A judge has declined to dismiss criminal charges against former DEA Agent Joseph Bongiovanni, saying there is no evidence that the Justice Department targeted him because of his Italian American heritage.
Complete coverage: The case of ex-DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni
Former DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni, 61, was convicted on Oct. 10, 2024, on seven of 11 charges in his retrial, making him the first DEA agent in Western New York to be convicted of public corruption charges.
(79) updates to this series since Updated
Louis Selva is expected to share with jurors insider information that only he and a few other people know about how and why – and for how much money – Joseph Bongiovanni used his job as a DEA agent to shield a drug-trafficking organization from investigation and alert it to informants, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi said.
"This is a simple case about a dishonest and corrupt special agent who violated his oath and duty to enforce the drug laws of this nation in exchange for up to a quarter of a million dollars in bribes," Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi said Thursday in his opening statement at Joseph Bongiovanni's trial.
Opening statements from the prosecution and defense will begin Thursday in the federal corruption trial of ex-DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni.
Jury selection starts Monday in the case against former DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni.
A judge has rejected a request for a shorter prison sentence from Michael Masecchia, a former schoolteacher who admitted receiving help from a federal agent, Joseph Bongiovanni, in trafficking marijuana into Buffalo and its suburbs.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo ordered separate trials Wednesday for Peter Gerace Jr., owner of Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club, and retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent Joseph Bongiovanni.
Prosecutors raised concerns over witness safety and anxiety, given what they call the extensive media coverage of the bribery, sex- and drug-trafficking case.
On a day marked by more defense team reshuffling and a new trial date, the request for another big change came from federal prosecutors in the high-profile bribery, sex- and drug-trafficking case against an ex-DEA agent and a strip club owner: a different trial venue.
Four years into wearing an ankle bracelet as an indicted ex-DEA agent, Joseph Bongiovanni now fears it could take well into a fifth year before he can try to clear his name in a courtroom.
During a court proceeding Friday, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo characterized the new trial start date as "cast in stone."
Defense lawyer James P. Harrington, 78, has a recurring medical issue, and told a federal judge last week that he is making the request on "the strong medical advice" from his cardiologist.
Defense teams for Joseph Bongiovanni, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent and Peter Gerace Jr., owner of Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club in Cheektowaga, each sought separate trials. After a district judge's ruling, the two men are scheduled to be tried together next month.
U.S. District Judge John L. Sinatra Jr. ruled Monday that prosecutors may identify some witnesses only as "protected witness" because of concerns about their safety until May 10, and perhaps beyond then.
is accused of paying some of the $250,000 in bribes reportedly accepted by now .
Citing government concerns of possible witness intimidation, a judge refused Tuesday to unseal federal agents' requests for warrants to search the homes, computers and phones of a former DEA agent and the Cheektowaga strip club owner who is accused of bribing him.
An Erie County Sheriff’s Office jail deputy resigned from his job in 2019, hours after federal agents investigating the Buffalo Mafia executed a search warrant at his residence, according to four law enforcement sources.
Federal prosecutors are looking for organized crime activities in a widespread investigation, just four years after the special agent in charge of the Buffalo FBI office said, “Some of the individuals who were leaders of the Mafia are still around. But their organized crime activities don’t exist anymore."
Attorneys for former DEA agent Joseph Bongviovanni say federal prosecutors have “imagined the existence” of a powerful Buffalo mob family.
When federal agents followed up on the indictment of a former DEA agent by raiding Pharaoh’s, two sources said the raid indicates prosecutors suspect there may be a link to the
Federal agents raided Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club in Cheektowaga as part of their investigation into a former DEA agent, a source familiar with the raid said
Eight months after retiring from the DEA, Joseph Bongiovanni, 55, was accused of taking $250,000 in bribes from drug dealers whom he believed to have ties to “Italian organized
Prosecutors have described "a bad situation" at Pharaoh's Gentlemen's Club in Cheektowaga, where cocaine and other drugs were being distributed and dancers were overdosing on heroin.
Joseph Bongiovanni didn’t know about the Ronald Serio search warrants and surveillance by the Erie County Sheriff's Office, prosecutors say, and testimony in the former DEA agent's bribery trial revealed that the reluctance of sheriff's detectives to use a DEA database helped keep their Serio investigation from becoming known to Bongiovanni.
Testimony about the owner of Pharaoh's Gentlemen's Club was inevitable because eight of the 15 bribery, obstruction of justice, false statement and other charges Joseph Bongiovanni faces involve Peter Gerace Jr. in some way.
On the 13th day of testimony in Joseph Bongiovanni's bribery and corruption trial, Ronald Serio emerged as a pivotal witness naming names. Serio identified or confirmed the roles of more than two dozen people who he said helped him grow, buy, sell or transport illegal drugs.
Prosecutors allege Joseph Bongiovanni's handling of the informant helped shield Ronald Serio and others in his drug-trafficking organization from investigation.
Testifying for nearly four hours Wednesday, Louis Selva barely looked at the defense table where his friend since sixth grade, Joseph Bongiovanni, sat.
Lawyers for former Drug Enforcement Administration agent Joseph Bongiovanni on Tuesday sought a mistrial based on a jury note read aloud in federal court last week that they say could add undue pressure on a holdout juror. The judge denied the motion.
Eleven members of the jury deliberating in the corruption trial of a former federal agent have a dispute with the remaining juror and expressed concern that they may not be able to reach a unanimous verdict, according a note from the jury read in court Friday.
The jury will resume at 9 a.m. Friday, considering 15 felony charges, including accepting bribes, conspiracy to distribute drugs and making false statements, against retired U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Joseph Bongiovanni.
Jurors will begin deliberating today in the trial of former Drug Enforcement Administration agent Joseph Bongiovanni. Here's a breakdown of the charges and how his defense lawyers rebut them.
The topic of cash loomed large as Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicholas Cooper cross-examined Lindsay Bongiovanni, with repeated questions about whether the couple paid cash for their purchases.
Federal prosecutors rested their case Tuesday after calling the last of 70 witnesses in their bribery trial of former Drug Enforcement Administration agent Joseph Bongiovanni.
Five weeks into Joseph Bongiovanni's bribery and corruption trial, prosecutors say unexplained cash deposits enabled him to break even financially over a period of years they contend he received a quarter of a million dollars or more in cash bribes from a drug-trafficking organization as well payments from a Cheektowaga strip club owner.
"The evidence will show that those were rewards for a job well done," Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi told jurors earlier in Bongiovanni's bribery and corruption trial.
This question that jolted the investigation of a former DEA agent: What does it mean to be connected?
The woman's account on the eighth day of testimony in the Joseph Bongiovanni bribery trial bolstered Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi's assertion that Pharaoh's had become "a rampantly drug-involved premises with drugs flowing through there, patrons and dancers using, distributors dealing."
Wednesday would have been the fifth day of deliberations, which began April 3 after 24 days of testimony and closing arguments in the trial of former DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi said in court prosecutors will seek to retry Bongiovanni as soon as possible on the unresolved charges.
The jury in the trial of former Drug Enforcement Administration Joseph Bongiovanni could not reach a verdict on bribery counts against him but found him guilty on one count of obstruction of justice and one count of lying to federal agents over a case file kept in his home after his retirement.
In her first public comment since Friday's partial verdict in the high-profile Joseph Bongiovanni trial, U.S. Attorney Trini Ross said Monday that federal prosecutors are ready to retry the former federal agent on unresolved bribery and corruption charges.
Jurors heard opening statements Monday in a retrial in which ex-DEA Agent Joseph Bongiovanni is accused of accepting at least $250,000 in bribes from the Ron Serio drug-trafficking organization in exchange for protecting its members from arrest and alerting them of informants.
Bongiovanni will now be able to confirm his location to federal probation officials through a smartphone application.
Robert Kaiser's body was found last month on a bike path by Grant Street near the pavilion in Scajaquada Park across from the Tops gas pumps, Buffalo police said.
Six weeks ahead of his retrial, former Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Joseph Bongiovanni on Friday asked a federal court judge to acquit him on his unresolved bribery and drug conspiracy charges involving Peter Gerace Jr., as well as reverse his convictions on two counts that jurors found him guilty of at his first trial.
The bribery and corruption retrial of former Drug Enforcement Agent Joseph Bongiovanni is scheduled to begin July 29, according to one of his defense attorneys.
Twelve jurors and six alternates were sworn into service Wednesday for the federal corruption trial of ex-DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni.
Dale Kasprzyk, the former resident agent in charge of the DEA's Buffalo office, testified Tuesday that former agent Joseph Bongiovanni never told him he had been a childhood friend of Peter Gerace Jr.
Judge sets 2026 sentencing dates for strip club owner Peter Gerace Jr. and former DEA Agent Joseph Bongiovanni, both of whom were convicted last year in separate, high-profile jury trials.
Five takeaways about the recent court decision from U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence Vilardo that softens the advisory sentencing range in ex-DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni's presentence report.
A judge's order to revise Joseph Bongiovanni's presentence report may lead to a recommended sentencing range of nine to 11 years in prison for the retired DEA agent, more than what he hoped for in his corruption case but far less than what prosecutors sought.
Judge Lawrence Vilardo said he had no authority to speculate what jurors might have been thinking in their verdict against former DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni.
Ahead of the sentencing of retired DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni, prosecutors and defense attorneys are arguing what facts are admissible in a presentencing report – which could heavily affect the length of his prison term.
The federal judge overseeing Joseph Bongiovanni's corruption case has postponed sentencing, previously scheduled for next week, and instead will hear arguments from prosecutors and defense lawyers about a presentence report that will shape his punishment.
Defense lawyers for Joseph Bongiovanni on Monday asked a federal judge to set aside his guilty verdicts from last fall, saying that what the Drug Enforcement Administration agent knew of his best friend Louis Selva's involvement in drug trafficking – and what he did – did not support the jury convictions of narcotics conspiracy and corruption.
Ronald Serio, the drug trafficker who said he paid at least $250,000 in bribes to Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Joseph Bongiovanni between 2010 and 2017, was sentenced Friday to two years in prison on drug and weapons charges.
A federal judge granted early prison release for former Buffalo schoolteacher Michael Masecchia, who an accomplice fingered as a member of organized crime during last year's trials of former Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Joseph Bongiovanni.
A month after citing an irreparable breakdown in his relationship with his trial lawyers, retired DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni on Friday told U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo he has withdrawn his request to replace attorneys Robert Singer and Parker MacKay.
Jury selection begins Monday in the bribery, sex- and drug-trafficking trial of Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club owner Peter Gerace Jr. – and a good amount of trial testimony expected over the next two months should not surprise him.
Twelve days after a jury convicted him, Joseph Bongiovanni on Tuesday asked for new lawyers to represent him, citing an irreparable breakdown in his relationship with his current legal team.
The special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Buffalo confirmed an investigation remains ongoing.
One way to grasp the prosecution's case is by categorizing witnesses into groups: the former Pharaoh's dancers and employees; a slew of drug dealers; Bongiovanni's DEA colleagues; the outside law enforcement agents who turned over informants and investigations to the DEA; and the handful of federal investigators who investigated Bongiovanni.
Bongiovanni, 60, faced 11 charges, including bribery and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. for reportedly using his position as a DEA special agent to protect members of the Ron Serio drug-trafficking organization whom he thought were associated with Italian organized crime.
Joseph Bongiovanni, 60, stands accused of using his position as a DEA agent to protect drug dealers he thought were associated with Italian organized crime from investigations.
Bongiovanni, 60, stands accused of using his position as a DEA agent to protect drug dealers he thought were associated with Italian organized crime from investigations.
Jurors on Wednesday listened to federal prosecutors describe Joseph Bongiovanni as a Drug Enforcement Administration agent who protected a drug trafficking organization and the operator of a strip club from the scrutiny of law enforcement. And then jurors heard from Bongiovanni's defense that prosecutors based their case on unreliable drug dealers with inconsistent stories and failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the now-retired DEA agent took bribes.
Federal prosecutors rested their case Monday after the last of their 62 witnesses finished testifying in the bribery and corruption retrial of former Drug Enforcement Administration agent Joseph Bongiovanni.
Through Friday, 52 witnesses have testified for the prosecution over 21 days of testimony in the retrial of former DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni.
The heist might have been just a chucklesome story in the annals of Western New York crime – if not for whose house John McDonald burglarized and whose ring was inside the safe.
Gerace's ex-wife testifies about envelopes of cash for Bongiovanni, sex acts for others at Pharaoh's
Katrina Nigro testified Monday during Bongiovanni's bribery and corruption retrial, offering an inside account of Pharaoh's, described by prosecutors as a "bastion of alcohol, women and drug use."
On the ninth day of testimony in Joseph Bongiovanni's retrial, his longtime friend Louis Selva said he used cocaine with Bongiovanni during his college years and also after Bongiovanni became a DEA agent.
Louis Selva testified Tuesday that he negotiated the bribes that the Ronald Serio drug-trafficking organization paid Joseph Bongiovanni, then a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, to shield the organization from investigation and alert it to informants.
DEA Special Agent Shane Nastoff told jurors that Joseph Bongiovanni seemed irritated that Anthony Anastasia, who pleaded guilty in a 2015 cocaine trafficking case, was telling people that Bongiovanni had “screwed him over.”
Michael O'Rourke, retired New York State Police senior investigator who spent 16 years on narcotics enforcement team, was a key witness Friday at Joseph Bongiovanni's retrial.
Another federal agency steered clear of drug-smuggling probe as Bongiovanni held sway over informant
The fourth day of the prosecution's case against ex-Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Joseph Bongiovanni included testimony from a onetime informant and a retired Customs and Border Protection investigator.
On the third day of testimony at Joseph Bongiovanni’s corruption retrial, a former dancer at Pharaoh's Gentlemen's Club recalled meeting the then-Drug Enforcement Administration agent at the Cheektowaga strip club and saw him there a couple of times with club owner Peter Gerace Jr.
As his retrial starts Monday, former Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Joseph Bongiovanni can expect a lineup of former colleagues and bosses to testify again in the coming weeks.
Defense lawyers have asked for a short prison term, if any time in custody is required at all, for the first Drug Enforcement Administration agent in Western New York convicted of protecting drug traffickers.
News Reporter Patrick Lakamp and Assistant Managing Editor Bruce Andriatch discuss the case against Peter Gerace Jr.