BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — In his two decades with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Joseph Bongiovanni often risked being the “chief spoiler,” meaning he was the first person in a room.
He felt a familiar sense of uncertainty Wednesday as he awaited sentencing for using a DEA badge to protect childhood friends who became prolific drug dealers in Buffalo, New York.
“I never knew what was on the other side of the door — that fear is how I feel today,” Bongiovanni, 61, told a federal judge, his face red with emotion as he pounded on the defense table. “I was always naive. I loved that job.”
U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo sentenced the disgraced law enforcement officer to five years in federal prison on a series of corruption charges. Even if a jury acquits Bongiovanni of the most serious charges he faces, including a charge that he paid a $250,000 bribe to the Mafia, the penalty would still be far less than the 15 years prosecutors sought.
The judge said the sentence reflected the complexity of the mixed verdicts following two lengthy trials, as well as the near-incarnate nature of Bongiovanni’s career, a enforcer with enough headline-grabbing accolades to fill a trophy case.
Bongiovanni once rushed into a burning apartment building and evacuated residents amid billowing smoke. He jailed drug dealers, including the first in the region to be prosecuted for an overdose.
“There are two completely opposite versions of the facts and there are two completely opposite versions of the defendant’s circumstances,” said Verardo, who assured prosecutors that five years in prison would be a considerable hardship for a man who has never been in prison.
Defense attorney Parker McKay noted that the judge recognized Bongiovanni as a “beacon” for the Buffalo community. He added that the government’s request for a 15-year sentence was “completely unrelated to the nature of the conviction.”
“As Mr. Bongiovanni told the judge at sentencing, he is innocent and we look forward to continuing to work with him to prove that,” McKay told The Associated Press.
In 2024, a jury convicted Bongiovanni of four counts of obstruction of justice, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance, and making false statements to law enforcement.
Prosecutors said Bongiovanni’s “dark little secret” had caused immeasurable damage over 11 years. They compared him to Jose Irizarry, a disgraced former DEA agent who was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to laundering money for Colombian drug cartels.
They believe Bongiovanni was sworn not to the DEA but to organized crime elements in the tight-knit Italian-American community where he grew up in North Buffalo. During the sentencing, Bongiovanni’s family members burst into tears in the front row of a packed courtroom in downtown Buffalo.
Prosecutors said Bongiovanni’s corruption involved both omission and deliberate cover-up. They point to a turning point in 2008, when Bongiovanni was able to act on intelligence about human traffickers he knew and the operation would grow into a large organization with ties to California, Vancouver and New York City.
He is also accused of writing false DEA reports, stealing sensitive documents, dumping colleagues, exposing confidential informants, providing cover for a sex-trafficking strip club, and helping a high school English teacher continue a side business growing marijuana. Prosecutors said he brazenly urged colleagues to spend less time investigating Italians and focus on blacks and Hispanics.
“His actions shook law enforcement and this community to its foundations,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Trippi told the judge. “This is betrayal.”
The former agent’s downfall comes as a sex trafficking prosecution takes a sensational turn, including a judge involved in the case who committed suicide after an FBI raid on his home, law enforcement officials dragging a pond looking for overdose victims and placing dead rats outside the home of a government witness who prosecutors said was later killed by a fatal dose of fentanyl.
It also involves Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club outside of Buffalo. Bongiovanni was a childhood friend of strip club owner Peter Gerace Jr., who authorities said had close ties to the Buffalo Mafia and the violent Outlaw Motorcycle Club. Another jury convicted Geras of a sex trafficking conspiracy and bribery of Bongiovanni.
A series of corruption scandals over the past decade have prompted federal charges against at least 17 agents, and prosecutors have harshly criticized the DEA. Last month, prosecutors charged another former agent with conspiring to launder millions of dollars and obtain military-grade guns and explosives for Mexican drug cartels.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration did not respond to a request for comment on Bongiovanni’s sentencing.
