Synergy Gym Owner Sentenced to Three Life Terms

This story was posted by Heather Doyle. It was reported and written by Ryan Bonner.

A Dix Hills man who owned several fitness centers in Nassau County will spend the rest of his life in jail for his role in the murders of three men between 1994 and 2003.

Christian Tarantino, 46, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Central Islip Wednesday. 
 
Following jury trials in 2011 and 2012, Tarantino was convicted of participating in an armored car robbery in June 1994 in Syosset during which a 47-year-old guard was shot and killed; orchestrating the August 1994 murder of an associate in that robbery, whose body Tarantino dumped from a boat several miles off the coast of Long Island; and, conspiring to murder a long-time confidant, who had threatened to take evidence of the first two murders to the FBI.

One of the men murdered was Vincent Gargiulo, 39, of Sunnyside Queens. Gargiulo was the brother-in-law of Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider.

“For almost a decade, Christian Tarantino was a one man crime spree, engaging in armed robbery, murder and murder conspiracy to cover his tracks,” United States Attorney Loretta Lynch said in a press release. “He controlled his confederates the old-fashioned way - by murdering them. As this investigation and prosecution demonstrate, law enforcement will never halt its efforts to ensure that murderers are brought to justice. Tarantino thought that human life was his to take. He will now spend the rest of his life contemplating the just results of his actions.”