Former DEA Agent Joseph Bongiovanni Gets 5 Years for Protecting Buffalo Drug Traffickers

A federal judge in Buffalo, New York, sentenced former DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni, 61, to five years in prison for using his badge over more than a decade to shield childhood friends who became prolific drug traffickers, and for obstructing investigations. A jury in 2024 convicted Bongiovanni on four counts of obstruction of justice, conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and making false statements, though he was acquitted of the most serious allegations that he took $250,000 in Mafia bribes. Prosecutors said he wrote bogus DEA reports, stole sensitive files, tipped off targets, outed informants, protected a sex‑trafficking strip club and a marijuana grower, and pushed colleagues to target Black and Hispanic suspects instead of Italians in his North Buffalo community. U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo cited the mixed verdict and what he called the "Jekyll-and-Hyde" nature of Bongiovanni’s career in rejecting prosecutors’ 15‑year recommendation but stressed that five years will be a severe punishment for a first‑time inmate and a deep breach of public trust. The case grew out of a wider sex‑trafficking probe that already claimed the life of an implicated judge who died by suicide after an FBI raid, underscoring the rot that can run through local justice systems when a federal agent goes bad.