A hulking ex-cop facing the death penalty on federal murder and drug charges was reportedly Jeffrey Epstein’s cellmate at Manhattan‘s Metropolitan Correctional Center — and an official says Epstein might have feared the former police officer, who was questioned after the disgraced financier’s apparent suicide attempt last month and who was transferred out of Epstein’s cell shortly before the 66-year-old died early Saturday.
Nicholas Tartaglione, who’d been a Briarcliffe Manor cop in Westchester County, N.Y., was charged in 2016 with the deaths of four men stemming from an alleged cocaine drug conspiracy. Epstein was housed at the MCC federal lockup with the 51-year-old former cop after his July arrest for sex trafficking, Tartaglione’s attorney told Fox News on Monday.
Tartaglione was transferred out of Epstein’s cell in the facility’s Special Housing Unit — a heavily secured part of the MCC that separates high-profile inmates from the general population — after Epstein was placed on suicide watch, Tartaglione’s attorney, Bruce Barket, said. It was not clear why he was transferred.
The most recent inmate assigned to Epstein’s cell was transferred on Friday, just hours before his death, a source said.
A little more than two weeks before his death, Epstein was placed on suicide watch and required to have daily psychiatric evaluations after being discovered in his cell semi-conscious with bruising on his neck. Epstein was recently taken off suicide watch but it was not clear when, a source familiar with the matter told Fox News. – READ MORE