Staff Bios

Select a staff member's name to read their bio.

Erik Mercer Alan Rosenthal Nancy Tricamo Ann Usborne

Erik Mercer

Erik Mercer is a graduate of the Hunter College School of Social Work where he received his M.S.W. and received post-graduate training at the Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy. Mr. Mercer began his career working with homeless youth and served as the Clinical Director of a residence for HIV positive, homeless youth. In 2001, he joined CCA as a mitigation specialist. Since that time, Mr. Mercer has provided extensive sentencing advocacy on both the state and federal level. In addition, he has been the primary mitigator on numerous capital cases.

emercer@communityalternatives.org

Alan Rosenthal, Esq.

Alan Rosenthal is a criminal defense and civil rights attorney with over 30 years of experience. A graduate of Syracuse University College of Law he has litigated cases involving police misconduct and violations of civil rights in both jails and prisons. He is currently the Director of Justice Strategies, the research, training and policy initiative of the Center for Community Alternatives. As the Director of Justice Strategies he has supervised and provided mitigation services in capital cases for the past five years. He has lectured on such topics as “Race and the Criminal Justice System,” “Police Misconduct Litigation,” “Collateral Consequences of Criminal Convictions,” “Sentencing Advocacy and Mitigation,” “Reentry and Reintegration,” and “Understanding the Interplay Between Sentencing and Department of Correctional Services Programs,” He authored the CCA publication Sentencing for Dollars, a tool for criminal defense lawyers to use when reviewing the financial consequences of a criminal conviction, and a working paper, Unlocking the Potential of Reentry and Reintegration. He has presented training for lawyers for both the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and New York State Defenders Association on sentencing, sentencing advocacy, mitigation, the collateral consequences of criminal convictions, Rockefeller Drug Law Reform, and ethics.

arosenthal@communityalternatives.org

Nancy Tricamo

Nancy Tricamo, LCSW, is a graduate of New York University's School of Social Work and has been a master’s level social worker for sixteen years. She also completed four years of psychoanalytic training in 1998. Ms. Tricamo's experience in social work includes working at The Legal Aid Society's Juvenile Rights Division, directing a program for women with AIDS, serving as Clinical Director of program for homeless street-involved youth, and, for the last six years, being a Mitigation/Sentencing Specialist for the Client Specific Planning program at CCA. Additionally, Ms. Tricamo is a Faculty Advisor for students in the School of Social Work at New York University. During her tenure at CCA, Ms. Tricamo has prepared numerous pre-pleading and pre-sentence reports for state and federal defendants, and has been the sole mitigation specialist on 28 capital cases.

ntricamo@communityalternatives.org

Ann Usborne

Prior to joining the CSP staff at CCA in 2000, Ann worked as a Probation Officer for the States of New York and Massachusetts for fifteen years. While employed as a Probation Officer, she was responsible for the supervision of individuals and for completing court-ordered pre-sentencing reports. Ms. Usborne also coordinated both a county Youth Court Program and an Alternatives to Violence Program (in the community and in two maximum security state prison facilities). Since her employment with CCA, Ann has participated in mitigation training and death penalty mitigation training provided by NLADA and NASA. She has provided sentencing and capital mitigation services on numerous state and federalcriminal cases. Ms. Usborne is currently the Project Director for CCA’s Client Specific Planning program in Syracuse.

ausborne@communityalternatives.org