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Baseball: Man who injured UL player accused of crashing into family on bikes
Jacob Paul Raffray, 44, the Duson man who caused a 1998 crash that left UL Lafayette baseball player Eric Searcy paralyzed for life, has missed three court dates for allegedly slamming his truck into a Vermilion Parish family riding bicycles on Father’s Day in 2013. Court records show Raffray had trouble with the law before the 1998 crash that left Searcy paralyzed and since he was released from prison for causing that crash. Raffray had pleaded guilty to battery on a police officer, entering and remaining after being forbidden, resisting arrest, unauthorized use of a movable, simple battery/domestic violence (two counts), possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, and disturbing the peace. He also had been arrested at least three times for operating while under the influence. His third OWI was reduced to a second offense OWI. In June of 1998, witnesses said Raffray had been drinking for hours before he drove through a red light at the intersection of Ambassador Caffery Parkway and Johnston Street, slamming his truck into a car in which Searcy, a University of Louisiana at Lafayette baseball player, was a passenger. The crash left Searcy paralyzed and another passenger with serious injuries. Raffray abandoned his truck at the scene and fled. He was captured 12 hours later and still had alcohol in his system but it was within the legal range. Lafayette Parish court records show he pleaded guilty to felony hit-and-run, three counts of first-degree negligent injury and one count of negligent injury. In October 1999, Raffray entered the Louisiana Department of Corrections system to serve a 10-year sentence, the maximum allowed for the charges. After serving only four years at various correctional facilities — Lafayette, Claiborne Parish, LaSalle, J. Levy Dabadie Correctional Center and Lafayette Community Corrections Transitional Work Program — he was released in September 2003 to good time parole supervision, according to Pam LaBorde, communication director for the LDOC. But by 2006, Raffray had "absconded supervision" and was returned to jail in Lafayette and St. Martin parishes from August 2006 until April 2009 to finish out his sentence, she said. He completed parole supervision this time in November 2011. Less than two years later, on June 16, 2013, Father’s Day, a family of five was riding bikes on Leon Road in Vermilion Parish when, one of them recalled in news reports at the time, a truck came around a curve, fishtailed and accelerated, hitting three of the bicyclists, including a 7-year-old boy. Raffray was charged with two felony counts of first-degree negligent injury (vehicular), careless operation, no insurance and expired license plate. In May 2014, Raffray didn’t show up in court for his arraignment. He also failed to show for court appearances in August 2014 and May 2015, Vermilion Parish court records show. He was picked up by Scott Police on Dec. 8 for Vermilion Parish, Lafayette Parish arrest records show. Raffray is scheduled for arraignment in Vermilion Parish on Jan. 7 on the two negligent injury charges and a charge of possession of drug paraphernalia, according to court records.
Eric Searcy, shown in this 2011 Daily Advertiser file photo, was paralyzed when Jacob Raffray ran a red light and struck the vehicle Searcy was riding in. (Photo: Advertiser file photo)
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Claire Taylor
