After a nearly two-week delay over Covid-19 illnesses, the Joseph Bongiovanni bribery and corruption retrial resumed Tuesday with testimony from a pivotal government witness in the case: Louis Selva, a childhood friend of Bongiovanni’s who went on to become part of a marijuana drug-trafficking organization.
Selva testified Tuesday that he negotiated the bribes that the Ronald Serio drug-trafficking organization paid Bongiovanni, then a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, to shield the organization from investigation and alert it to informants.
Former DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni is accused of accepting at least $250,000 in bribes to shield drug traffickers from arrest.
Serio said he was not initially forthcoming with investigators after Homeland Security Investigations agents raided his North Buffalo home as part of the investigation that led to bribery and corruption charges against Bongiovanni.
“I was torn,” Selva said under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi.
Selva said he was trying to protect Bongiovanni and the two leaders of the drug organization, Serio and Michael Masecchia, who was also a friend of Selva’s since their childhood days in North Buffalo.
Selva said he pitched Bongiovanni on a formal arrangement with the drug-trafficking group that put the then-DEA agent on a retainer for $2,000 a month, for upward of $250,000 over most of a decade. Prosecutors alleged he protected drug dealers whom he thought were associated with Italian organized crime.
On Tuesday, Selva, 59, said he was aware of Bongiovanni’s financial pressures after his first marriage broke up. And Selva said he occasionally used cocaine with Bongiovanni, not only during his college years, but also when Bongiovanni was a DEA agent.
Selva previously said he felt safe broaching the bribery scheme with Bongiovanni because of what he knew about Bongiovanni’s financial pressures and drug use.
Selva is testifying as part of a cooperation agreement he has with the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Upon joining the drug-trafficking organization, Selva said he helped grow the marijuana, transported the product and even set up a grow operation in his home. But prosecutors say his most important role was convincing Bongiovanni to take bribes to protect the organization.
Masecchia, another childhood friend of Bongiovanni’s who went to high school and college with him, 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 and locally.
Eliciting answers from Selva on Tuesday, Tripi laid the foundation to the government’s case against Bongiovanni that relates to the deep roots of friendship from his North Buffalo upbringing and the loyalty he valued among friends – to the point Bongiovanni allegedly became a double agent in violation of his sworn oath and duties.
Complete coverage: The case of ex-DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni
Tripi also asked about what he called Bongiovanni's affinity to Italian organized crime.
Selva testified that Bongiovanni showed respect to suspected members of Italian organized crime as he grew up in North Buffalo, including those who played cards with Bongiovanni’s father at a Hertel Avenue club decades ago.
As an adult, Selva confirmed Masecchia was connected to organized crime simply by asking Masecchia if that was true, he said.
“I asked him” Selva testified. “We had become close. I just asked him the question. He told me he was.”
Serio and Masecchia, who was a Buffalo Public Schools teacher, eventually pleaded guilty to drug charges. Masecchia, now serving a seven-year prison sentence, told law enforcement officials that he and others in the drug trade had help from Bongiovanni, according to his plea agreement. But Masecchia did not testify at Bongiovanni’s first trial.
The case: Bongiovanni, 60, faces 11 charges, including a bribery count alleging that he accepted at least $250,000 from a drug-trafficking organization that 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 in Cheektowaga; and making false statements to a U.S. agency by denying that he initiated contact with Gerace or witnessed Gerace use narcotics.
Key witness: Louis Selva
Quote: “He said cocaine stayed in your system for a shorter amount of time and would be out of your system in 72 hours,” Selva said when asked by a prosecutor why Bongiovanni used cocaine – not marijuana – when the two would socialize together at bars.
“They wanted to know if they could get information and they were willing to pay for that,” Selva testified, explaining how he approached Bongiovanni with Serio and Masecchia's bribery offer.
Context: Prosecutors say Bongiovanni accepted bribes to protect a drug organization “out of a warped sense of loyalty” to childhood friends who grew up to be drug traffickers. Selva is the witness who has known Bongiovanni since the sixth grade in grammar school. The two were best friends, went to three different high schools together, and Selva was Bongiovanni’s best man when Bongiovanni wed for a second time. The two socialized together when Bongiovanni was a DEA agent. Knowing Bongiovanni’s financial pressures after a divorce and his drug use, Selva was positioned to offer the bribes to Bongiovanni without fear of being turned in to authorities, prosecutors say.
Why it matters: Without Masecchia testifying, Selva and Serio are the only witnesses who can testify about the alleged bribery scheme in which the Serio organization allegedly paid Bongiovanni for sensitive law enforcement information. Selva has said he first broached the topic with Bongiovanni at a downtown bar, filling him in on who was part of the drug operation and how they wanted his help.
"We had a drink and I brought it up," Selva said Tuesday. "I told him who was involved, Mike and Ron. He was reluctant at first," Selva said.
And Bongiovanni got mad, telling Selva he could lose his career, Selva testified.
But he also said, "I'll have your back if something were to happen," Selva recounted.
Selva said he told Bongiovanni think about the offer while Selva followed up with Masecchia and Serio.
The prosecutor's questioning of Selva ended Tuesday afternoon after about two hours, and will resume Wednesday.
At the first trial, Selva said he met Bongiovanni a second time at a bar and negotiated monthly payments to Bongiovanni from Serio. “He said, ‘OK, I’ll do what I can,’” Selva recounted at Bongiovanni's first trial. Bongiovanni offered to “keep a watchful eye” for any DEA investigations into their operation, Selva testified in February.
Prosecution angle: Selva provided direct testimony about the bribery scheme with Bongiovanni, revealing “their deepest, darkest secrets,” Tripi told jurors at the first trial. “If Selva wanted to come in here and make things up under oath before you, don’t you think he’d pick anyone else in the world than someone who he was like a brother to.”
Lawyer opens defense of accused ex-DEA agent: 'He didn't do the things the government says he did'
Defense response: Bongiovanni’s financial pressures that Selva said the DEA agent talked to him about were not that substantial, less severe than many ex-husbands face. At the first trial, defense attorneys sought to discredit Selva’s testimony, saying Selva and Masecchia concocted Bongiovanni’s involvement. Serio wasn’t paying bribes to Bongiovanni, but was tricked into giving money to Masecchia, who did not give it to Bongiovanni, defense lawyers Parker MacKay and Robert Singer said.
Selva wasn’t a ring leader in the Serio organization. So when federal agents raided his home and questioned him, Selva was exposed to criminal charges.
“He was a lower-level guy,” Singer said at the first trial. “He couldn’t really offer anything else because Ron Serio is already arrested. He and Michael Masecchia duped Ron Serio. Sometimes friends turn on each other. And that’s what happened here. It wasn't really difficult for Lou Selva to do when he found himself boxed in a corner,” Singer said.
“And it wasn’t very difficult to do because he had nowhere to go,” Singer said. “He was afraid of Michael Masecchia. He was dead to rights on drug charges, and he was dead to rights on gun charges. And as a result, Lou Selva duped two people in this case: Ron Serio and the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”
Lifelong friend testifies bribing DEA agent gained drug traffickers a 'watchful eye'
