A 30-year-old man has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for carjacking a New Jersey family in their driveway -- and threatening to kill their young daughter -- as they unloaded luggage from a Thanksgiving vacation last year.

Ahmed Anthony, of Newark, won't be eligible for parole for at least 12 years, prosecutors said in announcing his state prison sentence Monday. Anthony pleaded guilty in June to first-degree carjacking and second-degree kidnapping in the Nov. 27, 2017 attack on the family in Millburn. 

Authorities said at the time the family was unloading two vehicles early that day when Anthony and two unidentified co-conspirators ambushed the family. The mother and an older child had just gone inside, and the 13-year-old girl and her father were carrying luggage from their Range Rover toward the house.

Officials say Anthony grabbed the girl from behind, put her in a chokehold and dragged her back toward the Range Rover. Her father heard a man yell, "Give me your keys or I will kill your daughter," then turned and saw Anthony holding her around the neck. A second man walked up to the father with what appeared to be a handgun and demanded his money and keys to the Range Rover. The father handed the keys over, and the second man drove off.

At that point, Anthony, while still holding the daughter, demanded that the father get the keys to a second Range Rover parked in the driveway. The father went into the house and got the second set of keys. Once outside, the father turned over the keys and the daughter was released. 

Anthony took the girl’s suitcase and her blanket, prosecutors said. The father and daughter went into the house, where the father got a gun and went back outside. He confronted Anthony, who was in the second Range Rover and apparently having trouble starting the vehicle. The father pointed the gun at Anthony and ordered him to get onto the ground. Anthony got out, but fled into the street on foot and was picked up in a minivan driven by the third co-conspirator. The family was traumatized but not physically hurt. 

"No parent should have to endure the horror of having their child’s life threatened in front of them, and our hearts go out to the child who had to endure this traumatic experience," said Colonel Patrick Callahan of the New Jersey State Police said in a statement Monday.