Dirty Cop Nick Tartagione & Jeffrey Esptein Part of Story
Clay Tiffany
By Dan Murphy
Many of our readers may not know or remember the name Clay Tiffany, the bombastic host of a cable TV access show, Dirge for the Charlatans, which aired out of an Ossining cable access studio in the late 1990’s. Tiffany, a Briarcliff resident, would rant about corruption and scandal, and would target whoever he believed was on the wrong side of good government.
Tiffany’s accusations of corruption and wrongdoing in local government and the Briarcliff school district resulted in some notoriety. The show was entertaining and informative but was not always correct in its accusations. Tiffany named the people in local government who he accused of wrongdoing, and one was Briarcliff Manor police officer Nick Tartaglione. Tartaglione was a young, hulking presence who Tiffany was accusing of being a “rogue cop.”
Tiffany continued the weekly accusations against Tartaglione, until Tartaglione flew into a steroid like rage, assaulting Tiffany while he was swimming alone on the Hudson River in 1999. Tiffany sued Tartaglione and the Briarcliff Police Department and kept talking about it on his show.
This resulted in a second, more ruthless beating, that left Tiffany in the hospital and scarred him for the rest of his life. The FBI began investigating and Tiffany won a lawsuit against the Village and Tartaglione for $200,000, but his life was never the same. He died in 2015 a broken man but did have a moment of notoriety in Westchester because of his public access shows, lawsuits and confrontations with Tartaglione.
Tartaglione was fired, and then rehired by the Briarcliff Police Department. He later “retired” and moved upstate where he became a drug dealer, eventually killing four of his drug partners. He was convicted of murder and is now serving a life sentence.
While in prison awaiting trial in the Manhattan Correctional Center, Tartaglione was a prison mate of Jeffrey Epstein. In fact, Tartaglione was cell mates with Epstein in the days and weeks before Epstein “hung himself” in his prison cell.
The story of Tiffany, Tartaglione and Epstein has drawn the interest of Emmy award-winning producer Gary Cohen, who has created nine documentary films for ESPN’s 30 for 30 series.
“This is about free speech and how free speech isn’t always pretty. But it’s effective in keeping the public informed and the public servants accountable. Clay Tiffany was an ugly, necessary part of the system,” said Cohen.
“Clay did something that made the system work better, and there is a concern that we are losing that ability by the local press to hold people accountable for bad behavior. Tiffany was a voice, a true citizen journalist. While he wasn’t right all of the time, once in a while he hit a nerve that needs to be hit. More of these voices are disappearing.
“Its this erosion that creates the need for Clay Tiffany, and the object lesson is Tartaglione. Clay was screaming that Tartaglione was a rogue cop before he was a drug dealer. He was an inconvenient truth to the system,” said Cohen.
Phil Reisman, the Dean of Westchester journalists at the turn of the millennium, wrote that Tiffany “ultimately aspired to nobility, even when he crossed the line of civility,” and called him ““a controversial, iconoclastic gadfly in a quest for truth.”
Reisman was one of many Westchester residents who didn’t care for Tiffany’s antics. Tiffany had a bad habit of showing up unannounced to confront elected officials and journalists when he disagreed with what they were doing or weren’t doing. Most people who knew of Tiffany did not like him.
Tiffany also heckled DA Jeanine Pirro on several occasions, blurting out “how’s your husband,” referring to Al Pirro and his tax troubles. And then again at her book signing, “what’s the matter, Jeanine, did you have a bad face lift?”
Actor John C. Reilly created a character for an American comedy TV series called Check It Out with Dr. Steve Brule, who has an uncanny similarity to Tiffany and his public access show. (Link- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5bMr_0Zoc0&list=RDQMpy76GcrwR-g&start_radio=1)
What is required for Cohen to begin his work is to find copies of Tiffany’s Dirge shows. A few episodes are on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SJ3vkUHFQc&t=63s
Perhaps a Tiffany aficionado has copies of most or all of the shows on VHS tapes. We want to help Cohen in this effort and believe that he has found a great topic for a documentary.
Anyone in possession of, or with information on who has video tapes of Dirge for the Charlatans can contact us at dmurphy@risingmediagroup.com, or Cohen at gary@triplethreattv.com.
At the time of Tiffany’s 200 broadcasts, I was a resident of Briarcliff Manor, and found his show to be oddly entertaining and unique, and occasionally breaking some news of interest.
Clay Tiffany was a journalist seeking to uncover the truth and the truth as he saw it. And like any journalist and their works, the Clay Tiffany was a journalist seeking to uncover the truth and the truth as he saw it. And like any journalist and their works, the people have a choice. You can read it or watch it or turn the channel.
