Second conviction overturned in Marcinak death

A state appeals court ordered a second retrial of a former Lake Peekskill man twice convicted in the 2008 killing of Philipstown resident John Marcinak at his business on Route 9.

In a ruling issued Dec. 31, the state Appellate Division said Judge Edward McLoughlin deprived Anthony Grigoroff of a fair trial in 2017, when a second jury convicted him of murdering Marcinak, 49. A lifelong Philipstown resident and owner of the Garrison Garage, where he operated a towing service, Marcinak was shot on the morning of New Year's Eve.

His body was found close to the road, and first responders initially thought he had been struck by a car. But doctors at the Hudson Valley Hospital Center found multiple gunshot wounds.

Known as "Johnny," Marcinak grew up in Garrison and attended O'Neill High School in Highlands Falls. He inherited the towing business from his late father, also named John. He was survived by his wife, Janet, and three children: Julie, then 14, John, 9, and Joey, 8. Marcinak was buried at Cold Spring Cemetery.

Janet Jonigan, his widow, called the granting of a third trial "shameful and ridiculous" in an emailed statement. "My husband didn't get any chances when he was ambushed, shot multiple times and left to die on the sidewalk," said Jonigan, who has remarried. "Two juries have come to the same conclusion and I have no doubt the district attorney will secure another conviction."

Grigoroff, whose first conviction in 2010 was also overturned, did not get a fair retrial in 2017, according to the appeals court, because McLoughlin limited testimony from an expert witness who considered the defendant "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 from 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 an evaluation determining that Grigoroff had "an IQ lower than 93 percent of individuals in his age group," according to the decision. McLoughlin also allowed a prosecution expert to testify that research on false confessions "is scant" and that studies of their nexus with "psychological vulnerabilities was a 'primitive subdiscipline.' "

Grigoroff's expert had to testify via a video recording played in court because McLoughlin ordered the trial to begin when the expert could not appear in person, 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.

Robert Tendy, Putnam County's district attorney, said on Jan. 2 that he disagreed with the appeals court, but "we are bound by the decision and are already in the process of getting the case ready for retrial."

Danielle Muscatello, an attorney who has represented Grigoroff in both appeals, said on Monday (Jan. 5), that two families have been victimized — the Marcinaks, "because I don't think they ever got the justice they deserved," and the Grigoroffs.

"The first two trials have not been fair, and if they do want to retry him a third time, we hope that this one will be fair and that we'll finally get to bring him home," she said.

At the first 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 December 2010.

Grigoroff, then 18, said he drove to the garage with his identical twin, Erick, and a friend, Byro...