Epstein said retired cop turned cocaine dealer attacked him, then retracted claim, before he was found dead in jail
In the murky world of criminal misadventure, what happened at the Likquid Lounge in Chester, New York, on a night in April 2016 may have some bearing on Jeffrey Epstein’s death in federal custody three years later.
In many ways what happened there has become a conspiracy theory within a conspiracy theory. For while speculation about the actions of Epstein and his circle has long spread across the US, the Likquid Lounge is at the center of a fresh mystery of exactly how Epstein died.
It was there, according to prosecutors, that 49-year-old retired cop turned cocaine dealer Nicholas Tartaglione lured four men, at least one – Martin Luna – with ties to the Mexican mafia. Tartaglione suspected Luna had stolen $250,000 from him and planned to confront him. Luna, 41, brought along two nephews and a family friend.
Tartaglione allegedly forced one of Luna’s nephews to observe as he beat and strangled Luna to death with a zip tie. Tartaglione and two others then took Luna’s body, along with Miguel Luna, Urbano Santiago and Hector Gutierrez, to his dog and equine animal sanctuary in Otisville,New York.
The three surviving men were forced to kneel and were shot in the head, execution-style, and all four buried in a mass grave. Nine months later, after investigators connected Tartaglione to Luna, the bodies were unearthed. A neighbor said Tartaglione’s property “smelled like death”.
Tartaglione was arrested and charged with kidnapping and murder. But it wasn’t until 2023 that the bodybuilder, who had a patchy career as a police officer, was convicted and sentenced to four consecutive life sentences for the killings. He had pleaded not guilty, claiming that he had been framed.
But in that time, while held at the now-abandoned metropolitan corrections center in Manhattan, Tartaglione was placed in the same cell as Epstein, the notorious sex trafficker whose scandal has roiled American politics. It was later reported they had “gotten along pretty well” as cellmates.
But after Epstein was found with injuries to his neck in July 2019 – an incident that Tartaglione alerted guards to – he initially said Tartaglione attacked him. He later retracted the claim, and prison officials concluded that Epstein had tried to kill himself.
Crucially, Tartaglione reported finding a note from Epstein hidden in a graphic novel he was reading but had not discovered it until four days later, after Epstein had been removed from their cell and briefly placed on suicide watch. Tartaglione passed it to his lawyers. Two weeks later, in what was ruled a suicide, Epstein was found dead in his cell.
That note was finally released last week, after the New York Times petitioned the federal court in White Plains, New York, where Tartaglione was tried.
“They investigated me for month – FOUND NOTHING!!!” the note begins, adding that the result was charges going back 15 years.
“It is a treat to be able to choose one’s time to say goodbye,” the note continued.
“Watcha want me to do – Bust out cryin!!” the note reads.
“NO FUN,” it concludes, with those words underlined. “NOT WORTH IT!!”
