SUNBURY - The suspect jailed in a near deadly shooting on Irish Valley Road in February 2014 is accused of preying on the victim's emotions in an attempt to convince her not to cooperate with investigators.
State police say Rafael A. Diroche Jr., 30, of Mount Carmel, used the telephone accounts of other inmates at Northumberland County Prison to call Salicia Yost, of Milton, and plead, threaten and coerce her to lie about the shooting and skip hearings.
Diroche is charged by Trooper Kevin Kearney of the Stonington station with felony counts of intimidation of a witness and crimi-
nal solicitation of perjury. He was arraigned Wednesday before Magisterial District Judge Benjamin Apfelbaum, and a preliminary hearing is scheduled for June 16. Bail is set at $750,000, raising the total to $1.25 million. He's held in the county prison section of SCI-Coal Township.
According to a criminal complaint filed Monday, he pledged to buy a home in the Dominican Republic where he and Yost would live a "happy life" together and have a child in exchange for her obedience.
"He apologizes for what he did that night and that he overreacted," the complaint alleges.
Multiple conversations were recorded between the two from Nov. 14, 2014, until the prison was destroyed by fire Jan. 14, according to the complaint. An announcement is made at the outset of prison calls that all calls are recorded. Police say Diroche dismissed the warning since he was using others' accounts. Yost reportedly acknowledges that police obtained text messages shared between her and Diroche, and that she had already told investigators it was Diroche who shot her.
Diroche has maintained innocence against state police accusations that he shot Yost in the head point blank Feb. 8. She was discovered by a passerby alone inside a vehicle along Irish Valley Road. The gunshot nearly killed the 22-year-old Milton woman and left her legally blind.
In a November interview video recorded by The Daily Item, Yost said Diroche wasn't the shooter, that confusion and a resulting head injury led her to initially implicate him to police, and that she was not dealing drugs as alleged by police. Police claim the two were partners in the drug trade and also lovers, and that a heated exchange ended with the gunshot.
The latest charges are an addition to an already loaded docket against Diroche: attempted homicide, aggravated assault, attempted aggravated assault and corrupt organizations. He's also charged by Mount Carmel police with 22 counts including felony drug possession and illegal possession of a firearm. The shooting and drug cases have since been merged.