Nicholas Tartaglione sat in a Manhattan federal jail cell in 2019 as a man awaiting trial for four brutal murders. His cellmate was Jeffrey Epstein, the notorious sex trafficker whose death two weeks later would spawn a thousand conspiracy theories. Their time together would become a strange footnote in one of America's most scrutinized criminal cases, now resurfacing as fresh questions emerge about what really happened behind bars.
Tartaglione's own story is dark enough without Epstein. A retired police officer who became a cocaine dealer, the 49-year-old was charged with orchestrating one of the most methodical killings in recent memory. In April 2016, he allegedly lured four men to the Likquid Lounge in Chester, New York, including Martin Luna, a man Tartaglione believed had stolen $250,000 from him. Luna brought along two nephews and a family friend.
Prosecutors say Tartaglione forced one of Luna's nephews to watch as he beat and strangled Luna to death with a zip tie. The other three men, Miguel Luna, Urbano Santiago, and Hector Gutierrez, were taken to Tartaglione's animal sanctuary in Otisville, where they were forced to kneel and shot execution-style in the head. All four bodies were buried in a mass grave. A neighbor later said the property "smelled like death."
Tartaglione pleaded not guilty and claimed he'd been framed. Still, a jury in 2023 convicted him and sentenced him to four consecutive life sentences. His appeals lawyer now argues the evidence was flimsy: no murder weapon was recovered, no drug money or trafficking paraphernalia found, and Tartaglione's DNA was not detected on the zip tie prosecutors said he used.
But the murder trial became entangled with the Epstein story in ways neither man likely anticipated. While awaiting trial at the Metropolitan Corrections Center in Manhattan, Tartaglione and Epstein became cellmates and, according to later reports, "gotten along pretty well."
In July 2019, Epstein was found with injuries to his neck. Tartaglione immediately alerted guards. Initially, Epstein claimed Tartaglione had attacked him. He quickly retracted that accusation, and prison officials concluded it was a suicide attempt. Two weeks later, Epstein was found dead in his cell in what authorities ruled a suicide.
A note discovered inside a graphic novel in Tartaglione's cell appeared to be written by Epstein. Tartaglione claimed he didn't find it until four days after Epstein had been moved. The contents were oddly casual for a man contemplating death: "They investigated me for month FOUND NOTHING!!!" it began. "It is a treat to be able to choose one's time to say goodbye." The note referenced childhood memories, included "Watcha want me to do Bust out cryin!!" and ended with "NO FUN. NOT WORTH IT!!" underlined.
The note remained sealed until the New York Times petitioned a federal court in White Plains last week to release it. Its emergence has done nothing to quiet theories that Epstein was murdered rather than having taken his own life.
Mark Epstein, Jeffrey's younger brother, has long maintained his brother was killed in jail. He now claims the note is a forgery. He told Business Insider that the "bust out cryin" phrase is actually a reference to the Little Rascals TV show the brothers watched as children, and that the line also appears in Jeffrey's emails released by Congress. "They stole it from me to make it sound like it was him," he said.
Bruce Barket, Tartaglione's trial lawyer, dismissed such theories as far-fetched. Accessing Epstein's emails in 2019, six years before they were released by congressional order, would have been impossible for any forger, he pointed out. "There is no conspiracy," Barket said. "The idea that someone got to the 10th floor of a federal detention center and somehow snuck in, murder somebody, snuck out, and no one ever saw that person is kinda ridiculous."
Tartaglione himself has denied attacking Epstein and has made new claims through his communications with bloggers and podcasters. In a recent voice mail, he allegedly stated that Epstein offered him money to remain in their shared cell because "he felt safe with me." "If I wanted to hurt Jeffrey Epstein, I could have hurt Jeffrey Epstein," he reportedly said. "I didn't hurt Jeffrey Epstein. Jeffrey Epstein killed himself."
What remains clear is that Tartaglione's encounter with Epstein has become another tangled thread in his criminal case. His appeals lawyer, Inga Parsons, has pointed out that Tartaglione was prosecuted by Maurene Comey, who also handled cases against Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and Sean "Diddy" Combs. "Nick is retired law enforcement. He rescues animals. He is not a killer," Parsons said in a statement, arguing her client was unjustly convicted.
Barket, for his part, views the entire Epstein intersection as a distraction. "It's an unfortunate sequence of events," he said. "It didn't help him. But it led to a long hearing involving me and my firm about our conduct around the note. All things being equal, I would have taken a pass on all this."
Author James Rodriguez: "The Epstein-Tartaglione nexus is a masterclass in how one death spawns infinite conspiracies, while a cellmate's conviction gets buried under speculation that may belong anywhere but a courtroom."
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