that at the time of the stabbing, prison staff were investigating another incarcerated person for "white supremacist behavior." That individual had been housed in a different area of the prison and was transferred to the restrictive housing unit for stabbing threats. Prison officials did not believe this stabbing was related to those threats, according to the sheriff's office incident report.

Scolman is currently serving a 51-year prison sentence for a 2006 drunken driving crash in Milwaukee that killed three people and seriously injured a fourth person. According to court records, after the crash Scolman pointed a gun at and fired shots toward a motorist bystander.

Nabors, from Milwaukee, was serving a nine-year prison sentence for second-degree sexual assault of a child younger than 16.

Contact Kelli Arseneau at 920-213-3721 or karseneau@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ArseneauKelli.

This article originally appeared on Appleton Post-Crescent: Green Bay prison death investigation recommended hate crime charge