Former Allegheny County Jail officer pleads to federal weapons charge

A former Allegheny County correctional officer accused of taking illegal drugs into the facility to sell pleaded guilty in federal court on Thursday to possessing a sawed-off shotgun.

Lewis Bagnato, 33, of Kennedy, is expected to plead to state court charges related to the drug sales on Oct. 18, said attorney Casey White, who represents him in that case.

Bagnato was originally charged in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court in May 2021 with felony drug and contraband charges after investigators said he sold K2, a type of synthetic cannabis, in the jail.

A criminal complaint filed against him said he worked with an incarcerated man to sell drugs to others in the jail, allowing him to go from cell to cell to make sales and get payment information.

At one point, Bagnato, who was hired at the jail in December 2019, met the man’s girlfriend at an Aldi store in McKees Rocks and took more than $2,000 from her on the inmate’s behalf, investigators said.

Police said Bagnato told the man he could also bring in Suboxone and Percocet to sell.

He was arrested May 20, 2021, when he reported for his shift at the jail.

The same day, federal prosecutors said investigators searching Bagnato’s home found a Harrington and Richardson 16-gauge, single-shot shotgun with a 9-1/4-inch barrel, which is less than the 18-inch minimum required by law.

The stock had been modified so that it no longer could be fired from the shoulder. The gun was not registered with the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Benjamin Risacher told the court during Bagnato’s federal plea hearing on Thursday that Bagnato had gone through firearms training at Allegheny County Police Academy and was a trained and certified firearms instructor.

In addition, he said, Bagnato applied for a Federal Firearms License to be able to sell guns and had been trained on the National Firearms Act, which requires sawed-off shotguns to be registered.

“There’s no suggestion his possession of that weapon had anything to do with the allegations in state court,” said defense attorney Michael Moser, who represented him in federal court.

Bagnato pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Christy Wiegand to the single count against him. According to the plea agreement entered in the case, the parties agree that the appropriate sentence is 18 months of incarceration and three years of supervised release.

He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 10.