BUFFALO, NY (AP) — In two decades of doorknocking for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Joseph Bongiovanni often took the risks of being “the lead breach,” meaning he was the first person in the room.
On Wednesday, he felt a familiar uncertainty awaiting sentencing for using his 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 that door — that fear is what I feel today,” Bongiovanni, 61, told a federal judge, pounding the defense table as his face flushed with emotion. “I was always innocent. I loved that job.”
US District Court Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo sentenced the disgraced lawyer to five years in federal prison on a string of corruption charges. The sentence was far less than the 15 years sought by prosecutors even after a jury acquitted Bongiovanni of the most serious charges he faced, including an allegation that he took $250,000 in Mafia bribes.
The judge said the sentence reflected the complexity of the mixed verdicts after two lengthy trials and the almost Jekyll-and-Hyde nature of Bongiovanni’s career, in which the lawyer has amassed enough front page appeals to fill a trophy case.
Bongiovanni once fell into a burning apartment building to evacuate the residents through the reducing smoke. He locked up drug dealers, including the first ever prosecuted in the region for causing a fatal overdose.
“There are two completely polar opposite versions of the facts and polar opposite versions of the accused,” said Vilardo, while assuring that the prosecutors five years behind bars create considerable suffering for someone who has never been in prison.
Defense attorney Parker MacKay noted that the judge had recognized Bongiovanni as a “beacon” of the Buffalo community. The government’s request for a sentence of 15 years, he added, was “not entirely out of proportion to the nature of the convictions.”
“As Mr. Bongiovanni told the judge at sentencing, he is innocent, and we look forward to continuing to work with him to prove that,” MacKay told The Associated Press.
A jury in 2024 convicted Bongiovanni of four counts of obstruction of justice, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and making false statements to law enforcement.
Prosecutors said Bongiovanni’s “dark little secret” caused immeasurable damage over 11 years. They likened him to Jose Irizarry, a disgraced former DEA agent who is serving a 12-year federal sentence after confessing to laundering money for Colombian drug cartels.
Bongiovanni swore an oath not to the DEA, they claimed, but to organized crime figures in the tight-knit Italian American community of his North Buffalo upbringing. During the sentencing, Bongiovanni’s family broke down in tears in the front row of the packed courtroom in downtown Buffalo.
Prosecutors said Bongiovanni’s corruption involved inaction as much as a calculated coverup. They pointed to a turning point in 2008 when Bongiovanni may have acted on intelligence about traffickers who knew their operation would evolve into a large-scale organization with ties to California, Vancouver, and New York City.
He was also accused of authoring false DEA reports, stealing sensitive files, firing colleagues, outing confidential informants, covering for a sex-trafficking strip club and helping a high school English teacher keep his zeal in the side of growing marijuana. Prosecutors said he brazenly encouraged colleagues to spend less time investigating Italians and instead focus on Black and Hispanic people.
“His conduct has shaken the foundation of law enforcement – and this community – to its core,” Assistant US Attorney Joseph Tripi told the judge. “That’s treason.”
The ex-agent’s downfall comes amid a sex-trafficking prosecution that has taken sensational turns, including a judge implicated in killing himself after the FBI raided his home, law enforcement trawling through a pond in search of an overdose victim and dead rats planted outside the home of a government witness who prosecutors allege were later killed by a fentanyl. fatal.
It also involved Pharoah’s Gentlemen’s Club outside Buffalo. Bongiovanni was childhood friends with strip club owner Peter Gerace Jr., who authorities say has close ties to both the Buffalo Mafia and the violent Outlaws Motorcycle Club. A separate jury convicted Gerace of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and of paying bribes to Bongiovanni.
The prosecution also cast a harsh light on the DEA after a series of corruption scandals prompted at least 17 trained agents to face federal charges over the past decade. Last month, prosecutors charged another former agent with conspiring to launder millions of dollars and obtain military-grade firearms and explosives for a Mexican drug cartel.
The DEA did not respond to a request for comment on Bongiovanni’s sentencing.