Prosecutors seek change of venue for strip club owner, ex-DEA agent in bribery, sex- and drug-trafficking case

Prosecutors want co-defendants Joseph Bongiovanni and Peter Gerace Jr. tried in Rochester – not Buffalo.

In a court filing, they cited “the intense spotlight of the Buffalo media” as the reason, singling out The Buffalo News.

“This case is easily the most heavily covered federal criminal case in Buffalo, and it has received substantial publicity that will undoubtedly affect public perception of the case,” according to a court document filed Wednesday by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

“Given the reach of The Buffalo News, and the attention it has dedicated to this case, it will be difficult to ensure that the parties will receive a fair trial in the Buffalo area,” according to the filing.

The prosecutors acknowledged that federal cases are ordinarily assigned to the court location where the alleged crime happened.

“This is no ordinary case,” prosecutors said. “Rather, the overwhelming media coverage – exacerbated by defense attorneys’ and anonymous sources’ statements to the media – the attendant threats and intimidation of government witnesses often following those news stories, concerns for the privacy rights and dignity of victims, and the challenges caused by selecting a jury in the Buffalo area, all overwhelmingly compel the conclusion that this is a once-in-a-generation circumstance. The integrity of the judicial process and the prompt administration of justice support a transfer of this case to Rochester.”

The newly named defense lawyers for Gerace declined to comment on the prosecution request.

But Bongiovanni’s lawyers, Robert C. Singer and Parker R. MacKay, took exception to how the prosecutors portrayed the defense lawyers in the case.

MacKay added, “A quick review of the motion references little regarding Mr. Bongiovanni or his involvement in any of these new allegations that would justify moving this trial from Buffalo.”

“We look forward to providing a more detailed response in a future court filing, but consider it ridiculous that the government continues to fault defense attorneys for ‘over-publicizing’ this case and, more disturbingly, insinuate that defense attorneys are the possible source of leaks to the media,” Singer said. “The insinuation completely lacks merit and is offensive.

“The fact is the government continues to make bombastic accusations in its public court filings, which the U.S. Attorney and her subordinates know will be read by the public,” Singer added. “Do federal prosecutors honestly believe that the media will not – or should not – report on these filings? We also find it ironic how, only now, after prosecutors were accused of wrongdoing with a witness, did the government quickly move to transfer this trial outside of the Buffalo media market.”

Crystal Quinn, a former exotic dancer who died Aug. 1, was expected to testify as a prosecution witness at the trial of Gerace over alleged sex trafficking and drug dealing at his strip club, Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club in Cheektowaga. Gerace’s previous defense lawyer also planned to call her as a witness. Quinn had been arrested earlier this year on witness tampering charges.

“Crystal was under tremendous pressure, extreme pressure from the FBI to testify,” Sharon Quinn, her mother, told The Buffalo News last month. “They told her they would put her in prison if she didn’t testify against Peter. She was so scared that when somebody would knock on our front door, she would run out our back door and hide somewhere.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi has previously said in court that her death is under investigation. Steven M. Cohen, who until Wednesday was Gerace’s attorney, said the witness killed herself after prosecutors had put her under pressure to testify against the strip club owner.

After nearly two months of Gerace’s unsettled legal representation, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Vilardo on Wednesday approved new lawyers for him: Mark Foti and Eric Soehnlein.

Soehnlein rejoined Gerace’s defense team after being allowed by Vilardo to withdraw in July. His reason for withdrawing earlier has not been discussed in open court or spelled out in court documents, but he told Vilardo at Wednesday’s proceeding that “I believe that issue has passed.” Soehnlein said that he and Gerace have a “firm understanding” on how the defense team will proceed.

Cohen informed the court in July that Gerace wanted to replace him over “irreconcilable” differences in legal strategy. Vilardo allowed Cohen to withdraw from the defense team on Wednesday.

Naming the new attorneys for Gerace prompted Vilardo to set a new trial date, now set for Jan. 8 to give them time to prepare for the case.

The comings and goings of lawyers and judges in the case have already caused the trial to be postponed twice. Bongiovanni was first indicted in October 2019.

“I don’t know if I’ve had a case with as many moving parts as this one,” Vilardo said at the proceeding.

Last month, with Gerace’s defense team unsettled, Singer and MacKay revived the idea of separate trials for Bongiovanni and Gerace, an idea rejected by the first federal judge who presided over the case.

Singer told the judge that idea was raised because of “the fear of the unknown” over the trial’s scheduling as Gerace searched for new lawyers. Singer told the judge that the “court struck the proper balance” with the new January trial date, calling the delay “fair” and not a cause for Bongiovanni to seek a separate trial.

The prosecution has previously directed much of its criticism over pretrial publicity toward Cohen, the defense lawyer for Gerace until Wednesday.

When the government called for a gag order in June, the prosecution singled out Cohen for comments he kept making to the local media “in order to denigrate witnesses, potentially pollute the jury pool, and to otherwise try this case through the media.”

“Gerace’s counsel has, almost from the inception of this case, been on a campaign to try this case through the media and has repeatedly made critical comments about witnesses, the judiciary, evidence and prosecutors,” according to the prosecution’s June court filing.

The prosecution’s motion for a change of venue included the same quotes from Cohen in news stories as it included in the motion for the gag order. Vilardo has not yet addressed the gag order request.

Eleven of the 12 Cohen quotes in the change of venue motion are quotes from Buffalo News stories.

In their new filing, the prosecutors said they counted at least 71 Buffalo News articles related to the case since 2019, with some two dozen published within the last eight months.

“By any metric, the media coverage is ramping up, and there is no end in sight,” they said in the filing.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office said it declines to comment on the case when asked to by reporters, and all the quotes from prosecutors in the articles are from in-court statements.

“It is important to compare that to the myriad comments and interviews provided to the media by defense counsel in which defense attorneys have attacked government motives, denigrated witnesses, and criticized a district court judge,” according to the court filing.

The extensive reporting could harm the defendants as well as the government, and the media saturation could influence the potential jury pool, prosecutors say.

“Many of the Buffalo News articles report links between the defendants and specifically-named reputed organized crime figures – allegations not contained on the face of the indictment,” according to the government’s filing. “Other articles report ties between Gerace and prominent former members of law enforcement and the judiciary. The cumulative effect of this media saturation cannot be ignored.”

The prosecutors said they could not find any news article in the Rochester’s primary newspaper, the Democrat & Chronicle, about the case.

“The relative lack of public awareness of this case in Rochester will ensure that both the government and the defendants receive a fair trial by an untainted jury pool,” according to the filing.

Moving the case to Rochester, away from the spotlight of the Buffalo media, would protect the privacy and dignity of Gerace’s alleged victims by allowing them to testify “without the specter of a media circus hanging over the proceedings,” the government said.

The government and defense witness lists have 400 names, and the case involves individuals who are well-known in the Buffalo area, including attorneys, political figures, businessmen, members of law enforcement and at least one judge.

Beyond the difficulty in selecting jurors with no relationships with any witnesses, prosecutors anticipate jurors will hear testimony about the activities of these well-known individuals, and that testimony may evoke strong feelings among the jury.

“The number of witnesses and the nature of the anticipated testimony will make selecting a jury in Buffalo virtually impossible,” the prosecution said in its filing. “Empaneling an impartial jury with no strong feelings – one way or the other – toward these high-profile names will be easier in Rochester than in Buffalo.”