Gerace's ex-wife testifies about envelopes of cash for Bongiovanni, sex acts for others at Pharaoh's

Joseph Bongiovanni collected the three envelopes of cash.

Other “friends of Peter” got the sex acts performed by drug-using dancers at Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club, said Katrina Nigro, the ex-wife of strip club owner Peter Gerace Jr.

Complete coverage: The case of ex-DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni

Nigro, 42, testified Monday during Bongiovanni’s bribery and corruption retrial, offering an inside account of Pharaoh’s, described by prosecutors as a “bastion of alcohol, women and drug use,” where she briefly lived in an upstairs apartment with Gerace and also once handled the club’s business affairs.

Prosecutors called Nigro to testify to show the ties Gerace had to Bongiovanni when Bongiovanni was a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Nigro provided the most sweeping testimony yet about prostitution at the strip club. Gerace would send dancers to private quarters at the club to use drugs with high-end clientele and his friends to engage in sex acts with them, Nigro said.

“He would send them upstairs and lock the door,” Nigro said.

Nigro testified that the men who went upstairs with the dancers included athletes, lawyers, VIPs and also a judge, John L. Michalski, a State Supreme Court justice who later died by suicide. Prosecutors have previously described Michalski as an unindicted co-conspirator in Gerace’s sex-trafficking case.

The dancers’ encounters with the men upstairs happened “almost every day,” and she described the condoms, porn videos and adult sex products she spotted there.

Nigro first went to Pharaoh’s in 2009, selling clothes and shoes out of a suitcase to dancers she interacted with in the dressing room. Eventually, a small shop was set up for her inside the club.

By the time she started dating Gerace, she was at the club almost every day, she testified.

Lawyer opens defense of accused ex-DEA agent: 'He didn't do the things the government says he did'

She married Gerace in September 2014, but started divorce proceedings by the summer of 2016. The split was bitter, and she said Monday that Gerace, whom she called a heavy cocaine user, “lied to me about a lot of stuff” and would travel out of town without telling her.

“I’ve had threats during this case, and it terrorizes me,” she said, seeking to discount defense lawyer Robert Singer’s suggestion that she loves the publicity and relishes “the role of playing spoiler to Peter Gerace.”

After law enforcement officers searched Pharaoh’s during a December 2019 raid, an angry Gerace called and threatened her, prompting her to call the FBI about what she saw at the club and knew about him, she said.

She said she had no role in getting agents to raid Pharaoh’s, but “he said he’s gonna cut all my toes and fingers off,” Nigro recalled.

Nigro said she witnessed “massive” drug use at the club, mainly cocaine and marijuana, with dancers under the influence of drugs every day.

Gerace procured cocaine for the dancers, estimating some 50 would work over a weekend, 30 at night and 20 during the day.

“I think everyone in the club was addicted to drugs or alcohol,” said Nigro, who acknowledged her own struggles with alcohol. She said relapsed after testifying in Bongiovanni’s first trial earlier this year. She said she went to rehab and hasn’t had a drink since July 17.

Gerace's ex-wife says she handed Bongiovanni envelopes full of cash at strip club

In the club’s private area for lap dances, dancers tipped the bouncers not to enforce rules about sexual activity, she said.

Nigro identified dancers, club employees and others who she said used cocaine at Pharaoh’s or other places, but she did not include Bongiovanni among them.

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The case: Bongiovanni, 60, faces 11 charges at his retrial, including bribery and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. for reportedly using his position as a DEA special agent to shield from arrest a drug-trafficking organization whom he thought was associated with Italian organized crime and to provide it with information about investigations and cooperating sources. Prosecutors assert that he received $2,000 and then $4,000 monthly payments totaling at least $250,000 from 2008 to 2017 from the Ron Serio drug trafficking organization. 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.

Through Tuesday, 42 witnesses have testified for the prosecution over 16 days of testimony. Given the number of remaining witnesses, and barring any interruptions, the jury could begin deliberating by the end of September.

Key witness: Katrina Nigro

Quote: “You could feel it. The envelopes all had cash.”

Harmony vanished as Bongiovanni jury deadlocked on 12 bribery and corruption charges

Key testimony: Nigro testified Monday that she twice gave Bongiovanni envelopes filled with cash at Gerace’s direction. But she said she did not know how much cash was in the envelopes. She said she did not know why Gerace was giving Bongiovanni the cash. She said Gerace told her to “just give it to him, he was swinging by” Pharaoh’s. She also said she saw Gerace put money into a birthday card and that Gerace gave Bongiovanni the card at Bongiovanni’s 50th birthday party at a North Buffalo restaurant. She said Gerace told her it contained $5,000 in cash.

“I saw him put it in, but I did not count it or anything,” Nigro said.

“It looked like $5,000 – a lot of hundred dollar bills,” she added.

Context: Nigro’s testimony is considered key because she is the only government witness who has testified that she handed Bongiovanni money at Gerace’s direction. But her testimony at Bongiovanni’s first trial did not deliver the decisive blow prosecutors sought to convict the former federal agent of accepting bribes. Jurors could not reach a verdict on the bribery count. But the judge did. After the first trial, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo acquitted Bongiovanni on the charge he was paid an undetermined amount by Gerace to help Gerace and his Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club avoid federal narcotics investigations and induce the FBI to abandon an investigation.

Vilardo ruled “only surmise and guesswork could lead a jury to determine that the money constituted a bribe, rather than a gratuity for past actions or in the hope of future action, or a reimbursement or genuine gift to a longtime friend.”

Judge acquits Bongiovanni of one of his bribery charges

Two envelopes six months apart and a birthday card with cash – given their lifelong friendship – was “simply not enough,” the judge ruled in July.

Even without the bribery charge related to Gerace, one of the remaining counts – conspiracy to defraud the United States – involves Bongiovanni’s dealings with Gerace. So prosecutors still view testimony from Nigro about the envelopes of cash as important for proving that count. And prosecutors elicited her testimony about drug use as a daily part of the Pharaoh’s experience for dancers and customers as part of their case to prove a conspiracy to distribute controlled substances charge against Bongiovanni.

Prosecution angle: As Nigro testified, Gerace told her there was $5,000 in cash in the envelope given at Bongiovanni’s birthday dinner.

“It was a bribe masked as a birthday gift,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi said at the last trial.

Defense response: Bongiovanni was never caught on a wire, a tape or a camera accepting bribes. There were no marked funds handed over. Nigro acknowledged she did not see what was inside the two envelopes she said she handed Bongiovanni. Even if the envelopes contained cash, she didn’t know the reason Gerace gave them to Bongiovanni.

As Bongiovanni case heads to jury, here's a look at the charges and the defense's rebuttal

As he cross-examined Nigro on Monday, defense attorney Parker MacKay pointed out inconsistencies in Nigro’s testimony at the first trial and the retrial. At the first trial, she said Bongiovanni twice came to Pharaoh’s to pick up an envelope of cash from her: three months before and then three months after Gerace gave Bongiovanni the birthday party cash. All three payments occurred in a six-month period in 2015.

MacKay asked her why she said Monday that she handed both envelopes to Bongiovanni at Pharaoh’s before the birthday party.

At the first trial, Nigro replied “yes” when asked if the birthday card could have contained “a couple of bills.”

On Monday, she said the birthday card contained an inch-thick of cash.

“This is over 10 years ago,” Nigro said about her confusion about when Bongiovanni received the envelopes of cash.

“She told you about two envelopes that she recalled giving to Joseph Bongiovanni over the course of time somewhere in 2015,” Singer told jurors at the first trial. “Well, what did she also tell you? She said she didn’t know what was in the envelopes. She said didn’t know what the purpose of the envelopes was. How does that establish anything about these bribes? Nothing is established by that.”

Gerace response: In a recent letter to The Buffalo News, Gerace has said Nigro has told outrageous lies about him. She ran the Pharaoh’s office and tended to payroll, he acknowledged, but said she does not know the names of any dancers she alleged went upstairs. Michalski was never in Pharaoh’s after he became a state judge. Gerace also accuse Nigro of lying about using cocaine only twice. Her lies on the witness stand are “her way of getting back at people,” Gerace said. Nigro “says I gave Joe B. $5,000 for his birthday – never even gave him a card.” At the first trial, Nigro said “40 members of high society” attended the Bongiovanni birthday dinner. “There was only 9,” Gerace said.