Veteran DEA agent sentenced to 4 years for leaking intelligence in Miami bribery conspiracy
NEW YORK — A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent to four years in prison for leaking DEA intelligence to lawyers as part of a $100,000 bribery scheme that prosecutors said would jeopardize drug cases and the lives of confidential informants. to take.
John Costanzo Jr. was found guilty of bribery and honest services fraud last year, joining a growing list of DEA agents convicted of federal crimes. Another former DEA supervisor, Manny Recio, will be sentenced in the same case next month.
U.S. District Court Judge Paul Oetken noted in handing down his sentence that as a supervisor, 49-year-old Costanzo was “primarily guilty” because he “knew what he did was wrong.”
Prosecutors urged the judge to sentence Costanzo to at least seven years in prison, saying he abused the trade he mastered as a narcotics investigator steeped in the world of money laundering money. He worked in supervisory positions in Miami and later at DEA headquarters outside Washington, DC
“Costanzo acted purely out of greed,” prosecutors wrote in court filings. “He used his network, connections and skills to keep himself above the law and make money for leaking law enforcement secrets, undermining everything he claimed to stand for.”
Much of the case involved text messages and wiretapped phone conversations between Costanzo and Recio, who remained close after Recio retired from the DEA in 2018 and began working as a private investigator for Miami lawyers.
Prosecutors allege that attorneys David Macey and Luis Guerra financed the bribery scheme and used the leaked information to solicit new clients facing federal drug charges. Macey and Guerra have not been charged, but prosecutors in January asked the court for permission to access normally privileged communications between Recio and the attorneys as part of what they described as an “ongoing” investigation.
The DEA did not respond to a request for comment. Costanzo’s conviction came less than two weeks after a federal jury in Buffalo, New York, convicted another veteran DEA agent of obstruction of justice and lying to federal agents in a sprawling corruption case.
Over the course of a year, Recio repeatedly asked Costanzo to request names from a confidential DEA database to stay abreast of federal investigations that would interest his new employers. The two also discussed the timing of high-profile arrests and the exact date in 2019 when prosecutors planned to file charges against businessman Alex Saab, a top criminal target in Venezuela and suspected pocket picker of the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro.
In return, prosecutors said, Recio secretly funneled bribes to Costanzo, including plane tickets and a $50,000 down payment on an apartment in the suburb of Coral Gables.
The conspiracy relied on intermediaries, including Costanzo’s father, himself a retired and decorated DEA agent who prosecutors say lied to the FBI. Prosecutors said Costanzo and Recio also used sham invoices and had a company list his address as a UPS store to disguise the bribes while deleting hundreds of messages and calls to a burner phone.
In applying for probation, Costanzo received letters of support from several former colleagues, including three current DEA agents and supervisors, who described him as a dedicated public servant, generous friend and expert on illicit financing.
Costanzo’s attorney said his client’s sole ambition was to follow in the footsteps of his father, John Costanzo Sr., a retired DEA agent who served for years in Italy and is now battling pancreatic cancer.
“Not being present during his hero’s final days and months would break John forever,” attorney Marc Mukasey argued in a memo before the sentencing. “That is a punishment he does not deserve.”
Prosecutors, however, painted a less charitable view of the father-son relationship, pointing to the elder Costanzo’s role as a conduit for a $50,000 bribe used to buy a Miami mansion.
“The measure of Costanzo’s devotion to his family must include the fact that he exposed both his father and his best friend to criminal exposure and imprisonment,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.
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Mustian reported from Natchitoches, Louisiana, Goodman from Miami.