Gym owner found guilty of two murders

A Dix Hills gym owner was convicted Monday in both the killings of a guard in a botched Muttontown armored car robbery nearly 18 years ago and an associate he feared was going to cut a deal with the FBI in exchange for telling them about the heist.

Christian Tarantino, 42, of Dix Hills, faces two mandatory life sentences in the 1994 killing of the guard, Julius Baumgardt, 47, of Lindenhurst, as well as that of his associate in the robbery, Louis Dorval, 30, of Elmont and East Meadow.

According to testimony at the trial, Dorval said he inadvertently shot Baumgardt in the head. Additional testimony included allegations Dorval was shot and his body dumped in a plastic tool chest later found floating off Fire Island.

The jury of nine women and three men, in federal court in Central Islip, said they were deadlocked on two other counts, conspiracy to murder and the actual murder of a third man, who prosecutors alleged Tarantino also had killed.

Tarantino feared the third alleged victim, Vincent Gargiulo, 39, of Sunnyside, was also planning to turn FBI informant, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said Gargiulo was involved in a scheme to sell a tape-recording he had made of Tarantino discussing his role in the armored car robbery and the Dorval murder to either the FBI or to Tarantino.

Prosecutors allege Tarantino hired an employee of one of his gyms to shoot Gargiulo on a Manhattan street.

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The tape was a key part of the prosecutor's case against Tarantino in the Baumgardt and Dorval murders.

"His own words convicted him," said Baumgardt's widow, Christine, referring to the tape. "Finally we get justice . . . a double life sentence."

Gargiulo's brother-in-law, Twisted Sister singer Dee Snider, who was also in the courtroom, said afterward, "Vincent believed Christian Tarantino was a bad person who needed to be stopped" and gave his life to see that justice was done.

Michael Rosen, one of Tarantino's defense attorneys, said neither he nor members of his client's family would comment.

Following the verdict, federal prosecutor James Miskiewicz, who had worked on the triple-murder case for the past 11 years, along with FBI agent Robert Schelhorn and several Nassau detectives, said the government plans to retry Tarantino on the Gargiulo charges.

Miskiewicz, and fellow prosecutors Carrie Capwell and Sean Flynn, presented Tarantino as the head of a robbery and murder crew. "As this case clearly demonstrates, we will not rest until those who engage in such murderous violence are brought to justice," said U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch.

With William Murphy