NEW YORK -- Christian Tarantino, part-owner of Synergy Fitness Club in Farmingdale, NY, was arrested Wednesday by FBI agents in connection with three murders, including the 2003 murder of the brother-in-law of Twisted Sister lead singer Dee Snider, according to multiple media outlets.
Tarantino, who was arrested after an FBI raid at his mansion in Dix Hills, NY, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment in U.S. District Court and was held without bail. He is due back in court on Nov. 21.
An employee at Synergy Fitness Club said news crews were at the club the day of Tarantino’s arrest, but it’s been business as usual since. The other part-owner took over the club, the employee added.
Federal prosecutors say Tarantino participated in a 1994 armored van holdup that resulted in one of his associates, Louis Dorval, shooting and killing a guard. After Dorval was arrested on unrelated racketeering offenses in New Jersey, Tarantino worried that Dorval, a mob crime family associate, might tell authorities of the armored van heist, so Tarantino and other conspirators killed Dorval, stuffed his body in a trunk and dumped the trunk into the Atlantic Ocean, according to the indictment.
Another Tarantino business associate, Vincent Gargiulo, Snider’s brother-in-law, secretly recorded a conversation in 2000 between him and Tarantino in which Tarantino acknowledged his role in the killings of the guard and Dorval, prosecutors say. Three years later, shortly after Gargiulo threatened to take the incriminating tape to law enforcement, Gargiulo was shot and killed by someone hired by Tarantino, according to the indictment. The secret recording was turned over to New York City police after Gargiulo’s murder.
Because Gargiulo, whose sister, Suzette, is married to Snider, was a potential witness in a federal prosecution, Tarantino could get the death penalty if convicted.
U.S. Attorney Benton Campbell says the indictment was the result of years of investigation by the FBI, the New York Police Department and Nassau County (NY) police.