The Tesla driver who became infamous for violent, pipe-swinging incidents of road rage through video captured by a victim may be back on the highways sooner than expected.
Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón described Nathaniel Radimaks “reign of terror” when he was charged in January 2023.
Now the 37-year-old could be released after serving less than a year of his five-year sentence, according to files from California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. His earliest eligible parole date is listed as August 2024, though the department noted that date was “subject to change.”
Dash-cam video captured a road rage incident on January 29, 2023.
(California Highway Patrol)
Radimak is held at the Sierra Conservation Center in Jamestown, about 50 miles southeast of Stockton. Low to medium security
The facility also serves as a training center for incarcerated individuals who assist in firefighting.
He has been there since October 3, 2023.
Radimak was initially charged with four counts of assault with violence likely to result in great bodily harm, four counts of criminal threatening and one count of vandalism, along with two counts of criminal damage and one count of elder abuse.
He pleaded no contest and was eventually sentenced to five years for stalking and two years for criminal threats (to be served concurrently) in state prison in August 2023.
He has been credited with 424 days served pending sentencing — 212 days for time served and 212 days for good behavior, according to Los Angeles County Superior Court records.
In June 2022, Radimak threatened a 74-year-old woman outside a Glendale doctor’s office, and in November he threatened a woman at a storage facility in Atwater Village, Los Angeles County prosecutors said. That same day, he got out of his Tesla, threatened a woman on a freeway and smashed one of her headlights.
On Jan. 11, 2023, prosecutors said, he struck another vehicle with a pipe on Highway 2 near York Boulevard, an incident that was caught on dash-cam video. He was also accused of following a car from a Pasadena mall later that day, nearly hitting it with his vehicle, and then hitting it with a metal pipe.