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@ -12,12 +12,12 @@ summary: "Son of King Abdulaziz's adviser Youssef Yassin, cousin of Adnan Khasho
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died: 2026-05-17
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location: "Mecca, Saudi Arabia"
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created: 2026-09-22
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updated: 2026-09-22
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updated: 2026-10-15
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---
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Hassan Yassin (Mecca, to May 17, 2026) was the son of Sheikh Youssef Yassin, political adviser to King Abdulaziz, the founder of [[Saudi Arabia]], and grew up, in the words of his obituary, "immersed in the details and inner workings of Saudi politics from an early age." Educated in Mecca and Taif and at Victoria College in Alexandria, he studied in the United States in the 1950s and worked under the oil ministers Abdullah Tariki and [[Ahmed Zaki Yamani]] from 1959 to 1967. From 1972 to 1981 he headed the Saudi Information Office in [[Washington, D.C.]], the kingdom's public diplomacy post in the capital during the oil embargo, the Yamani years and the first arms sales fights in Congress; he then served with the Arab League's observer delegation at the United Nations from 1981 to 1983, later advised a Saudi ambassador in Washington, and wrote a column for Arab News. Saudi officials mourning him called him "a national memory and a cultural treasure trove that accompanied our kings."[^1]
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He was a cousin of the arms dealer [[Adnan Khashoggi]] and was described, in the account of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International|BCCI]] affair by Beaty and Gwynne, as a close business associate of [[Kamal Adham]], the head of Saudi intelligence and the bank's front man. No documented transaction connects him to [[Earl Brian]]'s [[Hadron]] or [[United Press International]] ventures; he does not appear in the [[House Committee on the Judiciary|House Judiciary Committee]]'s report, the Bua report or [[Ari Ben-Menashe]]'s book.[^2]
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He was a cousin of the arms dealer [[Adnan Khashoggi]] and was described, in the account of the [[Bank of Credit and Commerce International|BCCI]] affair by Beaty and Gwynne, as a close business associate of [[Kamal Adham]], the head of Saudi intelligence and the bank's front man.[^2]
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### Footnotes
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@ -23,7 +23,7 @@ summary: "Jacques Vallée is a French-born computer scientist and ufologist whos
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born: 1939-09-24
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location: "Pontoise, France"
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created: 2025-08-05
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updated: 2026-10-12
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updated: 2026-10-15
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relations:
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- type: employed_by
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with: "[[Paris Observatory]]"
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@ -144,7 +144,7 @@ The report tested DACOS on 30 transcripts from a single 1987 experiment. "Overal
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### The Secret Onion and the Wilson interview
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Vallée's journal entry of October 2, 2003, written in Austin, Texas, records that Puthoff met him at the airport and told him the thread began in the late 1980s with "a supposedly top-secret UFO study group for Army Intelligence started by John Alexander," which Vallée had heard of through Col. [[Ron Blackburn]] of [[Lockheed Corporation]] and which was nicknamed "the Secret Onion." Vallée places its advanced-physics meetings between May and August 1985 at the offices of the [[BDM Corporation]].[^23] The same entries describe a transcript of an April 1997 interview of Admiral [[Thomas R. Wilson]], then of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]], by [[Eric Davis]] at EG&G in Las Vegas, in which, as Vallée summarizes it, Wilson searched the records of special access programs, found three programs related to UFOs and was referred to a fourth group. Vallée quotes the answer as "We're a reverse engineering program."[^23]
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Vallée's journal entry of October 2, 2003, written in Austin, Texas, records that Puthoff met him at the airport and told him the thread began in the late 1980s with "a supposedly top-secret UFO study group for Army Intelligence started by John Alexander," which Vallée had heard of through Col. [[Ron Blackburn]] of [[Lockheed Aircraft Company|Lockheed Corporation]] and which was nicknamed "the Secret Onion." Vallée places its advanced-physics meetings between May and August 1985 at the offices of the [[BDM Corporation]].[^23] The same entries describe a transcript of an April 1997 interview of Admiral [[Thomas R. Wilson]], then of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]], by [[Eric Davis]] at EG&G in Las Vegas, in which, as Vallée summarizes it, Wilson searched the records of special access programs, found three programs related to UFOs and was referred to a fourth group. Vallée quotes the answer as "We're a reverse engineering program."[^23]
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### The 1978 United Nations initiative
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@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ summary: "Mark Zuckerberg is the cofounder and chief executive of Facebook, now
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born: 1984-05-14
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location: "Palo Alto, California"
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created: 2026-06-19
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updated: 2026-06-19
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updated: 2026-10-15
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---
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Mark Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is the cofounder and chief executive of [[Facebook]], renamed [[Meta Platforms|Meta]] in 2021, the social-media company he started at [[Harvard University]] in 2004 with [[Dustin Moskovitz]], [[Eduardo Saverin]], [[Chris Hughes]], and [[Andrew McCollum]]. [[Peter Thiel]] was the company's first outside investor and a member of its board for seventeen years, and Zuckerberg's network and trajectory intersect the [[Thiel Influence Network]] at several points, from the founding investment to the Trump-era political realignment.[^1][^2]
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@ -20,17 +20,17 @@ Mark Zuckerberg (born May 14, 1984) is the cofounder and chief executive of [[Fa
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Thiel made the first outside investment in Facebook in 2004, five hundred thousand dollars structured as a convertible note for about 10.2 percent of the company, valuing it near 4.9 million dollars, and joined its board in 2005. He sold large blocks at and after the May 2012 initial public offering, taking roughly 640 million dollars at the IPO and several hundred million more after the lockup expired in August 2012, and remained a director until February 2022, when he declined reelection to focus on funding pro-[[Donald Trump|Trump]] political candidates ahead of the midterms.[^1][^3]
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Thiel acted as an intermediary between Zuckerberg and the political right. He attended a previously undisclosed dinner with Zuckerberg and Trump in the Blue Room of the [[White House]] on October 22, 2019, organized on short notice and reported by NBC News a month later, during the week Zuckerberg testified to Congress on Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency project. Senator Elizabeth Warren called the meeting "corruption, plain and simple."[^6]
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Thiel acted as an intermediary between Zuckerberg and the political right. He attended a previously undisclosed dinner with Zuckerberg and Trump in the Blue Room of the [[White House]] on October 22, 2019, organized on short notice and reported by NBC News a month later, during the week Zuckerberg testified to Congress on Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency project. Senator Elizabeth Warren called the meeting "corruption, plain and simple."[^4]
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### The Epstein Dinner
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An August 2015 dinner in Palo Alto, hosted by [[Reid Hoffman]] and reported by Vanity Fair in 2019, placed Zuckerberg at the same table as Thiel, [[Elon Musk]], and [[Joi Ito]] of the [[MIT Media Lab]], who brokered access to [[Jeffrey Epstein]]'s money and circle. Epstein emailed the financier Thomas Pritzker on August 20, 2015, "i had dinner with zuckerburg, mu=k, thiel hoffman, wild," and emailed himself a photograph from the gathering, both of which surfaced in the document releases under the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]] in late 2025 and early 2026. Releasers stressed that being named in the files is not evidence of wrongdoing.[^4][^7]
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A dinner at the restaurant Baume in Palo Alto on Sunday, August 2, 2015, hosted by [[Reid Hoffman]] and reported by Vanity Fair in 2019, placed Zuckerberg at the same table as Thiel, [[Elon Musk]], and [[Joi Ito]] of the [[MIT Media Lab]], who brokered access to [[Jeffrey Epstein]]'s money and circle. Epstein emailed the financier Thomas Pritzker on August 20, 2015, "i had dinner with zuckerburg, mu=k, thiel hoffman, wild," and emailed himself a photograph from the gathering, both of which surfaced in the document releases under the [[Epstein Files Transparency Act]] in late 2025 and early 2026. Releasers stressed that being named in the files is not evidence of wrongdoing.[^5][^6]
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Meta has disputed any closer connection, with a spokesman stating in 2019 that Zuckerberg "met Epstein in passing one time at a dinner" and "did not communicate with Epstein again." Hoffman apologized in September 2019 for participating in fundraising where Epstein was present, saying he had helped "repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice," while Musk has said he refused invitations to Epstein's island, a claim that reporters noted sits awkwardly against released 2012 to 2013 emails between Musk and Epstein. Ito resigned from the MIT Media Lab, the MIT Corporation, and other boards in September 2019 after Ronan Farrow reported in The New Yorker that the lab had concealed millions of dollars in Epstein-linked donations, referring to him internally as "Voldemort."[^8][^9]
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Meta has disputed any closer connection, with a spokesman stating in 2019 that Zuckerberg "met Epstein in passing one time at a dinner" and "did not communicate with Epstein again." Hoffman apologized in September 2019 for participating in fundraising where Epstein was present, saying he had helped "repair his reputation and perpetuate injustice," while Musk has said he refused invitations to Epstein's island, a claim that reporters noted sits awkwardly against released 2012 to 2013 emails between Musk and Epstein. Ito resigned from the MIT Media Lab, the MIT Corporation, and other boards in September 2019 after Ronan Farrow reported in The New Yorker that the lab had concealed millions of dollars in Epstein-linked donations, referring to him internally as "Voldemort."[^7][^8]
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### The 2025 Realignment
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After Trump's 2024 election, Zuckerberg moved Meta toward the tech-right. The company donated one million dollars to Trump's inauguration fund, having given nothing to the 2017 or 2021 inaugurations. On January 2, 2025 Meta replaced its policy chief Nick Clegg with Joel Kaplan, a former deputy chief of staff to George W. Bush, and on January 6 it added the Ultimate Fighting Championship head Dana White to its board. On January 7 it announced it was ending its third-party fact-checking program in the United States for a "community notes" model and moving its content-moderation operations from California to Texas, and on January 10 it ended its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.[^5][^10]
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After Trump's 2024 election, Zuckerberg moved Meta toward the tech-right. The company donated one million dollars to Trump's inauguration fund, having given nothing to the 2017 or 2021 inaugurations. On January 2, 2025 Meta replaced its policy chief Nick Clegg with Joel Kaplan, a former deputy chief of staff to George W. Bush, and on January 6 it added the Ultimate Fighting Championship head Dana White to its board. On January 7 it announced it was ending its third-party fact-checking program in the United States for a "community notes" model and moving its content-moderation operations from California to Texas, and on January 10 it ended its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.[^9][^10]
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In a January 2025 appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast Zuckerberg said corporate culture had tried to "get away from" "masculine energy," which he called "good," and that companies should "celebrate the aggression a bit more," signaling an alignment with the cultural politics promoted by the Thiel network and figures such as [[Mike Solana]] and [[Marc Andreessen]].[^11]
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@ -39,11 +39,11 @@ In a January 2025 appearance on Joe Rogan's podcast Zuckerberg said corporate cu
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[^1]: "Peter Thiel to step down from board of Facebook parent Meta," *CNBC,* February 7, 2022, on the first investment, the 2005-2022 board tenure, and the Trump focus. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/07/peter-thiel-to-step-down-from-facebook-board.html
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[^2]: "Tech billionaire Peter Thiel resigns from board of Facebook parent," *UPI,* February 7, 2022. https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2022/02/07/billionaire-Peter-Thiel-resigns-board-Facebook/5311644280042/
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[^3]: "Peter Thiel to step down from Facebook's board," CNN Business, February 7, 2022, on Thiel as intermediary and the 2019 Trump-Zuckerberg dinner. https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/07/tech/peter-thiel-facebook-board
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[^4]: Tommy Carstensen Epstein Files index, cross-referencing the EFTA releases (EFTA00344556, EFTA00344564) for the 2015 dinner guest list. https://tommycarstensen.com/epstein/people/peter-thiel.html
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[^5]: "Meta ends fact-checking program," contemporaneous press coverage of the January 2025 content-moderation and policy changes and the Trump inauguration donation.
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[^6]: "Trump had a previously undisclosed dinner with Zuckerberg and Thiel," *NBC News,* November 20, 2019, on the October 22, 2019 White House dinner and Warren's response. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-zuckerberg-had-previously-undisclosed-dinner-white-house-n1087986
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[^7]: "Epstein emailed about a 2015 dinner with Zuckerberg, Musk and Thiel," *Fortune,* 2026, on the "wild" email to Thomas Pritzker, the self-addressed photo, and the EFTA releases; the dinner first reported by *Vanity Fair,* 2019. https://fortune.com/2026/epstein-email-zuckerberg-musk-thiel-dinner/
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[^8]: "Meta says Zuckerberg met Epstein once," statements by spokesman Ben LaBolt, 2019; and Hoffman's September 12, 2019 apology, *Axios.* https://www.axios.com/2019/09/12/reid-hoffman-jeffrey-epstein-apology
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[^9]: Farrow, Ronan. "How an Elite University Research Center Concealed Its Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein," *The New Yorker,* September 6, 2019, on the MIT Media Lab donations and Ito's resignation. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-university-research-center-concealed-its-relationship-with-jeffrey-epstein
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[^10]: "Meta names Joel Kaplan as policy chief," *CNBC,* January 2, 2025; "Dana White joins Meta board," Meta Newsroom, January 6, 2025; "Meta ends fact-checking and moves moderation to Texas," *The Texas Tribune,* January 7, 2025; "Meta ends DEI programs," *CNBC,* January 10, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/02/meta-names-joel-kaplan-to-succeed-nick-clegg-as-policy-chief.html
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[^4]: "Trump had a previously undisclosed dinner with Zuckerberg and Thiel," *NBC News,* November 20, 2019, on the October 22, 2019 White House dinner and Warren's response. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-zuckerberg-had-previously-undisclosed-dinner-white-house-n1087986
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[^5]: U.S. Department of Justice, Epstein Library, EFTA00344556 and EFTA00344564, email thread "CONFIRMED: DINNER: Sunday, 8/2," July 31, 2015, listing the dinner at 6 pm on Sunday, August 2, 2015 at Baume, Palo Alto, with Zuckerberg, Priscilla Chan, Thiel, Hoffman, Boyden, Epstein and Musk among the attendees. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00344556.pdf ; https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00344564.pdf
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[^6]: "Epstein emailed about a 2015 dinner with Zuckerberg, Musk and Thiel," *Fortune,* 2026, on the "wild" email to Thomas Pritzker, the self-addressed photo, and the EFTA releases; the dinner first reported by *Vanity Fair,* 2019. https://fortune.com/2026/epstein-email-zuckerberg-musk-thiel-dinner/
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[^7]: "Meta says Zuckerberg met Epstein once," statements by spokesman Ben LaBolt, 2019; and Hoffman's September 12, 2019 apology, *Axios.* https://www.axios.com/2019/09/12/reid-hoffman-jeffrey-epstein-apology
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[^8]: Farrow, Ronan. "How an Elite University Research Center Concealed Its Relationship with Jeffrey Epstein," *The New Yorker,* September 6, 2019, on the MIT Media Lab donations and Ito's resignation. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-an-elite-university-research-center-concealed-its-relationship-with-jeffrey-epstein
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[^9]: "Meta ends fact-checking program," contemporaneous press coverage of the January 2025 content-moderation and policy changes and the Trump inauguration donation.
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[^10]: "Meta names Joel Kaplan as policy chief," *CNBC,* January 2, 2025; "Dana White joins Meta board," Meta Newsroom, January 6, 2025; "Meta ends fact-checking and moves moderation to Texas," *The Texas Tribune,* January 7, 2025; "Meta ends DEI programs," *CNBC,* January 10, 2025. https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/02/meta-names-joel-kaplan-to-succeed-nick-clegg-as-policy-chief.html ; Meta Platforms, Inc., Form 8-K, Exhibit 99.1, January 6, 2025, https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1326801/000132680125000005/jan62025exhibit991.htm ; Joel Kaplan, "More Speech and Fewer Mistakes," Meta newsroom, January 7, 2025, https://about.fb.com/news/2025/01/meta-more-speech-fewer-mistakes/ ; Pavan Acharya, The Texas Tribune, January 7, 2025, https://www.texastribune.org/2025/01/07/texas-meta-content-moderators-fact-checking/
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[^11]: "Mark Zuckerberg says companies need more 'masculine energy,'" *Fortune,* January 13, 2025, on the Joe Rogan podcast remarks. https://fortune.com/2025/01/13/mark-zuckerberg-joe-rogan-masculine-energy-meta/
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@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ Nicholas Tartaglione is a former police officer of the [[Briarcliff Manor Police
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### Police Career and the 2016 Murders
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Tartaglione served as a police officer in Briarcliff Manor, a Westchester village about 20 miles north of [[New York City]]. On April 11, 2016 he and accomplices kidnapped Martin Luna, whom he suspected of stealing 250,000 dollars from him; Luna was strangled with a zip tie, and three men who were with him, Urbano Santiago, Miguel Luna and Hector Gutierrez, were forced to kneel in the woods and shot in the back of the head. The four bodies were buried on Tartaglione's property in [[Otisville, New York|Otisville]], [[Orange County, New York|Orange County]]. He was indicted in the [[Southern District of New York]] in December 2016 on a charge of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and four counts of murder in furtherance of a drug crime, and a second superseding indictment added firearm murder, kidnapping conspiracy, kidnapping resulting in death and Travel Act murder counts.[^1][^4][^5] He was held in federal custody from December 2016.[^6] The Bureau of Prisons described him as "a certified death penalty eligible inmate."[^2]
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Tartaglione served as a police officer in Briarcliff Manor, a Westchester village about 20 miles north of [[New York City]]. On April 11, 2016 he and accomplices kidnapped Martin Luna, whom he suspected of stealing 250,000 dollars from him; Luna was strangled with a zip tie, and three men who were with him, Urbano Santiago, Miguel Luna and Hector Gutierrez, were forced to kneel in the woods and shot in the back of the head. The four bodies were buried on Tartaglione's property in [[Otisville, New York|Otisville]], [[Orange County, New York|Orange County]]. He was indicted in the [[U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York|Southern District of New York]] in December 2016 on a charge of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and four counts of murder in furtherance of a drug crime, and a second superseding indictment added firearm murder, kidnapping conspiracy, kidnapping resulting in death and Travel Act murder counts.[^1][^4][^5] He was held in federal custody from December 2016.[^6] The Bureau of Prisons described him as "a certified death penalty eligible inmate."[^2]
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During the pretrial proceedings Judge [[Kenneth M. Karas]] appointed separate counsel under Curcio to advise him on a conflict among his lawyers, held a multi-day sealed hearing with the participation of the government's "firewall" counsel, and on May 25, 2021 disqualified one of his retained attorneys, John Weider, for "an actual, unwaivable conflict of interest," while finding that any conflicts of the attorney [[Bruce Barket]] and his firm were waivable. Trial ran from March 13 to April 6, 2023, and the jury convicted him on every count. On June 10, 2024 Karas sentenced him to four consecutive life terms followed by five years of supervised release; U.S. Attorney [[Damian Williams]] said he had "brutally and senselessly murdered Martin Luna over money." His appeal to the [[United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit|Second Circuit]] (No. 24-1852) was pending in May 2026.[^1][^5]
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@ -76,7 +76,7 @@ Bason's conclusions on the conduct of the department included the finding that t
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Bason also found that in February 1985, after Brewer had talked to [[Thomas Stanton]], Rugh telephoned Videnieks and said there was "no way" the INSLAW bankruptcy would continue as a Chapter 11 case.[^16] Videnieks' handwritten note of the call, dated 2/20/85, is quoted in the Bua report, which also recorded that Rugh and Videnieks each said the note reflected Rugh's belief that INSLAW would end in chapter 7 liquidation, and that the report found their reading of the note reasonable and consistent with the other evidence.[^17]
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On March 14, 1986, shortly after INSLAW declared bankruptcy, INSLAW's counsel [[Leigh Ratiner]] wrote to Videnieks as the contracting officer that any continued use of the enhanced PROMIS software without INSLAW's consent contravened its property rights as a debtor and violated the automatic stay.[^18] The [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|D.C. Circuit]] reversed the stay-violation judgment on May 7, 1991, writing that the automatic stay "does not reach the Department's use of property in its possession under a claim of right at the time of the bankruptcy filing, even if that use may ultimately prove to violate the bankrupt's rights," and that the bankruptcy court had no jurisdiction to hear the claims asserted under section 362(a). Rehearing was denied on July 12, 1991.[^19]
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On March 14, 1986, shortly after INSLAW declared bankruptcy, INSLAW's counsel [[Leigh Ratiner]] wrote to Videnieks as the contracting officer that any continued use of the enhanced PROMIS software without INSLAW's consent contravened its property rights as a debtor and violated the automatic stay.[^18] The [[United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit|D.C. Circuit]] reversed the stay-violation judgment on May 7, 1991, writing that the automatic stay "does not reach the Department's use of property in its possession under a claim of right at the time of the bankruptcy filing, even if that use may ultimately prove to violate the bankrupt's rights," and that the bankruptcy court had no jurisdiction to hear the claims asserted under section 362(a). Rehearing was denied on July 12, 1991.[^19] The opinion records that INSLAW filed a claim with "the contracting officer" on October 17, 1985 and that the contracting officer ruled against INSLAW on February 21, 1986; it does not give his name.[^19]
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### Customs and the Hadron allegation
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