Jonathan Bandler and Matt Spillane

The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — FBI agents Wednesday continued to put together their case against a former New York police officer accused of killing four men after a drug deal went bad, as their search led them to a 65-acre farm he owned.

The men disappeared April 11 and authorities now believe they were killed that day at a Chester, N.Y., bar owned by Nicholas Tartaglione’s brother. On Tuesday, the day after Nicholas Tartaglione pleaded not guilty in federal court, the bodies of the four men were discovered at an Otisville, N.Y., property where Tartaglione had lived.

According to Orange County, N.Y., land records, Tartaglione bought the farm that was searched Wednesday for $450,000 in September.

Tartaglione, who had retired on disability, had told The (Westchester County, N.Y.) Journal News in recent months that he was trying to return to work as a police officer. He complained a number of times that he was unfairly denied employment because he was able to work. But his employment history was apparently so toxic that Briarcliff Manor went four years without hiring any police officers after he was cleared to come out of retirement and a state directive put him at the top of the Civil Service list.

4 bodies found at property of retired N.Y. cop

He still held out hope in recent months that another police department might hire him.

Now, the 49-year-old Yonkers, N.Y., native is charged in a five-count indictment for conspiracy to distribute at least 5 kilograms of cocaine and "the senseless murder" of the four men, which was part of that conspiracy, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. Tartaglione and others had allegedly conspired to sell cocaine from June 2015 to April 2016, prosecutors said.

Martin Luna, Urbano Santiago, Miguel Luna and Hector Gutierrez were killed in and around a bar called the Likquid Lounge in Chester as part of that drug activity, officials said. Authorities have said that one or two may have been involved in drug activity but that the others were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

On Wednesday morning at his home in Yonkers, Nicholas Tartaglione Sr. refused to comment about his son's arrest or the recovery of the bodies. He did say his other son, Michael, had not been implicated in the slayings and was no longer affiliated with the bar.

The ex-cop is charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute 5 kilograms or more of cocaine, and four counts of murder in furtherance of a conspiracy to distribute 5 kilograms or more of cocaine.

He is being held at the Westchester County Jail. A federal magistrate judge has issued a medical directive to jail officials that Tartaglione needs to continue receiving "suboxin to treat opioids," according to court records.

Career marked by scandal

Tartaglione’s law enforcement career followed an unconventional arc and was marked by scandal and allegations of brutality.

In February 1993, at the age of 25, he was hired by the Mount Vernon Police Department. Mayor Ronald Blackwood, wary of the badge-drain that had cost the department more than three dozen young officers in the previous six years, urged Tartaglione and five other recruits at their swearing in not to use the department as a stepping stone to better jobs elsewhere.

But a year later, Tartaglione transferred out to join the Yonkers Police Department. He wasn’t there long, either. In September 1994, he became a part-time officer in Pawling. Three months later, Pawling hired him full-time.

In April 1996 he resigned and a month later he was hired in Briarcliff Manor.

Tartaglione was one of four ex-police officers who sued Pawling and several officials in 1997, alleging retaliation for their efforts to form a police union. He claimed he was essentially forced to resign when officials suggested to him that his position was going to be eliminated. His claims were dismissed by a federal judge.

In 1999, Briarcliff Manor officials suspended Tartaglione after his arrest on perjury charges accusing him of lying at a Department of Motor Vehicles hearing about a drunk-driving arrest he had made. He was acquitted in the criminal case but still fired on departmental charges. The village was forced to bring him back in 2003 — and pay him $320,000 in back pay — after he successfully challenged his dismissal.

Tartaglione also had come under fire for aggressive behavior, and was sued by local activist and cable TV show host Clay Tiffany. Tiffany, who was arrested by Tartaglione several times, claimed that Tartaglione had roughed him up on more than one occasion. Tiffany eventually received more than $1.1 million in settlements of his federal lawsuits against the village and Tartaglione.

Tartaglione retired in 2008 and was granted a disability pension by the state Comptroller’s Office based on a work injury that the state determined left him unable to continue police work.

But two years later, he requested a re-examination, and the medical board said he could return to work. He was placed at the top of the eligible list for rehiring by Briarcliff Manor — but for the four years until the eligibility ran out, the village did not hire any police officers.

When he was not rehired, his disability pension was restored, said Tania Lopez, a spokeswoman for the Comptroller's Office.

Phillip Zegarelli, who became Briarcliff Manor's village manager in 2009, would say only that Tartaglione’s retirement was part of a settlement with the village — though he would not elaborate. He acknowledged that the village had fought Tartaglione’s effort to rejoin the department.

“There was never any question, any self doubt, that the village did the right thing in closing the issue and detaching Mr. Tartaglione,” he said.

He said there was no inkling before Tuesday that Tartaglione was under investigation of any kind, let alone as a suspect in a quadruple homicide.

“It floored many of us that this is how it went,” Zegarelli said.

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