A 27-year-old Staten Island man is sitting in a New York City jail awaiting extradition to Luzerne County after investigators say he threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend and her new partner and to blow up the nursing school she attends in Plains Township. Divine Christopher Torres was taken into custody on Oct. 15 by New York State parole agents, and he now faces a stack of charges from two separate Pennsylvania police departments.
According to the Times Leader, Torres is charged with repeatedly threatening to kill his ex-girlfriend and her paramour, and with threatening to blow up the Wilkes-Barre Career and Technical Center, where the woman is enrolled as a nursing student. Plains Township police obtained an arrest warrant alleging that Torres threatened to kill everyone and blow up the school if his ex-girlfriend remained enrolled there. Torres had also recently been found in violation of protection-from-abuse court orders the woman had obtained against him in Luzerne County.
Police say the threats escalated quickly in the days before his arrest. A voicemail to the school's nursing director claimed the woman was withdrawing and returning to New York. Plains Township police allege the school received a separate voicemail on Oct. 14 threatening to kill everyone and blow up the building unless the woman withdrew; the woman later identified the voice on that threatening message as Torres, according to a police complaint cited by the Times Leader.
Hundreds of Calls and Texts, by Two Different Counts
The scale of the alleged harassment is described differently across the criminal complaints reviewed by the Times Leader. One account states that Torres called the woman more than 100 times and sent her 423 threatening text messages. A second, separate warrant obtained by Kingston police alleges Torres sent the woman nearly 700 threatening text messages and called her 310 times between Oct. 13 and Oct. 15. The newspaper's reporting does not reconcile how these two sets of figures relate to one another.
Court records cited by the outlet say Torres also sent the woman pictures of houses in the Kingston area where he believed her new partner lived, and complaints allege he was driving around that area on Oct. 14 searching for those homes. He allegedly sent the woman a text on Oct. 15 saying he would kill her partner and record it, and complaints state he pledged to rent a vehicle so he could carry out and film the killing.
Fire Call and Housing on Rikers Island
Criminal complaints also reference a call to Luzerne County 911 reporting a fire at the woman's Kingston home, though the Times Leader's account does not detail how that call connects to the broader allegations against Torres. He is currently housed at the Robert N. Davoren Center on Rikers Island, according to New York City's Department of Correction, as he awaits extradition back to Luzerne County to face the Pennsylvania charges.
Charges Filed by Two Police Departments
Plains Township police charged Torres with terroristic threats, stalking, and intimidation of a witness or victim. Kingston police filed a separate set of charges, three counts each of stalking, terroristic threats, and criminal use of a communication facility.
Under Pennsylvania law, stalking covers repeatedly communicating with someone under circumstances that demonstrate or communicate an intent to place that person in reasonable fear of bodily injury or to cause substantial emotional distress, according to the Pennsylvania General Assembly. A first offense is generally classified as a first-degree misdemeanor, but can be a third-degree felony if the person has a qualifying prior conviction involving the same victim or a household member; a second or subsequent offense is a third-degree felony. The state's terroristic threats statute, per the Pennsylvania General Assembly's published code, covers three distinct alternatives: communicating a threat to commit a crime of violence with intent to terrorize another person; communicating a threat to cause an evacuation; or communicating a threat to cause serious public inconvenience, or to cause terror or serious public inconvenience with reckless disregard of the risk. That offense is generally a first-degree misdemeanor, but becomes a third-degree felony if the threat diverts a building or facility's occupants from its normal operations.
