A Haverstraw man awaiting trial in the 2022 fatal shooting of a Spring Valley teenager has been sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison for enticing a 14-year-old girl to send him naked images of herself while he was at the Rockland County jail.
In White Plains federal court on Tuesday, April 14, U.S. District Judge Vincent Briccetti sentenced 26-year-old Anthony Mitchell to 135 months in prison – essentially what the prosecution requested – and five years of post-release supervision. Mitchell had pleaded guilty just before going on trial in October 2025.
“Already incarcerated, Anthony Mitchell’s depravity extended beyond the walls of his cell as he continued to seek sick satisfaction from the sexual coercion and exploitation of a young teenage girl,” FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle Jr. said in a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office announcing the sentencing.
Mitchell is awaiting trial in the July 8, 2022, shooting of 17-year-old Treynahel Cineus in Spring Valley.
He and Darin Peterson were both at the Rockland County jail when they were charged in March 2023 with the sexual coercion and enticement of the same teenage girl.
According to prosecutors, in 2021 and 2022 Mitchell engaged in multiple sex acts with the girl, starting when she was 13, often making videos of the sexual activity. Once he was in jail on the murder charge he coaxed the girl to send him more images through Securus Technologies, the communications system used at the jail.
When she resisted, claiming it was too expensive to upload the material, he had people send her money. He also berated her multiple times when she did not follow through on his request for images, which often got her to comply.
Mitchell also detailed some of the sexual activity in phone calls with the victim from the jail with the victim.
“The depravity of the defendant’s conduct is plain,” prosecutors Kathryn Wheelock, Ben Arad and Jeffrey Coffman wrote in their sentencing memo. “For years, he preyed on a young girl in pursuit of his own sexual gratification.”
In a sentencing memo, Mitchell’s lawyers, Ezra Spilke and Leonardo Aldridge, urged Briccetti to impose a 10-year prison term and run it concurrent to any state prison term he might get if convicted in the Cineus killing.
“Anthony has accepted responsibility, expressed real remorse, and shown through years of conduct that he has the capacity to return to his family and to live productively,” the lawyers wrote.
Peterson began communicating with the girl when he was awaiting trial in the March 6, 2021, stabbing of two men – one of them, Caneggio Grant, who died – at the Oiso Restaurant in Blauvelt. He was acquitted of second-degree murder in 2023 but the jury hung on other charges, including manslaughter, and he is awaiting a retrial.
Peterson pleaded guilty to the federal enticement charge in November and is scheduled to be sentenced in June.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Haverstraw man who sexually coerced teen from Rockland jail sentenced
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
