New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services/Reuters
A retired police officer who once shared a cell with Jeffrey Epstein is facing life in prison after being convicted Thursday of the murders of four men. Nicholas Tartaglione, who left New York’s Briarcliff Manor Police Department in 2008, was found guilty of the brutal 2015 killings of Martin Luna, Luna’s two nephews, and a family friend. Prosecutors said Tartaglione—who had allegedly run an illegal drug operation—suspected Luna of stealing money from him. Luna was then lured to a bar and, not knowing he was going to his death, brought his relatives and a friend with him. At the ambush, Tartaglione tortured Luna, forcing one of his nephews to watch, before strangling Luna with a zip-tie, prosecutors said. “Mr. 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,” Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement. After his arrest in 2016, Tartaglione shared a cell with disgraced financier Epstein and alerted guards to a suicide attempt by Epstein in July 2019, a month before Epstein took his life.
