By Tiffany Williams –
BRONX, N.Y. — A Bronx man will spend 20 years behind bars after prosecutors say he beat, pistol-whipped and fatally shot the husband of a woman he had been romantically involved with — just an hour after she ended the affair.
Pedro Mercado, 54, was sentenced Aug. 6 to 20 years in prison followed by five years of post-release supervision, according to Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark. A jury convicted Mercado in April of first-degree manslaughter and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
The deadly confrontation happened shortly after midnight Sept. 4, 2023, in a parking lot at 645 Westchester Avenue in the Bronx.
According to evidence presented at trial, Mercado beat, pistol-whipped and then shot Joshua Antonetti in the head.
Antonetti was rushed to NYC Health + Hospitals/Lincoln. He died the following day.
Behind the killing was a relationship that had ended just an hour earlier.
Prosecutors said Mercado had been dating Antonetti’s wife. Approximately one hour before the shooting, she broke off her relationship with Mercado.
“This defendant was unable to accept the fact that the victim’s wife had decided to end her affair with the defendant. In a fit of uncontrolled rage, he took the life of a man who was loved by his family,” Clark said.
Mercado’s case went before a jury, which convicted him April 17 of first-degree manslaughter and second-degree criminal possession of a weapon. Bronx Supreme Court Justice Margaret Clancy handed down the 20-year prison sentence.
The case was prosecuted by Assistant District Attorney Nicholas W. DiCostanzo of the Homicide Bureau and Assistant District Attorney Alfonso Nazzaro of Trial Bureau 50.
The Bronx District Attorney’s Office credited its detective investigators and other personnel for their work on the case, along with NYPD Detective Brian Destefano of the 40th Precinct Detective Squad and Detective Kevin Mockel of the Bronx Homicide Squad.