NEW YORK (AP) - The federal government is planning a death penalty prosecution against a former suburban New York police officer charged in the abduction and killings of four men in 2016.
Prosecutors say former Briarcliff Manor Officer Nicholas Tartaglione and a co-defendant participated in the “brutal” deaths of the Middletown residents, who disappeared during a cocaine-related dispute at a bar in Chester, New York. They say the bodies were found on an Otisville property linked to Tartaglione.
Authorities say that one of the men appeared to be involved in a drug conspiracy but that some victims “were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Tartaglione’s defense attorney, Bruce Barket, says he is “extraordinarily disappointed” in the government’s decision.
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