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Late in 2016, Tartaglione, a former Briarcliff Manor police officer, was charged in a five-count indictment for his participation in a drug conspiracy to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine and for the murders of four men, all of whom lived in Middletown.
Prosecutors will be seeking the death penalty when his case heads to trial, according to a lohud report. Tartaglione’s defense team reportedly called the motion “outrageous.”
According to the indictment that was filed in White Plains Federal Court, Tartaglione killed Martin Luna, 41, Urbano Santiago, 32, Miguel Luna, 25, and Hector Gutierrez, 43, at the Likquid Lounge - a bar that his brother reportedly managed for a time in the town of Chester in Orange County - when a cocaine deal went badly involving at least one of the victims.
It is further alleged that Tartaglione then drove with the bodies for approximately a half hour from the bar in Chester to his farm in Otisville, also in Orange. Four bodies would be removed from his property the day after he was arrested.
According to court papers, in 1999, Tartaglione was charged with perjury and official misconduct after testifying in court at a DMV license revocation hearing for a friend. Tartaglione was ultimately acquitted at trial, but fired by the village.
In 2003, he sued to get his job back and received more than $300,000 in back pay. He retired from the force in 2008 on disability with a reported annual pension of $65,000.
Tartaglione also had an ongoing legal battle with the late Clay Tiffany, an Ossining resident who hosted the popular public-access TV show, “Dirge For The Charlatans,” sued the village of Briarcliff Manor multiple times, claiming that Tartaglione assaulted him.
Tartaglione had worked as a police officer in Pawling, Mount Vernon and Yonkers prior to Briarcliff Manor.
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