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, both of whom recounted the former agent’s angry reaction to the informant working with another federal agency.
Former DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni tested positive for Covid on Saturday, as have two jurors, forcing another delay in his retrial on bribery and drug-trafficking charges.
Their testimony, according to prosecutors, shows how Bongiovanni got another agency to back away from pursuing a drug investigation that might have implicated the drug-trafficking organization allegedly bribing him for protection.
The former informant is also one of at least three informants whose identities were improperly revealed by Bongiovanni, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi said in his opening statement earlier this week.
The case: Bongiovanni, 60, faces 11 charges, 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 strip club owner Peter Gerace Jr.; and making false statements to a U.S. agency for denying that he initiated contact with Gerace or witnessed Gerace use narcotics.
Key witnesses: Lawrence Jay, retired after 25 years with Customs and Border Protection in variety of roles; and J.D., a former DEA informant.
Context: J.D. had helped the Buffalo Police Department with some of its drug cases by providing inside information after he became addicted to cocaine in 2005. He offered information for money, which he said he used to buy drugs. In 2008, he told a Buffalo detective that he had some information about cross-border marijuana smuggling, and the detective arranged for J.D. to meet with Lawrence Jay, then a senior patrol agent assigned to the Customs and Border Protection intelligence unit. J.D. met Jay at the Small Boat Harbor.
The Buffalo News is not revealing the onetime informant’s full name because prosecutors say he could still face retribution from criminals for having cooperated with the government.
Jay said he found J.D.’s information about the smuggling “detailed” and that it had “some credibility to it.” When Jay asked J.D. if he was working with any other agencies, J.D. mentioned he also dealt with the DEA, and Bongiovanni was his handler. So Jay set up a meeting with J.D., Bongiovanni and himself at the Customs and Border Protection offices in the Town of Tonawanda.
That meeting didn’t last long because Jay said Bongiovanni was angry about J.D. working with Customs and Border Protection. Jay’s agency backed off investigating the alleged drug smuggling that J.D. said he knew about, not wanting to interfere with the DEA and its informant.
A few years later, J.D. would enter into a formal agreement and work as a confidential source for the DEA. J.D. said Thursday that Bongiovanni never asked him if he knew about the Serio drug-trafficking organization. And Bongiovanni never offered Customs and Border Protection any help from J.D. with information about smuggling, Jay said.
Complete coverage: The case of ex-DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni
At Bongiovanni’s first trial, prosecutors offered a more detailed account of how Bongiovanni outed J.D. as an informant. Lou Selva, a member of the Serio drug-trafficking organization was also a longtime friend of Bongiovanni’s. Selva testified at the first trial that he arranged the $2,000 and then $4,000 monthly bribe payments to Bongiovanni. Selva said at the first trial that J.D. had said hello to Bongiovanni and him at a Kenmore gym, where Selva and Bongiovanni worked out. When J.D. walked away, Bongiovanni said, “Stay away from him, he’s a paid informant.”
Key testimony: Jay and J.D. both testified that Bongiovanni was angry from the start of the meeting at the Customs and Border Protection office.
“Joe was angry. He was upset,” Jay told jurors, recalling how Bongiovanni was irate at J.D. and was “dressing him down” in front of him for offering to work with another agency.
“You work for me. You work for the DEA. Why are you here with Customs?” Jay recalled Bongiovanni asking.
After that short contentious meeting, Jay said he walked away for pursuing an investigation into the cross-border smuggling that J.D. said he had information about. Jay said he didn’t want to interfere with another agency’s informant.
Jay said he took Bongiovanni’s word “at face value” that J.D. was the DEA’s informant, and Bongiovanni’s word was good enough for him.
As a result, “we severed ties,” Jay said of J.D. and the drug smuggling investigation. “We never took it further.”
Jay said he did not know if J.D. was officially signed up as a confidential source for Bongiovanni.
J.D. testified that he did not approach Customs and Border Protection on his own but was referred to that agency by Buffalo police, who set up the initial meeting between J.D. and Jay.
Quote: “It’s the way he looked. He was not happy with me. I was cutting his throat. I wasn’t giving him information. I went over to a different agency,” J.D. testified Thursday.
Why it matters: The prosecution sees Bongiovanni’s conduct at the meeting with Jay and J.D. as an example of how Bongiovanni worked to keep other law enforcement agencies from investigating drug trafficking that could implicate the Serio drug-trafficking organization. Prosecutors allege Bongiovanni received at least $250,000 from Serio to shield him and his organization from investigation.
And Bongiovanni broke his oath and duty as a DEA agent by exposing J.D. as an informant.
“That was highly specific,” Tripi said earlier this year about Bongiovanni’s alleged comment at the gym about J.D. “Paid informant. Highly specific, accurate information, provided to a seminal member of a drug organization.”
Defense response: At Bongiovanni’s first trial, the defense reminded jurors that Serio never even heard about J.D.
“J.D. did a controlled buy that was run by Joseph Bongiovanni in 2010. Did Ron Serio ever find out about that? Was that information communicated?”
The answer is no, the defense said, showing that Bongiovanni wasn’t looking out for Serio like the prosecution maintains.
“J.D., you know, was somebody never mentioned to Ron Serio,” defense attorney Robert Singer said at Bongiovanni’s first trial. “What do we learn about J.D.? He was an addict. He was used as a confidential source multiple times over the course of time. Do you think his identity is not going to come out there, that people will stay away from him independent of whatever Mr. Bongiovanni allegedly told Selva?”
