"A question uttered by a marijuana trafficker placed under arrest foreshadowed Joseph Bongiovanni's legal peril.

"As law enforcement officers uncovered pounds upon pounds of marijuana at Ronald Serio's properties in Amherst, Buffalo and Tonawanda on April 18, 2017, Serio asked if could speak to Bongiovanni, at the time a special agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

"When asked how he knew Bongiovanni, Serio let it drop.

"Bongiovanni didn't know about the searches because it was Erie County Sheriff's Office deputies and FBI agents conducting the raids – not the DEA. What the agents at Serio's properties did not know that day was that Bongiovanni had been shielding Serio and others in his drug-trafficking organization from investigation and tipping them off to informants, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi said Thursday in his opening statement at Bongiovanni's trial.

"They caught the big fish," Tripi said of Serio's arrest.

"Ronald C. Serio is awaiting sentencing on felony drug and weapons charges stemming from a 2017 raid at his former Lebrun Road mansion in Amherst. The case against Serio is part of a federal investigation into organized crime in Buffalo. Serio pleaded guilty to the charges.

"By July 2018, facing charges, Serio was telling authorities how he had paid money to Bongiovanni, through Michael Masecchia, to avoid being targeted by law enforcement. Serio said Bongiovanni provided information about federal informants to Masecchia and Louis Selva. But on that April 2017 day, Serio had not received the protection he expected. And he was angry, Tripi said.

"Federal agents raided Selva’s North Buffalo house and Masecchia's Williamsville home on Aug. 23, 2019 – 11 weeks after federal agents raided Bongiovanni’s home in the Town of Tonawanda."

"As for the drug trafficking, Selva and Serio will provide "inside and intimate knowledge of how the conspiracy worked," Tripi said.

"While the prosecution characterized Bongiovanni's prosecution as a simple case, it's one whose participants have known each other for decades.

"Tripi characterized Selva as the negotiator of the first bribery scheme Bongiovanni is charged with. Selva, a childhood friend of Bongiovanni's, had been part of a marijuana-grow operation, and he convinced Bongiovanni to take the bribes, Tripi said.

"Masecchia, who attended high school and college with Bongiovanni, was the person who arranged the cash drops with Bongiovanni.

"Masecchia was the muscle and money man," Tripi said.

"Masecchia and Bongiovanni were the only ones who knew where Bongiovanni was receiving the bribes, Tripi said.

"He did it out of warped sense of loyalty to childhood friends who grew up to be drug traffickers," Tripi said."
Serio was the "financier" of the operation, Tripi said.

"The second bribery scheme involved Peter Gerace Jr., another childhood friend of Bongiovanni's, according to Tripi.

"Tripi said Gerace's ex-wife will testify that Bongiovanni would enter a side entrance of the Gerace-owned Pharaoh's Gentlemen's Club, the one without cameras, to collect envelopes of cash.

"Bongiovanni has been charged with accepting cash bribes from Gerace in exchange for protection from arrest and prosecution, shutting down an investigation, and also of falsely portraying Gerace as a DEA confidential source in order to dissuade an FBI agent from investigating Gerace.

"Bongiovanni frequented Pharaoh's and reconnected with Gerace after returning from a DEA stint in Florida, Tripi said.

"Bongiovanni passed along to Gerace sensitive investigative information, used to protect Pharaoh's, a place Tripi called "a bastion of alcohol, women and drug use."

"In 2009, while on supervised release for a fraud conviction, Gerace worried that his positive test for cocaine would cause his probation officer to violate him.

"Bongiovanni "injected himself" into the matter by writing a report that Gerace called him and offered to provide information to DEA if he was treated favorably over the failed drug test. Nothing ever came of it.

"Bongiovanni, indicted by a grand jury in October 2019, faces charges he accepted at least $250,000 in bribes from drug dealers whom he thought were associated with Italian organized crime and shielded them from arrest, as well as provided them with information about investigations and cooperating sources. The ex-DEA special agent is the first from the agency in Western New York to be charged with bribery and corruption.