CHICAGO — The man who randomly stabbed and badly injured a Red Line passenger in Uptown last summer (while on pretrial release for attacking a CTA bus driver) has been given a seven-year prison sentence: five years for the stabbing and two for the earlier case.
Trent Prusinski, 24, pleaded guilty on Thursday to aggravated battery causing great bodily harm and aggravated battery of a transit employee before Judge Kenneth Wadas, court records show. Wadas ordered the sentences served consecutively.
Prusinski was on the streets last September 2, even though prosecutors had asked Wadas to keep him in jail for allegedly violating his nighttime curfew and getting arrested again while awaiting trial in the bus driver attack.
At about 1:10 p.m. that afternoon, Prusinski argued with other passengers on a northbound Red Line train as it approached Wilson, prosecutors said. He proceeded to randomly stab a 37-year-old man in the back at least three times, officials said. One of the stab wounds fractured the victim’s shoulder, requiring surgery.
The victim exited the train and later collapsed in a restroom at the Riviera Theater, where he worked.
Surveillance video recorded the attack and showed Prusinski leaving the Wilson station. Detectives released images from the video footage to the media, and a U.S. Marshals task force arrested Prusinski at his Uptown apartment the next day after a security guard identified him.
Arresting officers said they found a Husky foldable knife in Prusinski’s waistband when they took him into custody.
Court records show he was on pretrial release for battering a CTA bus driver in the 1300 block of West Cermak in September 2023. The driver told police that he saw Prusinski running toward a bus stop and that he was going to stop the bus when Prusinski fell and started pounding on the bus door.
Given Prusinski’s demeanor, the driver refused to let him on, a CPD report said. The report stated that Prusinski went to the opposite side of the bus, reached through the driver’s window, and ripped off part of the steering column. He allegedly flung the steering column component, striking the driver in the face.
Judge Maryam Ahmad released him on a recognizance bond with electronic monitoring on September 17, 2023, Illinois’s last day under a cash bail system. Wadas removed the electronic monitoring requirement three weeks later.
Wadas denied a state request to revoke Prusinski’s pretrial release in December 2023 and again in March 2024. In July 2024, court officers informed Wadas that Prusinski had repeatedly violated a court-imposed nighttime curfew, records show. Wadas released Prusinski from custody again, telling him to observe the curfew.
Prusinski’s seven-year prison sentence will be reduced by 50% for good behavior. He also earned 527 days of credit while awaiting trial in the two cases, so he is expected to be released in just over two years.
