Former police officer will serve life in jail for overseeing the homicide of 4 folks in upstate New York
NEW YORK – A retired police officer convicted of murdering 4 folks, together with a person he tortured and strangled for stolen drug cash, was sentenced Monday to 4 consecutive life sentences in jail.
Nicholas Tartaglione, 56, who had been an officer within the Hudson River Valley village of Briarcliff Manor, was convicted final 12 months. His case drew consideration each for the brutality of the crime and since Tartaglione was briefly a cellmate of Jeffery Epstein, the politically linked playboy who dedicated suicide whereas awaiting trial on federal intercourse trafficking expenses.
The person Tartaglione tortured was Martin Luna, who he believed had stolen $250,000 from him supposed to purchase cocaine, prosecutors mentioned. The opposite three victims had been associates or members of the family who had been at a membership with Luna when Tartaglione and two associates kidnapped them in 2016.
Prosecutors mentioned Urbano Santiago, Miguel Luna and Héctor Gutiérrez had been compelled to look at as Tartaglione strangled Martín Luna with a zipper tie. Then, they had been shot to dying. Investigators discovered the our bodies of the 4 males buried collectively on Tartaglione's property in Otisville, New York.
Tartaglione labored for a number of suburban police departments earlier than retiring on incapacity from the Briarcliff Manor pressure in 2008, together with departments in Yonkers, Pawling and Mount Vernon. Tartaglione has maintained his innocence, arguing at trial that he merely ran an animal rescue farm and that he was not motivated by cash, based on The Journal Information.
One in every of his alleged accomplices within the murders shot himself in his automotive in 2017 as FBI brokers ready to arrest him. One other man, Joseph Biggs, was sentenced to 16 years in jail after pleading responsible to the homicide of one of many victims. Biggs described the murders as a witness at Tartaglione's trial.
Tartaglione was not Epstein's cellmate on the time of his dying, however his lawyer claimed he was a “crucial witness” within the suicide investigation that adopted. He had shared a cell with Epstein weeks earlier, in 2019, when the rich financier was found with bruises on his neck after which positioned on suicide watch.