Accused Lake Peekskill Murderer Granted 3rd Retrial

By Holly Crocco

A former Lake Peekskill man who was convicted in 2010 and again in 2017 of the murder of a Philipstown man, and attempted burglary of his business, has again had his conviction overturned and will receive a second retrial in Putnam County Court.

On Nov. 25, the New York State Supreme Court Appellate Division reversed the 2017 conviction of Anthony Grigoroff, who is accused of killing John Marcinak, 49, on Dec. 31, 2008, outside the Garrison Garage on Route 9, which Marcinak owned.

Marcinak was found dead on the side of the road on New Year’s Eve day of 2008, an assumed victim of a hit-and-run accident. However, bullet holes were discovered on his body.

According to news reports, Marcinak grew up in Garrison, attended O’Neill High School in Highlands Falls, and left behind three children.

According to the ruling, on May 1, 2009, an 18-year-old Grigoroff was removed from the Putnam County Correctional Facility in Carmel where he was serving a six-month sentence for a misdemeanor and brought to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office (at the same location) where, over the course of a 12-hour interrogation, he was interviewed by multiple teams of police investigators.

During that time he gave statements indicating that he, his twin brother, and a man named Byron Mountain parked in the lot outside the garage with the intent of burglarizing it. He claimed that while he remained in the vehicle for 5 to 10 minutes and his brother served as a lookout, Mountain was walking around the side of the building when a tow truck pulled in and the operator (later identified as Marcinak) exited and confronted the burglar.

Mountain pulled a gun from his waistband and shot Marcinak, according to Grigoroff.

Despite his claims, on June 9, 2009, Grigoroff was arrested and charged with murder. Neither his brother nor Mountain was charged with any crime relating to the incident.

Following a jury trial in 2010, he was convicted of second-degree murder and two counts of second-degree attempted burglary, among other charges. On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed the conviction and ordered a new trial, noting “the testimony of the law enforcement officials indicated that the police utilized deceptive techniques during the course of the defendant’s interrogation” to coerce a confession.

Following a new jury trial, Grigoroff was again convicted of murder and attempted burglary. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

However, according to the recent decision: “The defendant contends that his conviction, which was based solely on his confession, was against the weight of the evidence. In fulfilling our responsibility to conduct an independent review of the weight of the evidence, we nevertheless accord great deference to the jury’s opportunity to view the witnesses, hear the testimony, and observe demeanor. Upon reviewing the record here, we are satisfied that the verdict of guilt was not against the weight of the evidence.”

The decision further states that Grigoroff was denied a fair trial.

“As in the first trial, the sole evidence linking the defendant with the crimes at issue was his confession, which he attempted to repudiate, arguing that promises made by the police rendered his statements involuntary by creating a substantial risk that the defendant might falsely incriminate himself,” it reads.

In the first trial there was no expert testimony regarding the defendant’s susceptibility to providing false confessions. In the second, Grigoroff retained an expert in the field of disputed confessions who conducted a psychological evaluation of him and concluded that he “is more vulnerable than the average person to falsely confessing.”

Following the 2017 trail, the Appeals Court ruled that the scope of the expert’s testimony was limited by precluding the mention of a study by the Innocence Project, which found that of the more than 300 people who had been, at the time, exonerated by DNA, approximately 25 percent of those people had confessed; and people with mental illness or intellectual disability were overrepresented in those who had done so.

“Here, the court improperly concluded that those studies were not relevant to the defendant and the interrogation before the court, as this case did not involve DNA evidence and a study related to those with mental illness or intellectual disability was not germane.”

Putnam County District Attorney Robert Tendy reacted to the ruling, stating, “We have read the decision, and while we don’t agree with the legal analysis, we are bound by the decision and are already in the process of getting the case ready for re-trial.”