Drug conspiracy and killings detailed in Tartaglione trial

A farmhand of ex-cop Nicholas Tartaglione detailed for a federal jury on Wednesday the failed cocaine trafficking operation that led to the killings of four men in Orange County seven years ago and how his boss directed him to help bury the bodies on his mountainside property.

Marcos Cruz said he was not present at the Likquid Lounge in Chester on April 11, 2016, when his friend Martin Luna was killed but was fully aware of Tartaglione's plan to lure Luna there that day over a drug debt.

He did go to the bar afterwards to identify for Tartaglione the two nephews and a family friend Luna had brought along. He said he declined when Tartaglione asked if he wanted to take the three home, saying he told his boss they would only call police if allowed to live.

Cruz said Tartaglione later told him he had strangled Luna with a zip tie and that he and two enforcers had shot the three other men at Tartaglione's property.

Tartaglione is facing drug conspiracy, kidnapping and murder charges in the deaths of Luna, his nephews Miguel Luna and Urbano Santiago and their friend Hector Gutierrez, whose bodies were dug up Dec. 20, 2016, a day after Cruz led FBI agents to the spot where he had filled in the hole eight months earlier.

Cruz has pleaded guilty to his role in the drug conspiracy and as an accessory after the fact to the murder of the four men. He is cooperating with prosecutors in the hope that he can avoid a life sentence in prison, and maybe even be released on just the six years he has spent in custody so far.

Cruz spoke in Spanish through an interpreter as he was questioned by Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey for more than six hours Tuesday and Wednesday.

Before Cruz took the stand, Comey warned U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas and the defense that every time Cruz had recounted the story during preparation for trial, he would vomit at a certain point. But Cruz's spewing wasn't limited to just one point, as he repeatedly leaned down to throw up into a garbage can, with a U.S. marshal, an FBI agent and court staff switching out the garbage cans on several occasions so that the odor would not linger.

How the operation played out

Cruz told how the drug trafficking operation was hatched in 2015 after he introduced Tartaglione to Luna. His boss invested about $200,000, which he told Cruz was his life savings.

Cruz detailed an elaborate effort to drive the money to Texas, buy the cocaine, drive the drugs to Florida and sell it there. When the conspirators couldn't find anyone to drive, Cruz said, Tartaglione said his brother would do it. Hotel records showed that Michael Tartaglione stayed in a Residence Inn in Houston at two points in December 2015 and January 2016 but Cruz testified that he was unaware of what he was transporting.

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Cruz said his main role was coordinating between Tartaglione and Luna in hopes both would pay him.

He could offer no specific dates or months of when the drugs were bought and sold, but the records corroborated the testimony of another investor in the drug conspiracy, Luna's construction boss Jason Sullivan. He is also a cooperating witness who testified this week that he helped Tartaglione lure Luna to the bar knowing he would likely be killed if he didn't come up with the money.

Tartaglione enraged after things go south

After Santiago, who Cruz called Oaxaco, finished selling the initial batch of drugs in Florida, Michael Tartaglione drove all the proceeds back to Houston, Cruz testified. Martin Luna flew there to get the money and meet his suppliers. But he called Cruz to say that he had been double crossed and the money was taken and no drugs turned over.

Tartaglione was enraged when he found out and demanded that Luna find the thieves and get the money back. When that didn't work, Cruz and Luna tried a private investigator, Cruz testified, who told them that phone numbers Luna thought were the thieves' numbers belonged to other people.

Tartaglione eventually sent an associate and enforcer of his, Joseph Biggs, to confront Luna. Luna and Cruz took Biggs to a trailer park in Middletown where Luna said relatives of the thieves lived. But they weren't found.

Biggs, a body builder Cruz knew only as J, told Luna that if he didn't come up with the money "there would be blood on his hands," Cruz testified. Cruz said that Luna chose to blame him, because he hadn't accompanied Luna to Texas.

After that, Luna cut off all contact with the others and Cruz said he never spoke with him again. Tartaglione decided by then that Luna had stolen the money himself, Cruz testified, and sent Biggs and Gerard Benderoth, an ex-cop and former strongman competitor, to find Luna. But they couldn't, because at that point Luna had gone to Mexico to visit his ailing mother.

Once Luna was back, Sullivan offered the plan to get Luna to the bar, which was owned by Michael Tartaglione. He told him there was construction work there and to provide an estimate. The other men were not expected to accompany him.

Cruz says he saw bodies

Cruz testified that he asked Tartaglione if he could be there when Luna got to the bar but his boss said he couldn't.

Comey questioned why he had wanted that.

"Because I felt if I could talk to Martin I could convince him to return the money and end all these problems," he answered in Spanish through an interpreter.

When Tartaglione called him to the bar later, Cruz said, he saw a blue tarp wrapped around what appeared to be a body. He was shown Miguel Luna and Gutierrez in a closet and Santiago in the bathroom.

Cruz said he was scared for his own life. He said in addition to thinking the men would contact the police if freed, he told Tartaglione he didn't want to take them home because he thought his boss was testing him.

He testified that he watched Tartaglione and Benderoth carry the tarp with Luna's body into the back of Tartaglione's car. Later that night, he said, Tartaglione sent him with Biggs and Benderoth to look for Luna's car so they could move it away from the bar but they couldn't find it.

The next day, he said, he didn't see the bodies in the large hole but filled it with dirt and threw out the blue tarp and duct tape that was next to the grave.

Defense lawyer Aida Leisenring will resume cross examination of Cruz on Thursday. In the short time she had to question him Wednesday, she got him to acknowledge that he had repeatedly lied to FBI agents when they first confronted him on Dec. 19, 2020.

In her opening statement last week Leisenring argued that Tartaglione had no involvement in the drug conspiracy or killings and was set up by the three cooperating witnesses, who each had powerful motives to lie and minimize their own more significant roles in the killings because they faced life in prison otherwise.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Cooperator testifies at Tartaglione trial about 2016 killings of 4 men