Drug trafficker who owned mansion tells all about his criminal rise and how it suddenly fell apart

Serio, 47, testified Monday that he sought the 2014 meeting with “Butchie BiFocals,” arranged by Serio’s drug-trafficking partner Michael Masecchia, because he was looking for more marijuana suppliers in an attempt to control the market in Western New York.

BiFulco, who died in 2020, was not the only person who Serio identified in his testimony against former Drug Enforcement Administration agent Joseph Bongiovanni. Serio said he paid at least $250,000 in bribes to Bongiovanni between 2010 and 2017 as a way to get names of anyone informing law enforcement officials about his drug-trafficking organization. On Monday, the 13th day of testimony in Bongiovanni’s bribery and corruption trial, Serio emerged as a pivotal witness naming names. Serio identified or confirmed the roles of more than two dozen people who he said helped him grow, buy, sell or transport illegal drugs.

The one person he never met: Bongiovanni, the man he said he bribed.

Serio’s testimony is among the latest developments in the government’s case against Bongiovanni, a retired DEA agent facing charges he accepted bribes from those 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 bribery, conspiracy and obstruction of justice counts could put Bongiovanni, 59, in prison for life. Many of the charges are related to how he reportedly protected the Serio drug-trafficking organization, and other counts involve Peter Gerace Jr., the owner of Pharaoh’s Gentlemen’s Club near the airport, who himself is expected to face trial later this year on charges that include bribery, drug trafficking and sex trafficking.

He's not in the courtroom, but Peter Gerace casts a big shadow at Bongiovanni trial

Louis Selva, a childhood friend of Bongiovanni’s who acted as an intermediary, relayed Bongiovanni’s sensitive law enforcement information to Masecchia, who passed it along to Serio. And Masecchia took Serio’s money to give to Bongiovanni, according to testimony from Selva and Serio.

“There’s no reason for me to be around a DEA agent as a drug dealer,” Serio told jurors.

Parker MacKay, one of Bongiovanni’s lawyers, questioned Serio on Tuesday. MacKay has described Serio as a heroin addict who has been talking to the government in hopes of bettering his position before he is sentenced on drug and gun charges.

“He first says to the feds, ‘Oh, yeah, I was paying bribes to a DEA agent over all these years,’ “ MacKay told jurors earlier in the trial.

But MacKay discounted the government’s theory of protection and information exchange.

“We expect to show you how that theory falls apart, because first, you’re going to hear Ron Serio never met Joseph Bongiovanni,” MacKay said.

Also, Serio testified under cross-examination that Bongiovanni did not tip him off about a half dozen people he had drug connections with that had run-ins with law enforcement.

Selva and Serio have testified about their understanding of the arrangement with Bongiovanni, but federal prosecutors have not put on the stand anyone from the Serio drug- trafficking organization who said they personally handed Bongiovanni money. Masecchia is not expected to testify. Robert Singer, another of Bongiovanni’s lawyers, suggested earlier in the trial that Serio may have thought his money was going to Bongiovanni, but that Masecchia and Selva pocketed the money themselves.

Serio became the second government witness to talk about organized crime connections in the case, with Masecchia figuring in both accounts.

Earlier in the trial, Selva, who said he negotiated the bribe payments with Bongiovanni, said he once asked Masecchia, “Are you connected? Are you a made guy?”

Selva recounted that Masecchia said yes.

Serio said he asked Masecchia what it took “to be a made guy.”

“He told me to shut up and keep making money,” Serio said.

Serio said BiFulco was Masecchia’s “godfather,” enabling Masecchia to arrange the meeting.

Masecchia, who was sentenced to prison in May 2022 on felony drug charges, admitted getting law enforcement sensitive information from Bongiovanni. But Masecchia made no admission of being a member of the Mafia in his plea agreement.

‘Another $2,000 a month’

Prosecutors have identified Serio as one of three key figures in their prosecution of Bongiovanni, with Selva and Masecchia the other two.

“He was the financier,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Tripi said of Serio. “Over time, Serio became the one in the organization responsible for finding connections, narcotics suppliers in New York City, out in California, in Vancouver, Canada, and here locally.”

Selva was a courier, tended to the outdoor grow operations and even grew marijuana in his basement. But his most important role was formalizing and negotiating the bribe payments to Bongiovanni, Tripi has said.

Masecchia, called by prosecutors “the muscle” of the operation, initially supplied Serio with marijuana grown in Masecchia’s outdoor marijuana grow operations in the Southern Tier. Masecchia also made the face-to-face cash payments to Bongiovanni.

As Serio’s drug operation grew, he was Masecchia’s main customer. But it evolved into a partnership, Tripi said, “where Serio was the money man, he was the financier of the bribe payments.”

Serio said he began selling marijuana as a 14-year-old high school student, supplied with drugs by a cousin.

By the early 2000s, he was growing his own marijuana. Then he found suppliers over the years.

Between 2008 and 2017, he sold up to 10,000 pounds of marijuana, he estimated Monday.

He sold at least 5 kilograms of cocaine.

And he said he purchased 16,000 fentanyl pills over the years, buying 4,000 pills four different times.

Serio said he commingled his drug profits with his earnings from his collections agency, bill-processing business and development company that bought and sold homes.

His businesses helped him launder money, he said.

He would buy a house with his earnings from one of his legitimate businesses and use drug money to remodel it, and then sell the house for a higher price than what he bought it for, thanks to the home improvements.

In 2012, he move to a mansion at 697 Lebrun Road in Amherst. He said he bought the 9,000-square-foot French Provincial mansion on 2.4 acres for $715,000. But he added $700,000 in improvements.

He called himself a high-functioning addict from 2012 up to the year leading to his April 2017 arrest.

What started with outdoor marijuana grow operations in the Southern Tier expanded over time to grow operations in houses and then eventually to couriers who would travel back and forth to New York City to obtain drugs, Tripi said.

“And then expanded further to truckloads of product and drugs coming from the West Coast, and then even farther from Canada over the international border all right here to Buffalo,” Tripi said earlier in the trial.

Serio’s sales expanded to cocaine and fentanyl pills.

So, the risks increased, as Serio no longer knew who was hauling in the cargo of drugs.

He began paying Bongiovanni $2,000 a month in 2010, he said.

“That wasn’t much money for me at the time,” Serio said.

Informant says DEA never asked him to help collar drug trafficker living in Amherst mansion

But with the risks rising as his operation expanded in 2012, Serio said he asked Massechia if Bongiovanni could keep an eye out for any investigations of drug shipments coming in from the West Coast, “so we’d know if something was going to happen.”

Serio said Masecchia reached out to Bongiovanni, who agreed to the request – “but it’d be another $2,000 a month.”

For the bigger bribe, Serio was provided “more vigilance” and would be informed if and when Bongiovanni heard of any investigations that could affect Serio’s drug operation, Serio testified.

Bongiovanni passed along the names of at least 10 informants helping the DEA over the years, but only two were drug dealers with ties to Serio’s drug operation, he said. So he stayed away from them.

Not on any radars

Mark Falzone, 46, of North Buffalo, who called himself Serio’s friend, testified last week that he was struggling financially when he became involved in Serio’s drug-trafficking organization.

“I was complaining about my house being in foreclosure and he said he could help if I helped unload packages,” Falzone said.

Falzone helped unload three shipments of marijuana for $500 a load. He unloaded at his home 100 pounds of marijuana that came in packages hidden in wood pellets. He unloaded another 100 pounds hidden in mulch delivered to Serio’s warehouse at Sycamore Street and Michigan Avenue. The third shipment was unloaded at Serio’s mansion, also hidden in mulch, Falzone said. He spread the mulch around Serio’s yard. Many of the loads arrived in U-Hall trucks, but Serio said four loads came in tractor-trailers.

Then came Serio’s arrest in April 2017.

Falzone said he met shortly afterward with Masecchia, who was surprised by the arrest.

“I talked to my guy, and Ron wasn’t on any radars,” Falzone said Masecchia told him.

There was a reason for that: The Erie County Sheriff’s Office and FBI made the arrest, without informing the DEA. So Bongiovanni knew nothing of it, officials said.

Serio was caught delivering 19 pounds of marijuana.

Deputies and FBI agents seized cellphones, a firearm and other drugs from other Serio properties that day, including the mansion.

Handcuffed in the kitchen of a home on the 300 block of Huntington Avenue, Serio asked a question.

“I asked if they knew Joe Bongiovanni,” the DEA agent Serio never met but whose protection he was counting on.

He was asked how he knew him and if he worked for him.

“I didn’t say anything,” Serio said.

Serio, who once lived in a mansion, now lives with his parents.

He pleaded guilty in 2020 to felony drug and weapons charges, and he is scheduled to be sentenced in April.

"It saved me," Serio said of his arrest.

At the time, he was using 2 to 3 grams of heroin a day, or else opioids, up to 40 pills a day.

"It was the worst day of my life but the best day of my life," saying that he no longer uses drugs and has "never been better."