Nicholas Tartaglione Biography

Nicholas Tartaglione is a former New York police officer turned drug dealer who was charged with killing four men in Orange County and is facing the death penalty. On July 25, 2019, he was questioned in relation to Jeffrey Estein’s ‘suicide attempt’. It was reported that on the morning of July 25 Jeffrey Epstein was found injured in his jail cell in New York City after trying to hang himself.

Nicholas Tartaglione Age

Nicholas is 51 years old as of 2019.

Nicholas Tartaglione Wife

Nicholas is married but there are no details available about his wife.

Nicholas Tartaglione Career – Nicholas Tartaglione Police Officer

Nicholas began his career as a law enforcement agent in the 1990s for Mount Vernon and Pawling Police departments. In 1996 he joined the Briarcliff Manor Police department.

In 1999 he was suspended following his arrest on perjury charges. He was accused by Westchester prosecutors of lying at a Department of Motor Vehicles hearing regarding a drunk-driving arrest he had made. He was acquitted at trial but the village fired him on departmental charges.

In 2003 he sued to get his job back with $320,000 in back pay. He claimed that authorities concocted the perjury allegation as a way to remove him from the force, but his wrongful arrest lawsuit against the village and District Attorney’s Office was dismissed.

In October 2008 he retired from the police with an annual pension of $65,176.

Nicholas Tartaglione Animal Rescue

Tartaglione was also involved in animal rescue helping parents who ran a dog-grooming business, Dapper Dog, in Nyack, New York. He was rescuing horses and dogs on a 65-acre property he recently bought in Orange County.

Nicholas Tartaglione Murder Charges

On December 19, 2016, Tartaglione was arrested and accused of killing Martin Luna, Urbano Santiago, Miguel Luna, and Hector Gutierrez in and around the Likquid Lounge, a bar his brother operated in Chester. The federal prosecutors alleged that the killings were a part of a drug conspiracy as he was also charged with conspiracy to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine.

On December 20, the bodies of the four men were found on the property that Tartaglione had rented in Otisville in Orange County. The four men had gone missing on April 11, they were last seen entering Likquid Lounge, a bar owned by Tartaglione’s brother.

On June 1, 2017 Joseph Biggs, a Nanuet resident and security guard for the Greenburgh-Graham school district in Hastings-on-Hudson, was arrested in the case. He and Tartaglione were charged in a 17-count superseding indictment, which added firearms and kidnapping charges to the murder and drug conspiracy charges.

A brief appearance in White Plains federal court on September 19, 2017, revealed that prosecutors believed Tartaglione was not present when three of the men were killed in April 2016. Prosecutors had said that Tartaglione and Biggs are believed to have lured Martin Luna to Likquid Lounge because he owed money from a drug operation and that Luna brought the other three men, who were not involved in the narcotics ring.

Martina Luna’s death was ruled a homicide, but a specific manner of death was unclear. The other three men were shot, but not in the presence of Tartaglione, according to prosecutors, who believed then that all four men were killed at the bar.

Nicholas Tartaglione Assault

Tartaglione was assaulted at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, where he has been held since his arrest, on February 28, 2018, and his lawyer said he suffered a fractured eye-socket bone which needed reconstructive surgery.

Nicholas Tartaglione and Jeffrey Epstein

On July 25, 2019, Nicholas was questioned about Jeffrey Epstein’s injuries after Epstein was found nearly unconscious and sprawled on the floor of his cell in the Metropolitan Correctional Center on Tuesday, July 23 with injuries on his neck.

The investigators suspected that Epstein was assaulted in a Lower Manhattan lockup and questioned Tartaglione, who was wearing earbuds when investigators went to question him about the incident.

Tartaglione claimed he had nothing and wasn’t responsible for Epstein’s injuries. Earlier in the month, it was revealed that Epstein was being housed in the “10 South” unit, a block of six cells known as the “terror wing” because it’s where the city’s most dangerous federal inmates, including alleged terrorists, are held.

Bruce Barket, Tartaglione’s defense lawyer, had said that Epstein and Tartaglione were being housed “in the same unit and doing well.”

After the claims that Tartaglione could have been involved in Epstein’s injury Barket said in a statement that it was a fabrication.

“Any suggestion that Mr. Tartaglione assaulted anyone is a complete fabrication.”

He also accused the authorities of trying to “retaliate against Mr. Tartaglione for complaining to the court about the deplorable conditions at the MCC.”

“We made those complaints on Monday in open court. We warned the judge that officials at the jail would retaliate against Nick because we have been exposing the inhumane conditions at the facility.”

Epstein was taken to hospital where he received treatment and has since been taken back to jail and placed on suicide watch. A source told the New York Post that “authorities are leaning away from the idea that the convicted pedophile did it to himself, either to commit suicide or merely get transferred out of the infamous Metropolitan Correctional Center”

Nicholas Tartaglione Death Penalty

Tartaglione Could Be the 1st Person Executed on Federal Crimes in New York Since 1953. This is after it was announced in March 2019 that prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against him.

At the time his lawyer said; “Unfortunate, despicable, unnecessary, unjust, egregious, thoughtless, pointless; those are all words that came to my mind.”

He also added that Tartaglione had taken the news of the decision “pretty well, all things considered… He’s more concerned about the time, the extra time it will take. He’s focused like we all are on the first part of the trial.”