A quadruple murder trial begins for a former New York police officer
A federal jury in New York continues to hear testimony in the murder trial of a former suburban New York police officer accused of orchestrating the murders of four people
NEW YORK — A federal jury in New York has begun hearing testimony in the murder trial of a former New York police officer accused of orchestrating the murder of four people – one strangled to death with a zipped tie and three others shot in the manner of an execution – for money in a drug operation.
The four men were found buried at the property of former suburban New York police officer Nicholas Tartaglione, whose trial, which began on Thursday, is expected to last a month in US District Court in White Plains.
But defense lawyers claimed Tartaglione had nothing to do with the killings and was being used by the government as a scapegoat.
Tartaglione gained further notoriety as a former cellmate of Jeffrey Epstein, before the disgraced financier killed himself in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 while awaiting sex trafficking charges.
Prosecutors allege Tartaglione lured one of the victims, Martin Luna, to a bar because he believed Luna stole money intended for the purchase of cocaine.
The government says the other three victims – a friend and two of Luna’s nephews who had nothing to do with the drug operation – accompanied Luna to the bar. Luna was strangled with a zipper and then taken to the defendant’s ranch in Otisville, about 113 kilometers north of Manhattan.
The other three men were alive and bound when Tartaglione’s associates led them to the same property, where they were shot in the back of the neck. Prosecutors accuse Tartaglione of shooting one of the victims.
Investigators dug up the bodies in December 2016, about eight months after they were killed and buried.
Three of Tartaglione’s associates are expected to testify on behalf of the government, which defense attorneys say do so to curry favor with US prosecutors in their own cases. A fourth associate – also a former police officer – committed suicide.
Tartaglione retired from the Briarcliff Manor Police Department in 2008 after suffering an injury five years earlier.
ABC News
