A high-risk Hudson Valley sex offender killed a man at the site of a former popular local bar.

On Thursday in Orange County Court, 53-year-old Wilfredo Mercado of Newburgh was sentenced to 21 years in prison in connection with the May 2017 stabbing death inside a temporary emergency housing facility in the City of Newburgh.

Mercado pleaded guilty to murder in Septemeber 2018. He confessed he killed 61-year-old Robert Munson on May 23, 2017. Munson was found murdered inside 44 Grand Street, the former site of a popular Newburgh bar, Pineapple Larry’s.

At the time of the murder, the building was operated by Youth Advocate Programs, Inc. Which offers transitional life skills training to homeless men, including some formally incarcerated people. Munson was a YAP advocate since 2014 and worked the overnight shift.

“This defendant clearly deserves the more than two-decade long state prison sentence he will serve for this particularly violent murder of a man who worked to help those who required assistance,” Orange County District Attorney David Hoovler said in a press release. “Those who kill by committing senseless violent acts deserve lengthy prison sentences, whether or not they used a firearm."

According to the New York State Sex Offender’s Database, Mercado, a Level-3 Sex Offender, raped a 25-year-old woman in Orange County in 1991. He was convicted in 1997 and sentenced to four to nine years in prison. Level-3 sex offenders are considered to have the highest risk of a repeat offense and are considered the greatest risk to the public.

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