By now, we’ve all seen the paparazzo picture of inmate Nathaniel Walter Radimak sitting in a wheelchair looking buss’ up and bloody after a beatdown at Hālawa Correctional Facility.
By now, we’ve heard of the various forms of mayhem Radimak is accused of inflicting upon citizens in Honolulu — a mom teaching her daughter how to parallel park, a woman who got video of him harassing her at a gym and taking a swing at her face.
We may have heard he has a lengthy criminal record and that he was sentenced to five years for a series of road rage attacks in Los Angeles, where he became known as the Tesla Road Rage Guy, but that — regrettably, inexplicably, maddeningly — he was released on parole after serving just 10 months and came bopping over to Honolulu to carry on his wayward ways.
In 2023, when he was charged with a slew of violent incidents in Los Angeles, including stopping his car on the freeway to jump out and smash other cars with a pipe, assaulting a valet, slashing tires in Hollywood and punching a woman in the face, the judge who ordered him held without bail looked over the many pages detailing his brushes with the law and said with astonishment, “The defendant’s criminal record goes back to 2004, almost 20 years.”
The judge actually missed a few of his earliest exploits.
Early Signs Of Trouble
Usually when you look up old newspaper clips about a person, there’s some mention of a tiny moment of childhood glory. Their name is listed in the aggregate scores of a middle school track meet, or they won a local poster contest, or performed in the school Christmas pageant.
There is none of that for Nathaniel Radimak. His name appears many times in newspaper archives, always in stories about some harm he perpetrated against unsuspecting victims.
The earliest mention is one of the most bizarre. In November 2003, when he was 17 years old, Radimak’s hometown newspaper, the Daily Sentinel in Rome, New York, reported that he was arrested for harassment, endangering the welfare of a child, and assault for throwing a crab apple at an 8-year-old girl so hard that it caused injury.
Later that year, the newspaper reported that 17-year-old Radimak was driving a car that he didn’t own and ran over a teenager’s foot.
In August 2004, Radimak was arrested for putting traffic cones across the Erie Boulevard East bridge early in the morning, causing vehicles to swerve around the cones. He was charged with disorderly conduct.
In May 2005 , Radimak, then 18, was arrested for third-degree menacing and “acting in a manner as to injure a child,” which was reduced to disorderly conduct. In that instance, police said Radimak shot a paint ball gun at two girls who were just walking down the street. He was granted a one-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay a fine of $95 and attend a “Work Offender Program” for 10 days.
Not sure if that helped the young offender get his mind right.
In 2011, the Observer-Dispatch in Utica, New York, ran a baby-faced mug shot of Radimak under the headline, “Have you seen this suspect?”
“Nate Radimak, who has a lengthy criminal record, is wanted on charges of felony third-degree robbery, sixth-degree conspiracy and second-degree harassment, police said. “If you see Radimak, do not attempt to apprehend him, police said.”
The pattern of behavior continued and escalated, and by 2023, Radimak had criminal cases in eight states.
Then came the caught-on-video Tesla road rage attacks on Los Angeles freeways with Radimak brandishing a pipe and acting completely unhinged.
At the hearing after his arrest in Los Angeles, Judge Amy Ashvanian ordered him held without bail, saying, “… if the defendant is released on any type of bail, there is going to be bodily harm, great bodily harm, and a threat to society and the public at large.”
That time, the judge was absolutely right.
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When he was released on parole in August 2024, some of his victims, who were represented by high-profile attorney Gloria Allred — known to take on feminist causes — held a press conference.
One of the women — almost all his victims through the years are women — had this to say about his early release from prison: “This was not just one isolated incident, which begs the question, is there hope to rehabilitate repeat offenders? I’d like to believe that there is hope, and that people are worthy of a second chance. I pray that Nathaniel Radimak’s brief time behind bars taught him a lesson.”
That clearly didn’t happen. Not sure if it ever will.
Next Up: Honolulu
Once paroled, Radimak left California and allegedly brought his unique brand of criminality to our beautiful island, which led to his arrest, his transfer to Hālawaa Correctional Facility, and the photo of Radimak in a wheelchair looking a cockeyed mess after being beaten by inmates inside Hālawa.
The photo quickly went viral on social media and the comments were universally, unabashedly gleeful. Many said that he got what he deserved, that it was about time that somebody taught this guy a lesson, and many expressed thanks to “the boyz” in Hālawa for “taking care” of a situation that law enforcement and the justice system across nine states couldn’t figure out how to handle.
OK, we all know we shouldn’t be cheering for prison-style vigilante justice, but nothing else has stopped this guy for more than 20 years. Every half-assed court-ordered program, gentle judge and understanding parole board did nothing. Radimak has been upping his wild game of brutally targeting innocent people like an apex predator loose on the streets.
Is this what we’ve come to? Is this the best option to keep our streets safe?
It would be so sad if the answer to both those questions is yes.
