Tankleff's ex-private investigator pleads to misdemeanor in attempted extortion case, court papers say

A private investigator who prosecutors alleged tried to shake down attorney Martin Tankleff for more money years after helping him overturn his murder conviction has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.

Jay Salpeter, a former NYPD homicide detective, admitted to aggravated harassment in the second degree on April 14 in Nassau County Court, records show.

He is due to be sentenced June 21 to three years of probation under a deal that will include a judge signing orders of protection for Tankleff and two of his family members, prosecutors confirmed Monday while declining to comment on the plea.

Queens attorney Joseph DeFelice, one of Salpeter's attorneys, also declined to comment Monday. Tankleff didn't respond to a request for comment.

Salpeter, 70, of Glen Cove, had been facing up to 2 and 1/3 to 7 years in prison if convicted of the top count against him in an indictment last year that had included multiple counts of attempted grand larceny by extortion.

He told Newsday on Monday that he was "very proud" of the work he did years ago to help overturn Tankleff's conviction and that he thought his plea in this case was "a fair plea."

Tankleff served 17 years in prison following his conviction in the 1988 slayings of his parents, Seymour and Arlene Tankleff, in the family’s Belle Terre home.

At age 17, Tankleff confessed to killing his parents but recanted the next day and accused a business associate of his father’s in the slayings.

From prison in 2000, Tankleff asked Salpeter to work on his case for free as he served a sentence of 50 years to life behind bars.

Salpeter found evidence that men connected to the business associate of Seymour Tankleff — who owed the father more than $500,000 — could have committed the crime.

A Suffolk judge disagreed, but an appellate court set aside the son’s conviction in 2008 and Suffolk prosecutors declined to retry Tankleff.

Years later, Nassau prosecutors alleged that between January 2018 and March 2021, Salpeter threatened to physically harm Tankleff and destroy his reputation in an attempt to get more money for his past investigative services.

The defendant sent “chilling” emails and voicemails to Tankleff, asking for sums of money that included $100,000 and $200,000, a prosecutor said at Salpeter's May 2021 arraignment.

Salpeter threatened to go public with a statement saying he thought he had made a mistake and Tankleff actually had killed his parents, prosecutors also had alleged.

Tankleff, who went to law school after his prison release, was sworn in as an attorney in 2020.

He said in a statement after Salpeter’s indictment that while the defendant was “instrumental in efforts” that led to his freedom, “what transpired over the past several years was not acceptable and had to stop.”

Attorney Thomas Liotti, who also represents Salpeter, filed paperwork last June indicating that Salpeter planned to use a psychiatric defense in his case.

The filing said Salpeter had “intermittent alcohol induced psychosis and depression” at the time of his alleged crimes, and “suffered from a mental disease or defect such that he lacked criminal responsibility for his actions.”

Liotti had said on the day of Salpeter's arraignment that his client had earned $5,000 for his work on the Tankleff case while Tankleff and his lawyers "got millions."

The Garden City lawyer also said then that Salpeter was only asking for "some reasonable compensation for his time and efforts," saying his client's actions "never amounted to a serious threat."