The lifelong friend of Joseph Bongiovanni resumed testifying against him Wednesday in the former Drug Enforcement Administration agent’s bribery and corruption retrial, recounting that the two used cocaine together between five and 10 times.
Selva
Louis Selva, 59, testified the two used cocaine while socializing at a downtown hotel’s rooftop bar.
Another time at a Chippewa Street bar.
Also at a friend’s lakeside cottage in Angola.
And in a hotel room among a tight circle of friends during Bongiovanni’s Cabo San Lucas destination wedding.
“He didn’t want to do it in public,” said Selva, the best man at Bongiovanni’s 2015 wedding. “That’s why we did it in the room, to keep it low key.”
On the ninth day of testimony in Bongiovanni’s retrial, Selva said he used cocaine with Bongiovanni during his college years and also after Bongiovanni became a DEA agent.
Bongiovanni was even aware of a marijuana grow operation in Selva’s home basement, Selva said.
Selva, considered a pivotal government witness, said the cocaine use explained why he felt safe to broach with Bongiovanni a bribery scheme in which the Ron Serio drug-trafficking organization would pay the then-DEA agent $2,000 a month, and later $4,000 a month, for sensitive law enforcement information about informants, surveillance, wiretaps and targets of investigations.
Complete coverage: The case of ex-DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni
Bongiovanni’s lawyers deny Bongiovanni used cocaine or was involved in any bribery scheme.
The case: Bongiovanni, 60, faces 11 charges in U.S. District Court, including a bribery count alleging that he accepted at least $250,000 from a drug-trafficking organization whom he thought was associated with Italian organized crime and shielded its members from arrest and provided them with information about investigations and cooperating sources. Other charges in the grand jury indictment include conspiracy to distribute controlled substances; obstruction of justice, related to reportedly false entries in DEA reports and memos about his dealings with Peter Gerace Jr., the owner of Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club; and making false statements to a U.S. agency for denying that he initiated contact with Gerace or witnessed Gerace use narcotics.
Former DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni is accused of accepting at least $250,000 in bribes to shield drug traffickers from arrest.
Key witness: Louis Selva
Quote: “We went into a stall and did a blast of cocaine,” Selva said of a time he and Bongiovanni used cocaine in the bathroom of a bar.
Context: After returning to Buffalo from his first DEA posting in Florida, and fresh off a divorce, Bongiovanni was a single man going out to bars and hanging out with Selva, his best friend since elementary school who was a bartender. Selva said he told Bongiovanni that he was using cocaine, which he said the two had done together in the past. Eventually, hitting the bar scene together, Bongiovanni started to use cocaine on occasion as well, Selva testified.
Given their cocaine use, Selva said he felt comfortable pitching the alleged bribery scheme to Bongiovanni.
At the time, Selva had become part of a drug-trafficking organization run by Ronald Serio and Michael Masecchia, who was also a friend of Selva and Bongiovanni’s since their childhood days in North Buffalo. Selva was helping grow the marijuana in the Southern Tier, transported the product and even set up a grow operation in his home.
Selva said Masecchia was responsible for making face-to-face cash payments to Bongiovanni. Serio was the financier behind the drug organization, and he also found marijuana and narcotics suppliers in New York City; California; Vancouver, British Columbia; and locally, prosecutors say.
At first, Bongiovanni was reluctant – and even mad – about what Selva proposed, Selva said.
But Selva said he was optimistic even after their first meeting ended without a formal arrangement because of “just the trust factor we had in each other,” Selva said Wednesday.
Selva said he went back to Masecchia after the first meeting with Bongiovanni and told him, “I’m sure he’ll agree to it.”
Bongiovanni did just that at the second meeting a few weeks later, Selva said, when he was offered $2,000 a month, or $24,000 a year on retainer.
Selva would meet with Bongiovanni once a month to get information from him, and then separately Masecchia would give Bongiovanni cash from Serio once a month at locations only the two of them knew about.
Key testimony: As the drug operation expanded beyond the Southern Tier marijuana growing fields, with truckloads of marijuana coming from the West Coast, Canada and New York City, so did the need for more information about whether the DEA and other law enforcement agencies were investigating Serio, Masecchia and their conspirators.
“The operation was growing,” Selva testified. “We needed as much information as possible.”
Those in the drug operation were especially concerned if law enforcement was paying attention to the route between Western New York and New York City where the trucks were carrying the drug shipments.
Selva said he gave Bongiovanni a list of names and their phone numbers two or three times for Bongiovanni to keep track of in case they showed up in DEA investigations.
The monthly updates from Bongiovanni were usually quick, Selva said.
“He told me it was all clear, there was nothing to worry about,” Selva said.
But Bongiovanni also allegedly provided useful information, Selva said. Bongiovanni passed along information that law enforcement sought GPS tracker warrants for Masecchia’s vehicle. The DEA agent also disclosed the IRS was looking into Serio’s banking activity because of Serio’s heavy gambling, Selva said.
Bongiovanni disclosed the identity of several informants or those being targeted by investigators, warning Selva to steer clear of them, Selva said.
Once, when giving Bongiovanni a ride, Selva was able to enter the DEA garage and saw the undercover surveillance vehicles, including vehicles that looked like utility trucks, Selva said.
Bongiovanni advised Selva how to spot surveillance – look for Chargers with tinted windshields or utility trucks parked on the street for days.
He also told him to be vague when talking on the phone with others in the drug operation, Selva said. Talk in person – not over the phone.
When Bongiovanni learned about Selva’s indoor marijuana grow operation, he warned him how utility charges could be a red flag with officials, so suggested turning off as much power when possible to avoid being detected, Selva said.
Why it matters: Prosecutors say that from 2008 until 2019, Bongiovanni used his position as a DEA special agent to shield the Serio organization from investigations, including Masecchia, who he believed to be connected to Italian organized crime. Masecchia, who’s now serving seven years in federal prison, did not testify at Bongiovanni’s first trial. Masecchia, in his plea agreement, said he and others in the drug trade had help from Bongiovanni but did not offer details. And Masecchia did not testify at Bongiovanni’s first trial. So Selva and Serio are the only witnesses that jurors will hear from about the alleged bribery scheme.
Prosecution angle: Bongiovanni “was doing cocaine with people who were going to be at his wedding,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi said at Bongiovanni’s first trial. “Lou Selva is another person he did cocaine with. And these are at bars, and close situations, you know, go into the stall, come out, do cocaine, have a good night.”
Defense response: “Simply put, Joseph Bongiovanni did not use cocaine at all,” defense attorney Robert Singer said at the first trial.
Singer has pointed to previous testimony from several people who attended Bongiovanni’s destination wedding, which contradicted Selva’s testimony about cocaine use there.
“Contrast that with the evidence you also heard at this trial about how there was drug testing that went on at the DEA, and there were never any positive results found about Mr. Bongiovanni testing positive for drugs,” Singer said in his closing argument at the first trial.
As for the law enforcement techniques and tactics that Bongiovanni allegedly disclosed to Selva, none were surprising to anyone who watched TV cop shows.
“OK, look out for cars with tinted windows. Don’t talk business over the telephone, that was another. Look out for out-of-place utility trucks that hang out on the block for a long time,” Singer said. “Look out for the classic type of police vehicles like Crown Victorias when you’re on the roadway transporting drugs. I mean, all these tips, they’re something that someone watching a cops show on TV or a movie could have told you.”
Selva and Bongiovanni clearly talked a lot, Singer has said. But what is missing is Bongiovanni’s connections with Masecchia, Singer said at the first trial.
“Did we see toll logs reflecting calls between Joseph Bongiovanni and Mike Masecchia to arrange these meetups so that cash could be handed off?” Singer asked. “Did we see Michael Masecchia as a contact in Joseph Bongiovanni’s phone? Did we see anything about Michael Masecchia having Joseph Bongiovanni’s contact in his phone, or making calls to him whatsoever? Nothing.”
