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NEW YORK — A retired police officer convicted of murdering 4 individuals, together with a person he tortured and strangled over stolen drug cash, was sentenced Monday to 4 consecutive life phrases in jail.
Nicholas Tartaglione, 56, who had been an officer within the Hudson River Valley village of Briarcliff Manor, was convicted final yr. His case drew consideration each due to the brutality of the crime and since Tartaglione was briefly a cellmate of Jeffery Epstein, the politically related playboy who killed himself whereas awaiting trial on federal intercourse trafficking prices.
The person Tartaglione tortured was Martin Luna, who he believed had stolen $250,000 from him that was meant to purchase cocaine, prosecutors stated. The opposite three victims have been mates or household who occurred to be out at a membership with Luna when Tartaglione and two associates kidnapped them in 2016.
Prosecutors stated Urbano Santiago, Miguel Luna, and Hector Gutierrez have been compelled to look at as Tartaglione strangled Martin Luna with a zipper tie. Then, they have been killed by gunfire. Investigators discovered the our bodies of the 4 males buried collectively on Tartaglione’s property in Otisville, New York.
Tartaglione labored for varied suburban police departments earlier than retiring on incapacity from the Briarcliff Manor power in 2008, together with the departments in Yonkers, Pawling and Mount Vernon. Tartaglione has maintained his innocence, arguing at trial that he merely ran an animal rescue farm and wasn’t motivated by cash, in keeping with The Journal Information.
One in all 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 he pleaded responsible to killing one of many victims. Biggs described the killings 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 “important witness” within the ensuing suicide investigation. 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.
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