Death penalty prosecution planned for man charged in Chester quadruple homicide

By Jim Mustian
CHESTER — Federal prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against a former suburban New York police officer charged in the kidnapping and killing of four men in Chester.
The former Briarcliff Manor police officer, Nicholas Tartaglione, is charged in what authorities described as the “gangland-style" killings of four men from Middletown who disappeared during a cocaine-related dispute at the former Likquid Lounge in Chester's Quickway Plaza on Brookside Avenue.
The Likquid Lounge was at the time owned by Michael Tartaglione, Nicholas Tartaglione’s brother.
The decision to pursue the death penalty, announced in court this week, marks the second capital prosecution announced by the Southern District of New York in the past six months and comes as federal prosecutors around the country are seeking the death penalty more frequently.
Prosecutors say their bodies were found buried on an Otisville property linked to Tartaglione. Authorities have said that one of the men appeared to be involved in a drug conspiracy but that some of the victims “were just in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Prosecutors are expected to outline their reasons for seeking capital punishment against Tartaglione in a court filing in the coming days. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office confirmed the decision, which had been several months in the making.
Tartaglione's defense attorney, Bruce Barket, said he was “extraordinarily disappointed" in the government's decision. The capital case, he said, could cost taxpayers “millions and millions of dollars" and is not appropriate, given the uncertainty of the evidence.
“In the best light for the government, it's unclear who did what to whom," Barket told The Associated Press, adding his client maintains his innocence. “You run the real possibility of executing somebody here for crimes that other people committed."
New York state no longer has the death penalty, but Tartaglione is eligible for the punishment because he was charged with the killings in federal court.
The U.S. Justice Department has sought the death penalty in more and more cases under President Donald Trump, an avid supporter of capital punishment, after a near moratorium on such prosecutions in President Barack Obama's last term.
In September, federal prosecutors in New York announced they would seek the death penalty against a man charged with using a truck to kill eight people on a New York City bike path.
Bodies recovered 8 months laterTartaglione was charged in December 2016 with killing Martin Sosa-Luna, 41, Urbano Morales-Santiago, 32, Miguel Sosa-Luna, 25, and Hector Gutierrez, 43, and in participating in a conspiracy to distribute at least five kilograms of cocaine, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The four victims were last seen parking at the Chester Diner on April 18, 2016. Their bodies were recovered eight months later from a 149-acre farm on Old Mountain Road in Otisville, where Tartaglione was a tenant.
The bodies were transported to the Orange County Medical Examiner's office for autopsies and DNA tests, which found that three of the victims were found to have been killed by gunshot wounds to the head, while the fourth victim was found to be killed by “homicidal violence of undetermined etiology.”
The case has been investigated by the FBI, state police, and Village of Chester police.
Related storiesPlease see these related stories at chroniclenewspaper.com:
"School security guard charged in connection with Chester quadruple homicide"
"Ex-police officer charged in quadruple murders at Likquid Lounge"