Paulino Rodriguez, 43, has been charged with intimidating a key witness of a homicide trial.

District Attorney John Flynn alleges the crime happened inside the Erie County Courthouse just days before the trial concluded.

Just hours after his arrest, Rodriguez was back in the same courthouse where authorities say he committed the crimes.

According to Flynn, the witness was testifying in a murder trial for a Buffalo man who allegedly fatally stabbed someone on 7th Street in August 2018.

Edwin Vasquez, 26, was charged in that stabbing and later acquitted. 

Rodriguez is accused of approaching the key witness twice; once at a conference room and later on near the elevators. According to the prosecution, this all occurred while the witness was in the company of an investigator.

Flynn says the witness was verbally abused and he believes his witness altered their testimony because of that exchange with Rodriguez.

"The court officers immediately saw the ruckus going on, they came over, they separated everyone and then the witness/victim went back in the courtroom that afternoon to continue his testimony in the Vasquez case. His testimony was not the same as it was previously,” he said.

Flynn says his prosecution of Rodriguez is not a response to the verdict in the Vasquez case.

He clarified to Spectrum News that the witness tampering case was handed over to a grand jury 24 hours before the final verdict and acquittal in the murder trial came back.

If convicted, Rodriguez could face seven years in prison.