Joseph Biggs, key witness in Tartaglione murder case, gets nearly 17 years in prison

The bodybuilder and school security guard who participated in the killing of four men in Orange County — and was the only witness to detail the killings at ex-cop Nicholas Tartaglione's trial last year — was sentenced Thursday to 16 years and eight months in federal prison.

Joseph Biggs trembled as he addressed the families of the victims in federal court in White Plains Thursday, reciting a prayer that God forgive him for what he did.

"I had no intention of being part of a drug conspiracy," he told the families. "I understand your feelings toward me, and I pray that one day you can find forgiveness in your heart for me."

But earlier, relatives of Martin Luna, his nephews Miguel Luna and Urbano Santiago and family friend Hector Gutierrez said they were not inclined to do so, that forgiveness was up to God and that Biggs could have prevented the tragedy but instead killed one of the men himself and ruined the families' lives forever.

U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas and Assistant U.S. Attorney Maurene Comey said the case highlighted the tension in reconciling a cooperator's horrific crimes with their assistance in bringing more culpable people to justice. The judge said he would have had no problem ignoring any mitigation and sentencing Biggs to life in prison had it not been for his cooperation.

How Biggs met Tartaglione

Biggs was a bodybuilder who met Tartaglione in the Rockland County gym scene and would buy steroids from him. Tartaglione eventually used Biggs and Gerard Benderoth, another ex-cop and strongman competitor, as enforcers to help him collect debts from his steroid customers.

It was in that role that the two men tried to locate Martin Luna early in 2016. Luna had claimed that he was double crossed by Texas drug dealers when he gave them $270,000 to buy an additional round of cocaine after the first seven kilos Tartaglione and Luna paid for were sold in Florida. But Tartaglione decided Luna had stolen the money himself.

Luna was eventually lured to the Likquid Lounge, a bar owned by Tartaglione's brother in a Chester, New York strip mall, where Biggs and Benderoth were waiting on April 11, 2016. But Luna brought along the other three men.

When Tartaglione arrived, he confronted Martin Luna and began beating him to learn where the money was. Tartaglione eventually put a zip tie around his neck and strangled him as one of the nephews looked on. Tartaglione took Luna's body to his rented ranch in Mount Hope, as Biggs and Benderoth followed with the other three men.

At the ranch, as the three men kneeled on the ground, their hands bound, Biggs, Benderoth and Tartaglione each shot one of the men in the back of the head. The four bodies were buried there, not to be dug up by the FBI and state police until eight months later.

Biggs testified that he took the gun from Benderoth under duress when the man known as the "White Rhino" implied Biggs would be shot with the others if he didn't join in the killing. Biggs said he shot one of the men, handed the gun to Tartaglione and turned away, at which point he heard two more shots. He believed Benderoth and Tartaglione each shot one of the others, because when he turned back around, Benderoth was holding the gun.

'I was a coward. I was scared.'

In court Thursday, Biggs, 62, recalled that moment but said taking part in the kidnapping and killings was out of character for him, as he usually would fight for the underdog.

"That day will never leave my mind," he said. "I left a piece of me on that mountain. I was a coward. I was scared. I was scared because I knew I was next. I was the next one to go."

Benderoth fatally shot himself in his car March 8, 2017, as FBI agents approached to arrest him. Biggs was indicted two months later and arrested in the parking lot of the Greenburgh-Graham school district in Hastings-on-Hudson where he worked as a security guard.

When he eventually agreed to cooperate, his "remarkable" assistance was threefold, Comey said: Biggs gave prosecutors details they didn't have and admitted his role when he could have lied to protect himself; he went into painful detail about sexual and racial abuse by Benderoth; and his trial testimony offered the most powerful evidence jurors heard and was why, Comey said, their guilty verdict against Tartaglione was "so swift, so decisive."

Biggs' lawyers, Ying Stafford and Stephen Turano, said his remorse and shame were significant but acknowledged nothing could undo the pain he caused. Turano urged the judge to impose the 15-year prison term recommended by probation officers.

Victims' loved ones tell of struggles

The victims' relatives acknowledged that there would be leniency but said it wasn't fair Biggs' relatives would be able to see him but they would never see the four men again.

Celia Luna, Martin's sister and Miguel's aunt, said she wouldn't judge her brother over the allegations he was engaged in drug dealing. She simply wished he would have gone to jail and not into a shallow grave. She said even God could not forgive Biggs for what he did.

"No matter what happens we will keep going forward struggling and fighting," she said in Spanish.

Obdulia Luna, Santiago's wife and niece and sister of Martin and Miguel, said she was left to raise her three kids alone, that her husband's dreams of starting a construction company and providing for his kids were dashed. She recalled crying when their oldest son needed help when he first had to shave.

"I wasn't supposed to be doing that," she told the court through a Spanish interpreter. "The person that was supposed to teach him was his father."

Sarah Lopez, Martin Luna's sister-in-law, read a letter from her sister, Lisa, who wrote how Martin was the love of her life and that she and their son and three daughters missed him terribly. Lisa called Biggs "nothing but a waste of space, a monster, a fake, a coward."

Tartaglione sentencing upcoming

Tartaglione spent most of a checkered law-enforcement career as a police officer in Briarcliff Manor, with shorter stints in Mount Vernon, Yonkers and Pawling. He is scheduled to be sentenced in May but is challenging his conviction. He faces up to life in prison.

Two other co-conspirators who testified against Tartaglione and were credited with providing substantial assistance to the government had already been sentenced.

Marcos Cruz, a farmhand of Tartaglione's who introduced him to Martin Luna, participated in the drug scheme and helped bury the bodies, was deemed the least culpable. He was sentenced last year to the seven years he had already spent in custody.

Jason Sullivan, a construction company owner who employed Martin Luna and invested in the drug scheme, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. He had moved to Florida, where he allowed his house to be used to store the cocaine, and he set up the ruse that got Luna to go to the bar thinking he was giving a construction estimate.

Karas acknowledged their roles but said they couldn't provide the "bird's-eye view" into Tartaglione's crime that Biggs did.

"The cooperation was clearly meaningful," the judge said. "It brought to justice a monster."

Staff reporter Asher Stockler contributed to this report.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Tartaglione murder case witness Joseph Biggs gets 16+ years in prison