BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) — Ex-DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni has been found guilty on seven of the 11 charges against him in a re-trial, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, a jury decided in U.S. Federal Court on Thursday.
Bongiovanni was previously found guilty on two charges, including obstruction of justice and making false statements in his first trial earlier this year, but a jury failed to reach a verdict on 12 of the 15 total counts against him, including the most serious charges of conspiracy, accepting bribes and drug-related offenses. In July, he was acquitted of one of the bribery charges.
This time around, he was found guilty of the following charges:
- conspiracy to defraud the United States
- conspiracy to distribute controlled substances
- obstruction of justice (4 counts)
- false statements to an agency of the United States
He was found not guilty of the four other charges, which included another count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, another count of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, a fourth count of obstruction of justice and public official accepting a bribe.
The jury came to the verdict early in its fourth day of deliberations. It began the fourth day at 9 a.m. Thursday and reached the verdict around 11 a.m.
“We’re not disappointed at all in the outcome of this case, trial one or trial two,” U.S. Attorney Trini Ross said in a news conference following the verdict. “What we set out to do was to show that Joseph Bongiovanni was a corrupt federal agent, and we did that.”
He was not detained following the verdict, but will be on house arrest with an ankle monitor until sentencing, which is set for June 9, 2025. He is facing a maximum of 20 years in prison.
The jury had been struggling to come to a verdict on Wednesday, prompting Judge Lawrence Vilardo to issue a “dynamite” charge, which encouraged jurors in the minority to change their stance.
Jury struggling to reach verdict in Bongiovanni retrial Bongiovanni, 60, was originally charged with accepting over $250,000 in bribes from who the prosecution referred to as “Italian organized crime members,” who allegedly worked with the ex-DEA agent to derail investigations into themselves. He is accused of opening fake case files and encouraging colleagues to spend less time investigating Italians and more time on Black people and Hispanics. He is further accused of hastily retiring and wiping his cell phone clean when he was first accused by authorities in 2019.
“The jury rejected any notion of a mistake,” assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi said. “This was corruption through the through.”
Tripi added that the trial also proved that Italian organized crime is still alive in Buffalo.
“The proof at trial is that there are still people who hold that reputation, and there was direct testimony that came out at this trial that Mike Masecchia himself admitted he’s a made man,” Tripi said. “That lends itself to an inference there.”
Prosecutors also alleged Bongiovanni worked closely with co-defendant Peter Gerace, the owner of Pharoah’s Gentleman’s Club in Cheektowaga, saying the site was used for drugs and sex trafficking. Prosecutors said that he helped childhood friends as well as assisting Masecchia, a connected high school English teacher, in keeping a marijuana-growing side hustle.
“When you take an oath, we trust you do adhere to that oath. Most do,” Ross said. “But sometimes, they don’t. And when they don’t, we’re here to make sure justice is done.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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