BUFFALO, N.Y. — Jurors have completed their second day of deliberations at the federal court trial of former DEA Special Agent Joseph Bongiovanni.
Bongiovanni stands accused of accepting bribes from drug dealers to protect their operations.
Before retiring for the evening on Thursday, jurors requested several pieces of evidence to review.
The government accuses Bongiovanni of using his position as a DEA agent to shield drug dealers, whom prosecutors have described as having ties to the mafia, by tipping them to investigations and informants.
The government alleges Bongiovanni would open "sham" investigations against individuals he was protecting, so he would be alerted to any investigations by other police agencies against them.
He's further accused of then dissuading those other agencies from pursuing their investigations, sometimes by claiming that those they were looking into were actually his informants.
The allegations primarily involve a drug ring allegedly lead Ron Serio and Michael Massecchia. Serio testified during the trial that for several years he arranged for Massecchia to make payments to Bongiovanni.
Former co-workers of Bongiovanni testified that he kept a large file on the so-called Serio-Massecchia Drug Trafficking Organization on his desk at the DEA offices in the Electric Tower in Buffalo while working for the DEA.
The file was found inside a box in Bongiovanni's basement after he had retired from the DEA, according to agents who executed a search warrant there in 2019.
The file is among the items of evidence which jurors asked to look at on Thursday afternoon.
Jurors also asked to review phone records of Pharaoh's strip club owner Peter Gerace, a co-defendant who will be tried later.
That evidence may pertain to the last two counts in the indictment, accusing Bongiovanni of lying to investigators when he described Gerace as not much more than an acquaintance from their childhood, who Bongiovanni would occasionally run into.
The records, entered into evidence by prosecutors, include numerous text messages between the two including some about getting together for social occasions and making travel plans.
The prosecution says the messages demonstrate Bongiovanni and Gerace, who Bongiovanni is also accused of accepting bribes from, were much more than acquaintances.
Jurors also requested a list of all the applications that Bongiovanni had made for wire taps and pin registers during the course of the many drug investigations he conducted during his career.
Prosecutors have alleged that despite having claimed that he was conducting an investigation into the Serio-Massecchia drug ring, he never applied for any such investigatory tools when it came to that.
The government claims Bongiovanni engaged in the alleged schemes in exchange for more than $250,000 over the course of nearly a decade.
His defense lawyers have noted that the prosecution produced no witness that could say they actually saw their client receiving money.
However, prosecutors counter that even of Bongiovanni received no money and tipped off subjects merely out of friendship, he could still be found guilty of the top count against him: conspiracy to defraud the United States Government.