Boss details setting up friend that ex-cop Nicholas Tartaglione is accused of killing

A failed Orange County contractor detailed Monday how he set up a ruse to get a close friend to go to a Chester bar seven years ago, knowing the friend would likely be killed over a drug debt owed to Nicholas Tartaglione.

Jason Sullivan was the first cooperating witness to testify at Tartaglione's trial on drug conspiracy and murder charges in federal court in White Plains. The former Briarcliff Manor police officer is accused in the deaths of Sullivan's friend Martin Luna and the three men he brought to the Likquid Lounge on April 11, 2016.

The bodies of Luna, his nephew Miguel Luna, his niece's husband Urbano Santiago and family friend Hector Gutierrez were discovered eight months later, buried on a property on Old Mountain Road in Mount Hope where Tartaglione had lived at the time the men disappeared.

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Luna was employed at Sullivan's L & J Construction for nearly a decade, responsible for rounding up workers and making sure jobs got done. They often socialized and Sullivan considered Luna like a brother. While Sullivan had dabbled in steroid and drug sales, he said that on three occasions he and Luna tried to sell cocaine, marijuana or heroin together, but it never worked out.

Sullivan and Tartaglione's relationship

Sullivan said he met Tartaglione in person only once, in June 2015, when he and Luna went to the Mount Hope property to see Luna's friend who worked for Tartaglione. He said he bonded with Tartaglione, who was a steroid user like him. He said Tartaglione wanted his advice on some marijuana plants he was growing and Sullivan told him he was doing it wrong because he had mixed the male and female plants, limiting production.

The friend, who Sullivan said he did not know, is another cooperator, Marcos Cruz, who is expected to testify on Tuesday.

Tartaglione was eager for money-making opportunities, Sullivan said, and Luna suggested selling cocaine because he had contacts in Texas and Florida.

In August that year, Sullivan moved to Florida, leaving Luna in charge of the construction work in New York.

A plan to sell cocaine

Four months later, Luna told him he had a plan to sell cocaine in Florida and asked if he could store it in his home. Sullivan said he was reluctant at first but decided to let him because of the money he could make.

He said Santiago showed up with a large box containing seven kilos of cocaine that they put in the garage. Santiago then sold one kilo at a time for $35,000 and they would count the money at Sullivan's house before vacuum-sealing it in plastic. When Santiago had sold all seven kilos, they hid the money in the spare tire of Santiago's car — plus an extra $11,000 Luna asked Sullivan to give him — and Santiago left to meet Luna in Texas in early January 2016 to buy more cocaine.

Soon though, Sullivan said, Luna called him to say that he had been tricked, that he had given the money to someone he thought would get him cocaine but they had stolen the money. Sullivan told him to go back to New York and focus on the construction business. He said he'd deduct the money Luna had lost him from his pay.

Tracking the money

Sullivan said he began speaking by phone with Tartaglione and found out that Tartaglione had invested a considerable amount with Luna for the initial cocaine purchase and was out more than $200,000.

He said Tartaglione initially was helping Luna try to find the stolen money but then suspected Luna's story wasn't true.

"When he started to realize Martin didn't get robbed, that he still had the money, he started getting irritated," Sullivan said.

Luna told Sullivan that Tartaglione had two men who were trying to find him to recover Tartaglione's money.

When Luna was away in Mexico in late March and early April, Tartaglione asked for help putting him in touch with Luna.

A 'job' at Likquid Lounge

Sullivan agreed to give Luna three potential construction jobs to give estimates on April 11, the day after he returned to New York. At the third one, the Likquid Lounge, there was no construction job. It was a bar owned by Tartaglione's brother, and Sullivan knew Nicholas Tartaglione would be there to confront Luna.

Sullivan said he asked Tartaglione what would would happen if Luna didn't pay him back.

"He said he would be gone," Sullivan said.

"What did you take that to mean?" Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Swergold asked.

"He'd be killed," Sullivan said.

Sullivan said he used a burner phone to get the address of the bar from a "deep-voiced" man who was working with Tartaglione. That was believed to be Joseph Biggs, another cooperating witness. Prosecutors maintain that Biggs and former Haverstraw police Officer Gerard Benderoth restrained the four men once they got to the bar.

What Sullivan says he heard

Sullivan said he spoke with Tartaglione once Luna got to the bar and he heard shouting, with Tartaglione telling Luna to sit down and "shut the (expletive) up." Then he heard two people mumbling and the room grew quiet. He said he got "a little worried" because it sounded like Luna was in trouble.

He said Tartaglione told him later that Luna was "gone." He urged him not to tell anyone about what happened and not to worry because the body would never be found.

Prosecutors have said that Tartaglione strangled Luna with a zip tie and drove his body to the property and that Biggs and Benderoth brought the other three men there and each was shot in the head.

Biggs is also cooperating with prosecutors. Benderoth killed himself in his car in March 2017 as FBI agents were about to arrest him.

Sullivan acknowledged that his business was collapsing in 2016 and he had significant financial woes, leading him to submit fraudulent loan applications. But despite that, he was also trying to set up a nonprofit to help teach entrepreneurship to kids. He said although he had grown fearful that Tartaglione might try to harm him because of what he knew about the killings, he tried to get Tartaglione to invest in the nonprofit, figuring a business relationship might protect him.

Cross examination

Defense lawyer Bruce Barket suggested on cross examination that it strained credulity that Sullivan would set up Luna, who he considered like a brother, because a guy who he met only once lost money. The lawyer wanted jurors to believe that it was actually Sullivan's drug operation — his construction business was collapsing, after all — and that he moved to get rid of Luna because he was sick of Luna costing him money.

Barket highlighted that all the money and drugs were under Sullivan's control in Florida for weeks at a time when he was having considerable financial difficulties.

The lawyer cited phone records that, most of the time Sullivan spoke with Tartaglione, he called his partner in the nonprofit right before or after, suggesting that the potential investment was the only reason he was talking to Tartaglione. Sullivan acknowledged that was the case several times but not in the calls when he was arranging for Luna to go to the bar.

When Sullivan was first confronted by FBI agents in early December 2016 he told them much of what had transpired, including his role in the drug conspiracy. But he stayed mum about knowing that Luna was likely to die if he didn't cough up the money, insisting he didn't want to get in trouble.

Agreeing to cooperate

In the next 10 days, Sullivan went to New York to meet with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to the same charges as Tartaglione faces. He agreed to cooperate with the government in the hopes of getting leniency from a mandatory life prison term.

And that potential for leniency is enormous. If prosecutors believe his testimony is truthful — regardless of the outcome of Tartaglione's trial — they will write a letter to U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas citing Sullivan's substantial cooperation. That could result in a sentence of as little as time served — at this point six years.

If prosecutors determine he lies on the witness stand there will be no letter and Sullivan will spend the rest of his life behind bars. Barket hammered home that it was prosecutors who get to make that determination — the same lawyers who met with Sullivan repeatedly to prep him for his testimony.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Cooperating witness offers details in ex-cop Nicholas Tartaglione case