Nicholas Tartaglione (CBS New York screengrab)
A steroid-selling former police officer and onetime cellmate of Jeffrey Epstein was found guilty Thursday in the drug and debt-related execution murders of four Mexican men in April 2016.
Nicholas Tartaglione, a 55-year-old former Briarcliff Manor Police Department officer who reportedly retired after an injury in 2008, was convicted of luring Martin Luna to a meeting in 2015. Luna, 41, traveled to bar with his 25- and 35-year-old nephews Miguel Luna and Urbano Santiago, and his friend Hector Gutierrez, 43. Martin Luna was strangled in front of his family members and friend. Thereafter, the three remaining victims were taken to Tartaglione’s Otisville, N.Y., property. shot in the back of the head, and buried in a “mass grave.”
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a statement that the drug-dealing Tartaglione ruthlessly murdered “beloved fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons” after suspecting Martin Luna had stolen money meant to buy cocaine.
Pictured: The four men Nicholas Tartaglione was convicted of murdering (CBS New York screengrab)
“Tartaglione then devised a scheme to confront Martin at a meeting. Unaware he was being lured into a deadly trap, Martin tragically brought his two nephews — Miguel and Urbano — and a family friend — Hector — to the meeting. What occurred next could only be described as pure terror, as Tartaglione tortured Martin, then forced one of his nephews to watch as Tartaglione strangled Martin to death with a zip-tie,” the top prosecutor said. “Tartaglione and two of his associates then transported Miguel, Urbano, and Hector — who were simply at the wrong place at the wrong time — to a remote wooded location, forced them to kneel, and executed them with gunshots to the back of the head.”
“Tartaglione then buried all four victims in a mass grave. Tartaglione’s heinous acts represent a broader betrayal, as he was a former police officer who once swore to protect the very community he devastated,” Williams added. “Today, a jury has found Tartaglione guilty of these heinous acts, sending a message that no one is above the law.”
In closing, Williams thanked investigators on the lengthy case and thanked the victims’ families for their trust, even though Tartaglione betrayed the badge and the public.
The case against Tartaglione has been in and out of the news since July 2019, when the former cop was jailed alongside Jeffrey Epstein.
The government formally acknowledged Tartaglione was Epstein’s cellmate after Epstein’s first reported suicide attempt. The DOJ memorably informed Tartaglione’s lawyer that video from outside the cell that July 2019 “no longer exists.”
Two weeks later and despite an “explicit directive” that he have a cellmate, Epstein died alone at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in what was ruled a suicide.
After the first hanging attempt, Tartaglione said he actually alerted jail staff and saved Epstein. His lawyer Bruce Barket commented in media that he was “pleased” to learn the video from the night in question was “preserved” (it wasn’t). The lawyer also said Tartaglione and Epstein became “friends” despite not being cellmates for very long.
“They became more than cordial,” Barket told the New York Daily News at the time. “In the short time they were together, they became friends.”
Now in 2023, Barket is still representing Tartaglione and insists that his client was wrongly convicted.
“Mr. Tartaglione won’t stop fighting until he gains his freedom,” he told NBC News. “This didn’t end here, it just moves to the next phase, the appellate courts.”
CBS New York reported that Tartaglione’s trial in White Plains lasted three weeks and that deliberations spanned two days. In a segment on the conviction, CBS noted that Tartaglione’s team pointed to the alleged involvement of fellow bodybuilders and enforcers Joseph Biggs and ex-cop Gerard Benderoth in an attempt to create reasonable doubt in the case.
The Rockland/Westchester Journal News reported that Biggs testified at trial against Tartaglione; Benderoth died by suicide in 2017 as the FBI closed in.
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