Former DEA agent sentenced to 5 years in prison for using badge to protect drug trafficking friends

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — In two decades of kicking in doors for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Joseph Bongiovanni often took on the risks of being the “lead breacher,” meaning he was the first person into the room.

On Wednesday, he felt a familiar uncertainty awaiting sentencing for using his DEA badge to protect childhood friends who became prolific drug traffickers in Buffalo, New York.

“I knew never 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 reddened with emotion. “I’ve always been innocent. I loved that job.”

U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo sentenced the disgraced lawman to five years in federal prison on a string of corruption counts. The punishment was significantly less than the 15 years prosecutors sought even after a jury acquitted Bongiovanni of the most serious charges he faced, including pocketing $250,000 in bribes from the Mafia.

The judge said the sentence reflected the complexity of the mixed verdicts following two lengthy trials and the almost Jekyll-and-Hyde nature of Bongiovanni’s career, in which the lawman racked up enough front-page accolades to fill a trophy case.

Bongiovanni once hurtled into a burning apartment building, crawling under billowing smoke to evacuate residents. He locked up drug dealers, including the first ever prosecuted in the region for causing a fatal overdose. Before going on duty, he would call his mother to say he loved her.

“There are two completely polar opposite versions of the facts and polar opposite versions of the defendant,” Vilardo said, assuring prosecutors five years behind bars would pose a considerable hardship to someone who has never been to prison.

A jury in 2024 convicted Bongiovanni of four counts of obstruction of justice, as well as counts of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and making false statements to law enforcement.

Prosecutors said Bongiovanni’s “little dark secret” caused immeasurable damage over a period of 11 years. They likened him to Jose Irizarry, a disgraced former DEA agent serving a 12-year federal sentence after confessing to laundering money for Colombian drug cartels.

Bongiovanni upheld an oath not to the DEA, they argued, but to organized crime figures in the tight-knit Italian American community in North Buffalo where he grew up.

He was accused of authoring bogus DEA reports, stealing sensitive files, throwing off colleagues, 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 instead on Black and Hispanic people.

“His conduct shook the foundation of law enforcement — and this community — to its core,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi told the judge. “That’s what a betrayal is.”

Bongiovanni’s family dissolved into tears on the front row of the packed courtroom in downtown Buffalo, cursing a case the retired agent’s lawyers contended was built on prosecutors’ “blind hatred.”

The case was part of a sex-trafficking prosecution that took sensational turns, including an implicated judge who killed himself after the FBI raided his home, law enforcement dragging a pond in search of an overdose victim and dead rats planted outside the home of a government witness who prosecutors allege was later killed by a fatal dose of fentanyl.

It also involved the Pharoah’s Gentlemen’s Club outside Buffalo. Bongiovanni was childhood friends with the strip club’s 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 a sex trafficking conspiracy and of paying bribes to Bongiovanni.

The prosecution also cast a harsh light on the DEA, which has seen a string of corruption scandals and at least 17 agents brought up 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 a Mexican drug cartel.

The DEA did not respond to a request for comment on Bongiovanni’s sentence.