Cruise passenger asked to ‘quiet down’ smashes cocktail glass in man’s face, feds say

Instead of quieting down on a Carnival cruise ship, a passenger smashed his cocktail glass into a man’s face and beat him during a theater show, federal prosecutors said.

The man who officials said asked Michael Truman to “quiet down” twice before he was beaten needed about 19 stitches for cuts on his face, according to court documents.

Truman, a 39-year-old resident of Portsmouth, Virginia, was accused of “loudly disrupting” the theater show as the Carnival “Magic” cruise ship was in the waters off Nantucket, Massachusetts, on Oct. 20, prosecutors said.

When he refused to keep quiet upon his fellow passenger’s requests, Truman struck the man in the face with his glass as the man tried to get help from a cruise employee, according to prosecutors.

Then, Truman got on top of the man and continued to hit him, prosecutors said.

Now Truman has pleaded guilty to assault with a dangerous weapon, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia announced in a Feb. 15 news release.

McClatchy News contacted Truman’s defense attorney, Nicholas Ryan Hobbs, for comment Feb. 20 and didn’t receive an immediate response.

Cruise security said they found Truman inside his cabin, bleeding from his right hand, after the beating, according to an affidavit.

He told security he was defending himself against the man, who he said asked him “to stop clapping so loud” during the theater show, the affidavit says.

Truman claimed he hit the man after the man first swung at him, but he said he couldn’t remember exactly what he hit him with, according to the affidavit.

Investigators found a broken “old fashioned/lowball cocktail glass” following the assault, the affidavit says.

Truman also told ship security “he did not know how he got the cut on his hand, claimed he had consumed three or four drinks of alcohol that day, and offered to stay in his room for the rest of the cruise,” the affidavit says.

The wife of the man who officials said was beaten witnessed the assault and told investigators Truman appeared intoxicated, the affidavit says.

Two days later, the cruise ship arrived at the Norfolk Cruise Terminal on Oct. 22, according to the court filing.

Carnival declined a request for comment from McClatchy News on Feb. 20.

Truman faces up to 10 years in prison, prosecutors said. His sentencing hearing is set for Aug. 29.

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