BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — In two decades of kicking in doors for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Joseph Bongiovanni often risked being the “lead breacher,” meaning he was the first person in the room.
On Wednesday, he felt a familiar uncertainty as he awaited sentencing for using his DEA badge to protect childhood friends who became prominent drug dealers in Buffalo, New York.
“I didn’t know what was on the other side of that door — that fear is what I feel today,” Bongiovanni, 61, told a federal judge, pounding on the defense table as his face turned red with emotion. “I’ve always been innocent. I loved that job.”
U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo sentenced the disgraced lawmaker to five years in federal prison on corruption charges. The sentence was less than 15 years prosecutors had sought after acquitting Bongiovanni of the most serious charges he faced, including taking $250,000 in bribes from the Mafia.
The judge said the sentence reflected the complexity of the mixed verdicts after two long trials and the almost Jekyll-and-Hyde nature of Bongiovanni’s career, in which the lawman garnered enough front-page accolades to fill a trophy case.
Bongiovanni once injured residents in a burning apartment building to help them escape from the smoke. He shut down drug dealers, including the first in the region to be prosecuted for fatal overdoses.
“There are two completely polar opposite versions of the facts and polar opposite versions of the defendant,” Vilardo said, assuring prosecutors that serving five years in prison would be a huge hardship on someone who had never been to prison.
Defense attorney Parker McKay noted that the judge acknowledged Bongiovanni as a “beacon” of the Buffalo community. The government’s request for a 15-year sentence, he added, was “completely exaggerated in the nature of punishment.”
“As Mr. Bongiovanni told the judge at his 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, one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, one count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, and one count of making false statements to law enforcement.
Prosecutors said Bongiovanni’s “little dark secret” caused immeasurable damage over 11 years. They compared him to Jose Irizarry, a disgraced former DEA agent serving a 12-year federal sentence after pleading guilty to laundering money for Colombian drug cartels.
Bongiovanni argued organized crime figures not to the DEA, but to the tight-knit Italian American community of his northern Buffalo upbringing. During the sentencing, Bongiovanni’s family broke down in tears in the front row of a packed courtroom in downtown Buffalo.
Prosecutors said Bongiovanni’s corruption involved as much inaction as a calculated coverup. They point to a juncture in 2008 when Bongiovanni may have acted on intelligence about smugglers whose operations he knew would evolve into a large-scale organization with links to California, Vancouver and New York City.
He was also accused of writing fake DEA reports, stealing sensitive files, dumping co-workers, outing confidential informants, covering for a sex-trafficking strip club and helping a high school English teacher keep his marijuana-growing side hustle. Prosecutors said he brazenly urged colleagues to spend less time investigating Italians and focus on black and Hispanic individuals.
“His conduct shook law enforcement — and this community — to its very foundation,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Trippi told the judge. “That’s cheating.”
The former agent’s downfall came amid a sex-trafficking indictment that took a sensational turn, including an implicated judge who killed himself when the FBI raided his home, law enforcement dragging a pool in search of an overdose victim and dead rats outside the home of a government witness who prosecutors later fired.
This included Pharoah’s Gentlemen’s Club outside of Buffalo. Bongiovanni was a childhood friend of the strip club’s owner, Peter Gares Jr., who authorities say had close ties to both the Buffalo Mafia and the violent Outlaws motorcycle club. A separate jury convicted Geres of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and bribing Bongiovanni.
The prosecution also cast a harsh light on the DEA after a series of corruption scandals prompted at least 17 agents brought in on 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 Mexican drug cartels.
Frank Tarantino, the DEA’s Northeast Associate Chief of Operations, said Bongiovanni’s sentence “sends a powerful message that those who cheat on their badges will be held accountable to the full extent of the law.”
