BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — In two decades of kicking in doors for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Joseph Bongiovanni often took on the risks of being the “lead breacher," meaning he was the first person into the room.
On Wednesday, he felt a familiar uncertainty awaiting sentencing for using his DEA badge to protect childhood friends who became prolific drug traffickers in Buffalo, New York.
“I knew never what was on the other side of that door — that fear is what I feel today,” Bongiovanni, 61, told a federal judge, pounding the defense table as his face reddened with emotion. “I've always been innocent. I loved that job.”
U.S. District Court Judge Lawrence J. Vilardo sentenced the disgraced lawman to five years in federal prison on a string of corruption counts. The punishment was significantly less than the 15 years prosecutors sought even after a jury acquitted Bongiovanni of the most serious charges he faced, including an allegation he pocketed $250,000 in bribes from the Mafia.
The judge said the sentence reflected the complexity of the mixed verdicts following two lengthy trials and the almost Jekyll-and-Hyde nature of Bongiovanni's career, in which the lawman racked up enough front-page accolades to fill a trophy case.
Bongiovanni once hurtled into a burning apartment building to evacuate residents through billowing smoke. He locked up drug dealers, including the first ever prosecuted in the region for causing a fatal overdose.
“There are two completely polar opposite versions of the facts and polar opposite versions of the defendant,” Vilardo said, assuring prosecutors five years behind bars would pose a considerable hardship to someone who has never been to prison.
Defense attorney Parker MacKay noted the judge had acknowledged Bongiovanni as a “beacon” of the Buffalo community. The government's request for a 15-year sentence, he added, was “completely unmoored to the nature of the convictions.”
“As Mr. Bongiovanni told the judge at sentencing, he is innocent, and we look forward to continuing to work with him to prove that,” MacKay told The Associated Press.
A jury in 2024 convicted Bongiovanni of four counts of obstruction of justice, counts of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and making false statements to law enforcement.
Prosecutors said Bongiovanni's “little dark secret” caused immeasurable damage over 11 years. They likened him to Jose Irizarry, a disgraced former DEA agent serving a 12-year federal sentence after confessing to laundering money for Colombian drug cartels.
Bongiovanni upheld an oath not to the DEA, they argued, but to organized crime figures in the tight-knit Italian American community of his North Buffalo upbringing. During sentencing, Bongiovanni’s family dissolved into tears on the front row of the packed courtroom in downtown Buffalo.
Prosecutors said Bongiovanni's corruption involved as much inaction as calculated coverup. They pointed to a turning point in 2008 when Bongiovanni could have acted on intelligence about traffickers he knew whose operation would evolve into a large-scale organization with links to California, Vancouver, and New York City.
He also was accused of authoring bogus DEA reports, stealing sensitive files, throwing off colleagues, outing confidential informants, covering for a sex-trafficking strip club and helping a high school English teacher keep his marijuana-growing side hustle. Prosecutors said he brazenly urged colleagues to spend less time investigating Italians and focus instead on Black and Hispanic people.
“His conduct shook the foundation of law enforcement — and this community — to its core,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi told the judge. “That's what a betrayal is.”
The ex-agent's downfall came amid a sex-trafficking prosecution that took sensational turns, including an implicated judge who killed himself after the FBI raided his home, law enforcement dragging a pond in search of an overdose victim and dead rats planted outside the home of a government witness who prosecutors allege was later killed by a fatal dose of fentanyl.
It also involved the Pharoah’s Gentlemen’s Club outside Buffalo. Bongiovanni was childhood friends with the strip club’s owner, Peter Gerace Jr., who authorities say has close ties to both the Buffalo Mafia and the violent Outlaws Motorcycle Club. A separate jury convicted Gerace of a sex trafficking conspiracy and of paying bribes to Bongiovanni.
The prosecution also cast a harsh light on the DEA after a string of corruption scandals prompted at least 17 agents brought up on federal charges over the past decade. Last month, prosecutors charged another former agent with conspiring to launder millions of dollars and obtain military-grade firearms and explosives for a Mexican drug cartel.
Frank Tarentino, the DEA’s northeast associate chief of operations, said Bongiovanni’s sentence “sends a powerful message that those who betray their badge will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
Joseph Bongiovanni, center, leaves federal court with his wife, Lindsay Bongiovanni, right, after being sentenced to 5 years in prison on corruption charges, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/Jim Mustian)
Joseph Bongiovanni, left, leaves federal court with his wife, Lindsay Bongiovanni, after being sentenced to 5 years in prison on corruption charges, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/Jim Mustian)
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The Trump administration is now targeting its mass deportation campaign on Maine, a state with relatively few residents in the United States illegally but a notable presence of African refugees in its largest cities.
The Department of Homeland Security named the operation “Catch of the Day,” an apparent play on Maine’s seafood industry, just as it has done for other enforcement surges, like “Metro Surge” in Minnesota and “Midway Blitz” in Chicago.
Reports of a surge in immigration arrests have struck fear in immigrant communities of Portland and Lewiston and prompted backlash from Gov. Janet Mills and other Democrats, including a refusal to help ICE agents obscure the identity of their vehicles by issuing undercover license plates.
Citizens have formed networks to alert neighborhoods to the presence of ICE agents and bring food to immigrants in their homes. Portland's superintendent said the school district is developing an online learning plan for its students — more than half of whom aren't white. Many businesses have posted signs saying ICE agents aren't welcome.
“While we respect the law, we challenge the need for a paramilitary approach,” Portland Mayor Mark Dion said at a news conference Wednesday where he was joined by other local officials. “This council doesn’t stand apart from our immigrant communities, we stand with them.”
Portland and Lewiston have thousands of residents of African descent. Somali immigration accelerated in the early 2000s, leaving Maine with one of the nation’s highest Somali populations.
Now the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents is causing great anxiety in Portland, said city council member Pious Ali, a native of Ghana.
“Our schools have seen about a quarter of immigrants not showing up,” Ali said, and many fear going to work as well: “There are immigrants who live here who work in our hospitals, they work in our schools, they work in our hotels, they are part of the economic engine of our community.”
ICE agents don't need to spread trauma by smashing doors and windows, he said: "The federal government has the ability to contact these people without unleashing fear into our communities.”
Another Portland city councilor said the enforcement activity has prompted residents to avoid leaving their homes, even for basic needs, and spurred informal networks to track the presence of immigration agents.
Councilor Wes Pelletier said business owners, teachers and college students have shared information to alert neighborhoods to enforcement activity, while volunteers have delivered groceries and diapers to families too afraid to go outside.
“Every arrest feels like a wound to Portland,” the councilor said.
The enforcement action is arriving in Maine, a mostly rural state with about 1.4 million residents, as confrontations between ICE and demonstrators continue in Minnesota, where ICE is under scrutiny following an agent’s fatal shooting of Renee Good.
ICE didn’t respond to a request for comment Wednesday on the agency’s plans for Maine, where the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that increased enforcement began on Tuesday. “We have approximately 1,400 targets here in Maine,” Patricia Hyde, the ICE deputy assistant director, told Fox News, adding that agents had made 50 arrests by Tuesday.
“We have launched Operation Catch of the Day to target the worst of the worst criminal illegal aliens in the state. On the first day of operations, we arrested illegal aliens convicted of aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and endangering the welfare of a child,” said Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin in a statement.
Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, a longtime opponent of President Donald Trump, said state officials received a request from U.S. Customs and Border Protection for confidential, undercover Maine license plates and decided against issuing them. The licenses plates are used on unmarked vehicles, and Bellows said she wants more assurance they will be used appropriately.
ICE’s use of license plates in other states has raised concerns: Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias, a Democrat, issued a warning to ICE agents last year that swapping or altering license plates is illegal.
“These requests in light of rumors of ICE deployment to Maine and abuses of power in Minnesota and elsewhere raise concerns. We have not revoked existing plates but have paused issuance of new plates. We want to be assured that Maine plates will not be used for lawless purposes,” Bellows said.
Bellows, who has repeatedly clashed with the Trump administration, cited accountability concerns.
Customs and Border Protection did not respond to a request seeking comment, but a top Maine Republican said withholding the undercover plates would jeopardize public safety.
“That really, one, puts us at odds as a state. Puts us at one end of an extreme that we really shouldn’t be on,” Senate Leader Trey Stewart said.
Maine’s top federal prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Andrew Benson, joined Democrats in calling for any demonstrations in the state to remain peaceful and civil. Benson, a Trump appointee, warned people to stay out of the agents' way or be prosecuted.
Gov. Mills has pushed back, saying aggressive enforcement actions that undermine civil rights are “not welcome.” Lewiston Mayor Carl Sheline said ICE enforcement has been causing “anxiety, fear or uncertainty” for many.
“There is no evidence of unchecked criminal activity in our community requiring a disproportionate presence of federal agents,” Dion said.
Portland Public Schools, the largest and most diverse school district in the state, said in a statement Wednesday that it conducted a “lockout” at two schools to prevent anyone from entering the building during the school day Tuesday because of concerns about ICE activity nearby.
“It was quickly determined that there was no threat to our school communities and the lockouts were lifted within minutes. This is an understandably tense time in our community, as reports and rumors of immigration enforcement actions grow,” the district's statement said.
Maine Democrats have condemned the ICE activity.
“The Trump administration has deployed ICE agents to Portland, Lewiston, and possibly other Maine communities. This is not about public safety. It is about fear, control, and political theater,” Devon Murphy-Anderson, executive director of the Maine Democratic Party, said in a statement Wednesday.
Rosie Grutze protests the presence of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Mayor Mark Dion speaks at a news conference about ICE activity Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Patrick Whittle)
FILE - Democratic Gov. Janet Mills delivers her State of the State address, Jan. 30, 2024, at the State House in Augusta, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
FILE - Buildings on the working waterfront catch the early morning light, Feb. 26, 2025, in Portland, Maine. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)
