A federal jury in New York started listening to testimony within the homicide trial of a former New York police officer accused of masterminding the killing of 4 folks — one strangled to demise with a zipper tie and three others shot execution-style — over cash in a drug operation.
All 4 males have been discovered buried on the property of the previous suburban New York police officer, Nicholas Tartaglione, whose trial, which started Thursday, is predicted to final a month in U.S. District Court docket in White Plains.
However protection attorneys asserted that Tartaglione had nothing to do with the killings and was being utilized by the federal government as a handy fall man.
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Tartaglione gained additional notoriety as a former cellmate of Jeffrey Epstein, earlier than the disgraced financier dedicated suicide in a Manhattan jail cell in August 2019 whereas awaiting sex-trafficking costs.
Prosecutors contend that Tartaglione lured one of many victims, Martin Luna, to a bar as a result of he believed Luna had stolen cash meant for the acquisition of cocaine.
The federal government says the three different victims — a good 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 tie then taken to the defendant’s ranch in Otisville, about 70 miles north of Manhattan.
RETIRED NY POLICE OFFICER CHARGED WITH KILLING FOUR MEN IN DRUG DEAL
The three different males have been alive and certain when Tartaglione’s associates drove them to the identical property, the place they have been shot behind the top. Prosecutors accuse Tartaglione of capturing one of many victims.
Investigators dug up the our bodies in December 2016, about eight months after they have been killed and buried.
Three of Tartaglione’s associates are anticipated to testify on behalf of the federal government, who protection attorneys contend are doing so to achieve favor with U.S. prosecutors in their very own instances. A fourth affiliate — additionally a former police officer — killed himself.
Tartaglione retired from the Briarcliff Manor Police Division in 2008 after struggling an damage 5 years earlier.
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