NEW YORK — A federal jury convicted two longtime U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration supervisors Wednesday of leaking confidential information to defense attorneys as part of a bribery conspiracy that prosecutors say imperiled high-profile cases and the lives of overseas drug informants.
The Manhattan jury found John Costanzo Jr. and Manny Recio guilty of bribery and honest-services wire fraud after a two-week trial that cast a harsh light on DEA’s handling of government secrets, including testimony about one breach so sensitive the judge closed the courtroom to avoid what he called “serious diplomatic repercussions.”
“It’s about greed and corruption,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Deininger said in her closing argument. “What they were doing was wrong, and they knew it.”
Recio and Costanzo join a growing list of more than a dozen DEA agents convicted of federal charges in recent years, including one who laundered money for Colombian cartels. Another is scheduled to stand trial in January on charges he took $250,000 in bribes to protect the Mafia in Buffalo, New York. The DEA declined to comment on the verdict.
Much of the case turned on text messages and wiretapped phone calls between the longtime lawmen, who remained close after Recio retired from DEA in 2018 and began recruiting clients as a private investigator for Miami defense lawyers.
Recio repeatedly asked Costanzo to query names in a confidential DEA database to keep 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 bring charges against businessman Alex Saab, a top criminal target in Venezuela and suspected bag man for the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro.
In exchange, prosecutors said, Recio secretly funneled $73,000 in purchases to Costanzo, including plane tickets and a down payment on his condo in suburban Coral Gables, Florida.
The scheme relied on middlemen, including Costanzo’s father, himself a retired and decorated DEA agent who prosecutors said lied to the FBI.