Crooked DEA agent took bribes to protect drug-dealing pals: authorities

A former agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration has been accused of taking at least $250,000 in bribes to protect his drug-dealing pals with ties to the Buffalo Mafia, officials said.

Joseph Bongiovanni was arraigned Tuesday in Buffalo federal court on an 11-count indictment charging him with conspiracy, accepting bribes, obstructing justice and providing false statements, WKBW reported.

He was released on $250,000 bond and was ordered to surrender his passport.

“By using his badge as a shield to protect both himself and others engaged in criminal activity, the defendant disregarded the rule of law and undermined our system of justice,” said James Kennedy Jr., the US Attorney for the Western District of New York.

From 2008 to 2017, Bongiovanni “provided information about investigations, including the status of specific investigative techniques, potential witnesses, and confidential sources during routine recurring meetings with drug traffickers who were paying him bribes,” according to a federal indictment.

Bongiovanni had friends and associates who dealt marijuana and cocaine, including people he thought had connections to Italian organized crime, according to the indictment, which was secured by U.S. Attorney J.P. Kennedy.

It states that he protected his drug-dealing friends from federal investigations as they distributed 1,000 kilos of marijuana and coke on the streets of Western New York.

Bongiovanni’s friends included “individuals he believed to be members of, connected to, or associated with Italian Organized Crime (IOC) in the Western District of New York and elsewhere,” the indictment says.

He also tried to “dissuade” a fellow agent from investigating one of his pals “by asking his colleague if he ‘hated Italians,’” according to the document cited by the news outlet.

One of the federal charges is tied to Bongiovanni’s contact with a person who operates a gentleman’s club in Cheektowaga, a town about 10 miles from Buffalo.

The unnamed person — identified as “coconspirator 1” — gave Bongiovanni a call after a stripper overdosed on drugs at the club, but the federal agent denied the call took place, according to the indictment.

Kevin Kelly with Homeland Security Investigations said the evidence will show that Bongiovanni was part of a broader “criminal conspiracy.”

The former agent charted “his own course of deception and betrayal,” he said.

Bongiovanni, who started with the federal agency in 1998, had been assigned to the DEA’s resident office in Buffalo since 2001. Prior to becoming a federal agent, he was an Erie County Sheriff’s deputy.

He retired earlier this year, but not before wiping his work phone of all data and removing a DEA case file and storing it in the basement of his Kenmore home, officials said. WKBW reported.

“This is an accusation, it’s an allegation,” Bongiovanni’s attorney Paul Cambria told WKBW. “There hasn’t been anything proven at this point.”

With Post wires

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