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Grigoroff would be freed instead of facing third trial
A plea deal offered by the Putnam County district attorney on Tuesday (March 31) would free a former Lake Peekskill man twice convicted in the 2008 killing of Philipstown resident John Marcinak.
A state appeals court ruled in December that Anthony Grigoroff deserved a third trial after he had been convicted in 2010 and again in 2017 of shooting Marcinak at his business, Garrison Garage, on Route 9 on Dec. 31, 2008.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys met privately on Tuesday with Judge Joseph Spofford, then returned to the courtroom to announce a deal in which Grigoroff would plead guilty to second-degree attempted burglary rather than be tried for a third time for second-degree murder.
The maximum sentence for the burglary charge is seven years. Grigoroff, who has been imprisoned since 2010, would be sentenced to time served and released, said Bruce Barket, one of his attorneys. He said the defense team would consider the offer while he reviewed evidence recently shared by the DA's office. Spofford scheduled the next hearing for April 21.
The offer came three months after a state appeals court concluded that Judge Edward McLoughlin deprived Grigoroff of a fair trial in 2017, when a jury convicted him of killing Marcinak at a retrial. The only evidence presented by the prosecution was a confession by Grigoroff following what defense attorneys said was a 12-hour interrogation.
The appeals court found that McLoughlin, a Dutchess judge who had been assigned the case, erred by limiting testimony from an expert witness who determined that Grigoroff "is more vulnerable than the average person to falsely confessing."
That expert wanted to cite research from the Innocence Project, which at the time found that 25 percent of people exonerated through DNA evidence had confessed, along with another study by the University of Michigan Law School on the prevalence of false confessions, particularly by people with intellectual disabilities or mental illnesses.
But McLoughlin "improperly concluded that those studies were not relevant to the defendant and the interrogation" because the case did not involve DNA and despite Grigoroff having "an IQ lower than 93 percent of individuals in his age group," according to the decision. McLoughlin also allowed testimony from a prosecution witness that research on false confessions was "scant" and that studies of their nexus with "psychological vulnerabilities was a 'primitive subdiscipline.' "
The defense expert testified in a video recording played in court because McLoughlin ordered the trial to begin when the expert could not appear, noted the appeals judges. Because "the sole evidence is the defendant's confession and the crux of the defense was the testimony of an expert in false confessions … the errors had the cumulative effect of depriving the defendant of his due process right to a fair trial," according to the decision.
After the December ruling, the Putnam DA's office refiled second-degree murder and burglary charges against Grigoroff, who has been held at the county jail since being transferred from Sing Sing. Danielle Muscatello, another of Grigoroff's attorneys, said in January that two families have been victimized — the Marcinaks, "because I don't think they ever got the justice they deserved," and the Grigoroffs.
At the 2010 trial, a jury found Grigoroff guilty of second-degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon and attempted burglary. Judge James Reitz sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison.
In his statement to investigators, Grigoroff, then 19, said he drove to the Garrison Garage with his identical twin, Erick, and a friend, Byron Mountain, on Dec. 31, 2008, because the three men planned to rob the business to get a few hundred dollars to party in Manhattan on New Year's Eve. He insisted that it was Mountain who shot Marcinak while he waited in the car, and Erick served as a lookout. Grigoroff also alleges that inves...
A plea deal offered by the Putnam County district attorney on Tuesday (March 31) would free a former Lake Peekskill man twice convicted in the 2008 killing of Philipstown resident John Marcinak.
A state appeals court ruled in December that Anthony Grigoroff deserved a third trial after he had been convicted in 2010 and again in 2017 of shooting Marcinak at his business, Garrison Garage, on Route 9 on Dec. 31, 2008.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys met privately on Tuesday with Judge Joseph Spofford, then returned to the courtroom to announce a deal in which Grigoroff would plead guilty to second-degree attempted burglary rather than be tried for a third time for second-degree murder.
The maximum sentence for the burglary charge is seven years. Grigoroff, who has been imprisoned since 2010, would be sentenced to time served and released, said Bruce Barket, one of his attorneys. He said the defense team would consider the offer while he reviewed evidence recently shared by the DA's office. Spofford scheduled the next hearing for April 21.
The offer came three months after a state appeals court concluded that Judge Edward McLoughlin deprived Grigoroff of a fair trial in 2017, when a jury convicted him of killing Marcinak at a retrial. The only evidence presented by the prosecution was a confession by Grigoroff following what defense attorneys said was a 12-hour interrogation.
The appeals court found that McLoughlin, a Dutchess judge who had been assigned the case, erred by limiting testimony from an expert witness who determined that Grigoroff "is more vulnerable than the average person to falsely confessing."
That expert wanted to cite research from the Innocence Project, which at the time found that 25 percent of people exonerated through DNA evidence had confessed, along with another study by the University of Michigan Law School on the prevalence of false confessions, particularly by people with intellectual disabilities or mental illnesses.
But McLoughlin "improperly concluded that those studies were not relevant to the defendant and the interrogation" because the case did not involve DNA and despite Grigoroff having "an IQ lower than 93 percent of individuals in his age group," according to the decision. McLoughlin also allowed testimony from a prosecution witness that research on false confessions was "scant" and that studies of their nexus with "psychological vulnerabilities was a 'primitive subdiscipline.' "
The defense expert testified in a video recording played in court because McLoughlin ordered the trial to begin when the expert could not appear, noted the appeals judges. Because "the sole evidence is the defendant's confession and the crux of the defense was the testimony of an expert in false confessions … the errors had the cumulative effect of depriving the defendant of his due process right to a fair trial," according to the decision.
After the December ruling, the Putnam DA's office refiled second-degree murder and burglary charges against Grigoroff, who has been held at the county jail since being transferred from Sing Sing. Danielle Muscatello, another of Grigoroff's attorneys, said in January that two families have been victimized — the Marcinaks, "because I don't think they ever got the justice they deserved," and the Grigoroffs.
At the 2010 trial, a jury found Grigoroff guilty of second-degree murder, criminal possession of a weapon and attempted burglary. Judge James Reitz sentenced him to 25 years to life in prison.
In his statement to investigators, Grigoroff, then 19, said he drove to the Garrison Garage with his identical twin, Erick, and a friend, Byron Mountain, on Dec. 31, 2008, because the three men planned to rob the business to get a few hundred dollars to party in Manhattan on New Year's Eve. He insisted that it was Mountain who shot Marcinak while he waited in the car, and Erick served as a lookout. Grigoroff also alleges that inves...