Jury selection begins in quadruple murder case against former Briarcliff Manor police officer

More than six years after Nicholas Tartaglione's arrest, jury selection started Monday at White Plains federal courthouse.

News 12 Staff

Mar 13, 2023, 9:44 AM

Updated 649 days ago

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Jury selection is now happening in the quadruple murder case against former Briarcliff Manor Police officer Nicholas Tartagilone.
The 54-year-old is facing multiple charges for what prosecutors have called the "gangland-style" murders of four men.
The former Briarcliff Manor police officer is accused of being involved in a high-profile drug conspiracy and quadruple murder.
According to prosecutors, Tartaglione lured a man named Martin Luna to an Orange County bar run by Tartaglione's brother back in April of 2016. The meeting had to do with drug money Luna allegedly owed Tartaglione.
Authorities say Luna brought along three men, who were uninvolved with the drug deal.
All four men were reported missing after the meeting, and their bodies were eventually discovered eight months later at a property rented by Tartaglione near Otisville in Orange County.
Originally prosecutors were seeking the death penalty in this case, but this past summer officials from the U.S. Justice Department made the decision to take that off the table.
The move reportedly involved financier and accused sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein, who was Tartaglione's cellmate. Defense attorneys claim Tartaglione tried to help Epstein during his first suicide attempt in jail, but the video of that incident went missing. They say if a jury found Tartaglione guilty of death-eligible charges, that video could make a difference in sentencing.
He is now in federal lockup in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan.
Tartaglione faces life in prison if he is found guilty.
The trial is expected to last about a month.