Tesfaye Cooper, the man convicted of live-streaming a racially motivated torture attack in 2017, is back behind bars after allegedly assaulting a white man just months after finishing a seven-year prison term.
Cooper was one of four people convicted of hate crimes for luring a mentally disabled 18-year-old white man into a stolen van in January 2017, binding and gagging him for days in an apartment, slicing part of his scalp with a knife, and broadcasting the abuse on Facebook while the attackers screamed slurs and demanded he denounce white people and Donald Trump.
Released in November 2025, Cooper allegedly singled out a white bicyclist about five months later, cornering him with an accomplice inside a subway station, beating him, spitting in his face, and stealing his bike while a transit guard looked on.
Cooper returned to Stateville Correctional Center on Thursday. He had secured his original seven-year sentence in July 2018 only after prosecutors agreed to drop the vast majority of the charges against him.