Buffalo, New York – During his two decades of opening the doors of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Joseph Bongiovanni often risked being considered the “master hacker,” meaning he was the first person in the room.
On Wednesday, he felt 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 as he pounded on the defense table as his face flushed with emotion. “I’ve always been innocent. I loved this job.”
U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo, the disgraced lawman faces five years in federal prison on a series of corruption charges. The sentence was far less than the 15-year term sought by prosecutors even after a jury acquitted Bongiovanni of the most serious charges he faced, including misappropriation. $250,000 in bribes from the mafia.
The judge said the ruling reflects the complexity of mixed sentences after two lengthy trials and the nature of Bongiovanni’s career, in which the lawman has racked up enough front-page accolades to fill a trophy case.
Bongiovanni once rushed into a burning apartment building and crawled under the rising smoke to evacuate residents. He locked up drug dealers, including the first in the region ever prosecuted for causing a fatal overdose. Before going to work, he would call his mother to tell her he loved her.
“There are two diametrically opposed versions of the facts and two diametrically opposed versions of the defendant,” Vilardo said, assuring prosecutors that five years behind bars would be a significant hardship for someone who has never been to prison.
Jury in 2024 Bongiovanni was convicted of four counts of obstruction of justice, as well as charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, and making false statements to law enforcement officials.
Prosecutors said the “little dark secret” Bongiovanni revealed caused untold damage over 11 years. They likened him to Jose Irizarry, Disgraced former DEA agent He is serving a 12-year federal prison sentence after admitting to laundering money for Colombian drug cartels.
They said Bongiovanni swore an oath not to the DEA, but to organized crime figures in the close-knit Italian American community in north Buffalo where he grew up.
He was accused of writing false reports for the Drug Enforcement Administration, stealing sensitive files, eliminating colleagues, exposing confidential informants, covering up a sex-trafficking strip club, and helping a high school English teacher maintain his marijuana growing business. Prosecutors said he brazenly urged his colleagues to spend less time investigating Italians and focus instead on blacks and Hispanics.
“His conduct shook the foundation of law enforcement — and this community — to its core,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Trippi told the judge. “This is treason.”
Bongiovanni’s family burst into tears in the front row of the packed downtown Buffalo courtroom, cursing the case that the retired agent’s lawyers asserted was built on “blind hatred” for prosecutors.
The case was part of a sex trafficking trial that took dramatic turns, including an implicated judge killing himself after the FBI raided his home, law enforcement pulling a pool searching for an overdose victim, and dead rats being planted outside the home of a government witness who prosecutors allege was later killed by a fatal dose of fentanyl.
It also included the Pharaoh Gentlemen’s Club outside Buffalo. Bongiovanni was a childhood friend of the strip club owner, Peter Geras Jr., who authorities say had close ties to both the Buffalo Mafia and the violent Outlaws Motorcycle Club. A separate jury convicted Geras of a sex trafficking conspiracy and paying bribes to Bongiovanni.
The prosecution also cast a harsh light on the Drug Enforcement Administration, which has seen a series of corruption scandals and the prosecution of at least 17 agents on federal charges over the past decade. Last month, prosecutors charged Another former agent By 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.