Mafia Casino Skim
Casino skimming On March 20, 1974, Balistrieri met with Kansas City mobsters Nick Civella and Carl DeLuna, in Las Vegas. During the meeting, the mobsters agreed that Balistrieri would meet with the mafia front man in Las Vegas, Allen Glick, to secure an option to purchase part of his Argent Corporation. August 1, 1976 – Mob associate Jay Vandermark, the point man in charge of the skim operation on the floor of The Stardust, disappears upon being sought for questioning by the feds in a theft and hidden ownership probe. The FBI raided The Stardust in May, the same month Vandermark bolted town for Arizona. Nicky worked for the Mafia boss Remo Gaggi, whom made Santoro. When the Mafia decided to move into Las Vegas to skim the profits of the Tangiers Casino, they chose Ace to run the casino, while Nicky was assigned to protect him. Nicky had his right-hand man Frankie Marino to help him with his criminal activities. The Chicago Outfit still had control over the Stardust, Marina, Fremont and Hacienda, but it became neces- sary to increase the size of the skim to make up for other lost business. Let’s take a moment to discuss the meaning of the word “skim”. It isn’t stealing in the usual sense. It isn’t taking money that belongs to some- one else.
This is the first of a three-part series explaining how organized crime families skimmed money from several Las Vegas casinos in the 1970s and '80s, and how the law eventually brought them down.
Much has been written and there have been several documentaries about various organized-crime families taking cash — “skimming” — from Las Vegas casinos. The skim money was removed from the casino prior to it officially being entered into the books as revenue. Taxes weren’t paid on this unreported income, a fact on which the Internal Revenue Service frowned. The casinos involved in these illegal operations became the equivalent of piggy banks for the Midwest crime bosses.
The feds launched two major investigations of the skim, called Strawman 1 and 2. They focused on the properties owned by the Argent Corporation and the Tropicana Hotel and Casino. Many of the same players were involved with both, but the courts ruled that these were separate conspiracies. There were separate indictments, trials, and convictions. Some of the participants entered into plea deals and testified against their colleagues. Others gave testimony as unindicted co-conspirators. Several top mobsters from the Midwest went to prison.
A continuation of the Strawman investigations was called Strawman-Trans Sterling. This operation zeroed in on the Trans Sterling Corporation, another mob-controlled company that purchased Argent’s casino holdings and resulted in more gangsters going to prison.
From a law enforcement standpoint, these investigations and subsequent convictions marked the end of organized crime’s influence over the Las Vegas casinos.
The Families
Four Midwest organized-crime families were involved in the hidden ownership and skimming of the Argent-controlled casinos and the Tropicana: Chicago, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and Cleveland. They each had ownership and control and/or participated in the illegal removal of cash from the involved gaming establishments. Although all four shared in the money taken from the Tropicana, the courts ruled that it was a Kansas City operation and that the other three families weren’t involved in the covert ownership of that casino.
Allen Glick’s Argent Corporation was a different story than the Tropicana. Glick had a clean criminal record and could withstand the background check conducted by Nevada gaming regulators. So being the owner of record of multiple casinos wouldn’t be a problem. But he needed a large amount of money in order to purchase the Stardust, Fremont, Hacienda, and Marina. And at a time when not many reputable financial institutions were willing to invest in Vegas, the best source of that funding was the Teamster Central States Pension Fund (CSPF). Three of the four families — Milwaukee, Kansas City, and Cleveland — held influence over one or more of the CSPF trustees or union officials. Since any one trustee could veto the loans, cooperation among the families was necessary to assure the trustees and officials were all on board and that Glick got the money he needed. In return for their assistance in obtaining the funding, the families had effective control of Argent, with Glick serving as their front man. Shortly after the skim began a dispute developed between Kansa City and Milwaukee. Chicago intervened and resolved the matter, then joined the conspiracy, taking a 25% cut of the action.
For the mobsters, it began as a marriage made in heaven. For gaming authorities and law enforcement, it was a nightmare. The lawmen came to realize that like a malignant tumor, the influence of organized crime in the Las Vegas casinos had to be cut out and destroyed. However, once the malignancy had taken root, removing it was easier said than done.
The Main Mob Players
The Chicago Outfit was the dominant family operating in Las Vegas. The two most powerful mobsters in Chicago at that time were Joe Aiuppa and Tony Accardo, the same men who had sent Tony Spilotro to Vegas. In addition, other members involved in the family’s Las Vegas business dealings were underboss John Cerone, West Side boss Joseph “Joey the Clown” Lombardo, Angelo LaPietra, and Allen Dorfman.
Kansas City, under the leadership of Nick Civella and his brother Carl, contributed underboss Carl “Tuffy” DeLuna, Anthony Chiavola, Sr., and Joe Agosto to the conspiracies. Although Chiavola resided in Chicago, he was a nephew of the Civella brothers and was more closely associated with their group.
Nick Civella was born Guiseppe Civello in Kansas City in 1927. At the age of 10 he was brought before juvenile authorities for “incorrigibility.” By the time he was 20, Nick had dropped out of school and had a lengthy arrest record for crimes such as car theft, gambling, and robbery. In 1957 he attended the infamous “gangland convention” in Apalachin, New York.
Due to his criminal history, Nick Civella was among the first people to be placed in Nevada’s “black book,” barring him from entering Nevada’s casinos. Undeterred by his exclusion, Civella frequently visited Las Vegas wearing wigs and fake beards to fool state gaming officials. During these forays, he usually stayed at the Tropicana or Dunes.
In Milwaukee, boss Frank “Frankie Bal” Balistrieri was the first mobster to be contacted by Allen Glick regarding the Teamster loans for Argent. Balistrieri’s mob had control of the loan sharking, bookmaking, and vending-machine businesses in their city. Balistrieri himself had been convicted of income-tax evasion in 1967 and served two years in federal prison. During Frank’s absence, Peter Balistrieri, his brother and underboss, ran the show.
Milton Rockman represented Cleveland. He served as a bagman for the delivery of the purloined money, and as a liaison person for Kansas City’s Carl DeLuna.
These talented criminals and their minions put together a plan that took millions of dollars from Las Vegas and put them into their own pockets.
Nick and Roy
In addition to his clout in Kansas City and with other mobsters around the country, Nick Civella had something else working for him: He was able to influence the decisions of the Teamster Central States Pension Fund through his control of Roy Williams, a Teamster official and its eventual president.
Williams, a decorated World War II combat veteran, returned to Kansas City after the war and resumed his job as a truck driver. He also became heavily involved in the Teamsters and rose through the leadership ranks with the backing of another rising star, Jimmy Hoffa.
Mafia Casino Skimmer
Hoffa picked Williams to take over a troubled local in Wichita, and later Kansas City’s Local 41. It was then that he met Nick Civella and they became close personal friends. In 1952, Williams attended a secret meeting of Midwest mob leaders in Chicago, where Williams agreed to run the Kansas City Teamsters and in turn cooperate with his organized-crime friends. Williams discussed all major union problems with Civella before making a decision. If the two men couldn’t agree on a subject, Hoffa ordered Williams to “do what Nick wants.”Hoffa was pleased with the way Williams worked with Civella and followed instructions. He rewarded his underling by appointing him as a trustee of the Central States Pension Fund. It was a powerful position, and Nick Civella certainly approved of his lackey occupying it.
When Frank Balistrieri needed help in assuring Argent got the Teamster money it needed, he knew Nick Civella would be able to deliver.
Argent
Allen R. Glick was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1942. He served in the military as a helicopter pilot during the war in Vietnam and later turned up in the San Diego area as a land developer. In early 1974, Glick contacted Frank Balistieri in Milwaukee, seeking assistance in obtaining loans from the Central States Pension Fund to finance Argent’s purchase of several Las Vegas casinos. Balistrieri brought Kansas City and Cleveland into the deal, with Chicago joining a short time later, in order to assure that the CSPF trustees whom they controlled would vote the right way. The loan was approved. Between the initial loan of $62 million and subsequent loans, Argent received approximately $146 million in Teamster money.
The financing came with strings attached, of course. After Glick purchased the casinos, he was required to install Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal in a management position at Argent. From that post Rosenthal ran casino operations and facilitated the skim. The Stardust and Fremont were the casinos from which the thefts took place.
Carl DeLuna (Kansas City), an efficient overseer, was assigned to monitor the Vegas action and make sure each family received its fair share of the proceeds. In that role, he was one of the most trusted men in American organized crime. He also maintained regular contact with the other groups through Angelo LaPietra (Chicago) and Milton Rockman (Cleveland). To assure everything was done on the up and up, at least as far as the gangsters were concerned, DeLuna kept records — detailed written records.
The skimmed cash was removed from casino count rooms by couriers with full access to those sensitive areas. These men weren’t challenged, or even acknowledged, by other employees as they entered, made their withdrawals, and departed. The currency they took was never logged in and there was no official record of it. For all practical purposes, it was as though the money never existed. The loot was then delivered to LaPietra in Chicago. He kept a portion for the Outfit and passed the balance along to Anthony Chiavola, Sr. and Milton Rockman for delivery to their respective families.The scheme was relatively simple and went smoothly, at least at the start. But after a while it became apparent that Allen Glick didn’t completely realize that he was only a powerless figurehead. He actually believed he could make major decisions regarding casino operations. He tried, and when he and Rosenthal clashed, Glick attempted to fire him. Lefty responded with a threat, prompting the naïve tycoon to complain to Frank Balistrieri. Bad move.
In March 1975, Glick was summoned to Kansas City to meet with Nick Civella. There, the boss explained the facts of life to him. The two men met in a hotel room where Civella announced that Glick owed the Kansas City family $1.2 million for its assistance in getting the CSPF loan approved. If Glick didn’t know it before, he quickly became aware that the mobsters considered the pension fund to be their private bank.
Glick later recalled what Civella told him. “Cling to every word I say … if it would be my choice you wouldn’t leave this room alive. You owe us $1.2 million. I want that paid. In addition, we own part of your corporation and you are not to interfere with it. We will let Mr. Rosenthal continue with the casinos and you are not to interfere.” Welcome to the real world, Mr. Glick.
The following year, Rosenthal started causing problems. His battles with Nevada gaming regulators were not only problematic, they were high-profile. The bosses had a good thing going in Vegas and wanted to stay below the radar screen. The unwanted publicity made some of the higher-ups nervous.
But as the months passed, Lefty’s difficulties and the related media coverage only intensified. The bosses held conversations to discuss whether Rosenthal should be replaced and, if so, should the removal be on a permanent basis. Although some favored that resolution, Lefty was allowed to stay on and continue his struggle with the licensing officials.
By March 1978, Allen Glick was getting on everyone’s nerves. He was particularly unpopular with Nick Civella. The Kansas City chief decided that Glick needed to go, but was willing to let him get out while still breathing. A buyout proposal in the amount of $10 million was delivered to Glick through Frank Rosenthal. Glick turned down the offer, another ill-advised decision.
On April 25, Carl DeLuna flew to Las Vegas to give Glick a message from Nick Civella. The Civella family frequently used its attorney’s office in Kansas City — without the lawyer himself present — to hold sensitive meetings. They knew there was little chance that the locale would be bugged and they could talk freely. Following that practice, DeLuna, Glick, and Rosenthal got together in Oscar Goodman’s office, sans Goodman. Allen Glick later testified about that meeting.
“I entered Mr. Goodman’s office and behind Mr. Goodman’s desk with his feet up was Mr. DeLuna. Mr. DeLuna, in a gruff voice, using graphic terms, told me to sit down. With that he pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket … and he looked down at the paper for a few seconds. Then he informed me he was sent to deliver one final message from his partners. And then he began reading the paper. He said he and his partners were finally sick of having to deal with me and having me around and that I could no longer be tolerated. He informed me it was their desire to have me sell Argent Corporation immediately and I was to announce that sale as soon as I left Mr. Goodman’s office that day. He said he realized that the threats I received perhaps may not have been taken by me as serious as they were given to me. And he said that since perhaps I find my life expendable, he was certain I wouldn’t find my children’s lives expendable. With that he looked down on his paper and gave me the names and ages of each of my sons.”
Less than two months after that meeting, Glick publicly announced his intention to sell Argent. In December 1979, the corporation was sold to the Trans Sterling Corporation, another company with mob ties. Although Argent was no longer the licensee, it did remain an entity, thanks to the mortgage it held on the casinos. Kansas City continued to share in the skimmed proceeds without interference from the new owners. This arrangement continued until around 1983, when indictments were issued against the Argent conspirators. Allen Glick was out of the gambling business, but he and his sons were still alive.
Around the same time in 1978 that Glick was initially approached about selling Argent, the feds launched a major investigation into organized-crime’s influence in Las Vegas. A large part of that effort consisted of court authorized electronic surveillance of telephones and locations in Kansas City, Las Vegas, Chicago, and Milwaukee. The residences of Carl DeLuna, Anthony Civella, and Anthony Chiavola, Sr., were being monitored. The business offices of Allen Dorfman, Joe Lombardo, Milton Rockman, and Angelo LaPietra, were being listened in on. Frank Balistrieri’s office and a restaurant he owned were also bugged. The investigators learned a lot and conducted several court-authorized raids based on that information.
Agent Gary Magnesen was working in Milwaukee then and recalled the information that was obtained on Frank Balistrieri.
“We’d been running the taps on Frank [Balistrieri] for close to a year. In one of the calls Frank made from his office he mentioned that it was almost time for his ‘transfusion.’ We didn’t know what that meant at the time, but later on, when we compared notes with our Kansas City office, it was determined that ‘transfusion’ referred to the money coming in from the Las Vegas casino skim.
“In March 1978, we had enough probable cause to get a search warrant and went to Balistrieri’s house to execute it. We had to break the door down with a sledgehammer to get in. Once we were inside, I told Frank that there wouldn’t be any more ‘transfusions.’ He looked at me and realized that we knew about the skim. I could see the confidence drain out of him. He knew it was over.”
The search that was perhaps most devastating to the criminals occurred on February 14, 1979, Valentine’s Day. Federal investigators entered the home of Carl DeLuna and seized addresses, phone books, papers, and other documents. Among them were DeLuna’s detailed records of the skim. They included the dates and nature of meetings and conversations among the conspirators, telephone numbers, and the disbursement of funds from the skimming operations. The evidence gathered represented a bonanza for law enforcement — and doom for the mobsters.
Mafia Casino Skimmers
The records available to investigators placed the estimate of the money taken from the Stardust and Fremont casinos at well over $2 million. Former Cleveland underboss Angelo Lonardo testified before the Senate Committee on Government Affairs on April 4, 1988. At that time he was serving a prison sentence of life without parole, plus 103 years, for his role in operating the family’s drug ring. He began his statement by highlighting his long criminal history, including a couple of murders he had committed. He later explained how the Las Vegas casino skim operated after his family became involved.“The skim of the Las Vegas casinos started in the early 1970s. Starting in 1974 I began receiving $1,000 to $1,500 a month from the family through Maishe [Milton] Rockman. I did not know where the money was coming from, but I suspected that it was from the Las Vegas casinos. I learned this from various conversations I had with Rockman.
“Lefty Rosenthal ran the skim operation in Las Vegas. Rockman would travel to Chicago or Kansas City to get Cleveland’s share. Bill Presser [a Teamster power broker and father if future Teamster president Jackie Presser] and Roy Williams received about $1,500 a month for their role in the skim. The Cleveland family received a total of about $40,000 a month.”
By 1983, the government’s case against the gangsters was ready to move from the investigative to the prosecutorial stage. On September 30, a federal grand jury in Kansas City returned an eight-count indictment against 15 defendants in the Argent case. Five of them eventually stood trial, starting in late 1985: Chicago boss Joe Aiuppa, underboss John Cerone, Westside honcho Joe Lombardo, Milton Rockman, and Angelo LaPietra. Four of the accused, Carl Civella, Peter Tamburello, Anthony Chiavola, Sr., and Anthony Chiavola, Jr., entered guilty pleas prior to trial. Carl DeLuna and Frank Balistrieri pled guilty during the trial. Two others, John and Joseph Balistrieri, were acquitted. One, Carl Thomas, had his indictment dismissed during the trial and became a witness against the other defendants. And one, Tony Spilotro, had his case severed from the others prior to trial.
Other key players in the scam also testified during the trial. Allen Glick, Angelo Lonardo, and Roy Williams provided crucial evidence that resulted in guilty verdicts against Aiuppa, Cerone, Lombardo, LaPietra, and Rockman in January 1986.
Aiuppa and Cerone each received sentences totaling 28-1/2 years. Lombardo and LaPietra drew 16 years in prison. Rockman got 24 years behind bars. In addition, each man was fined $80,000.
NEXT: The Tropicana
Dennis Griffin is a True Crime Author, Co-Host of Crime Wire and MOB Talk. He has written several books concentrating on the mob presence in Las Vegas. www.dennisngriffin.com
Many outsiders find it remarkable that there 'was' a Mafia in Kansas City. To the uninitiated, KC seems an unlikely setting for a sub-culture commonly associated with larger municipalities and places where palm trees grow. What’s remarkable is how unremarkable the local Mafia is to Kansas Citians. For generations, the local mob was a simple fact of everyday life, something almost as old as the city itself, and something so enmeshed in business and politics that it was taken for granted as an inevitable part of city life. Rare indeed is the senior citizen in Kansas City who doesn’t have some sort of personal, mobster-related anecdote.
Mafia Casino Skim Milk
The KC family could be described as 'typical' in the sense that in Kansas City one finds all the characteristics that have come to represent the American Mafia. It was, however, more openly intertwined with politics than most Mafia families. Its close alliance with the political 'Machine' came largely as a result of the close relationship between Johnny Lazia, KC’s Prohibition-era Mafia boss, and Tom Pendergast, the powerful political boss who became the national poster boy for machine politics.
The Pendergast Machine was a combine of Irishmen that dated back to the nineteenth century, when Tom’s older brother Jim was Alderman of the First Ward, which included Little Italy. During Jim Pendergast’s time, KC’s Little Italy was a crowded, mostly Sicilian, extremely insular ghetto where the Black Hand operated with impunity, thanks to the colony’s strict adherence to Omerta. The Kansas CityStar found a small crack in the code of silence and first printed the word 'Mafia' in an article dated November 24, 1897. In the early 1900’s, a string of unsolved murders motivated the KCPD to assign a special agent named Joseph Raimo to Little Italy. Raimo was on the job only a short time before being shot-gunned to death while walking his beat at Fourth and Holmes. Raimo was replaced with another Italian officer named Louis Olivero. Officer Olivero’s home was bombed and the violence in Little Italy continued, reaching its darkest point in 1919 when a man named Paul Catanzaro murdered a young boy named Frank Carramusa. Carramusa’s father was a fruit peddler who couldn’t put together enough money to pay the Black Hand what they said he owed them. Catanzaro was caught in his murderous act and nearly beaten to death by outraged neighbors. Officer Olivero saved Catanzaro’s life by arriving on scene and arresting him but once again Omerta prevailed and Catanzaro was never convicted. In a cryptic twist of fate, the murdered boy’s brother, Carl Carramusa, would later join the Mafia and become brothers in blood with Paul Catanzaro. Many years later, in the early 1940’s, Carl Carramusa would testify against his fellow mobsters in a case involving an international heroin conspiracy between the KC, St. Louis and Tampa Families. It was a historic case in which Harry Anslinger, the head of the Bureau of Narcotics, first offered hard evidence that a highly organized, national network of crime dominated by Sicilian-Americans, did in fact exist. When Carl Carramusa testified at the trail, Paul Catanzaro, who had murdered Carramusa’s younger brother twenty-five years earlier, sat in courtroom and menaced Carramusa with the evil eye and the devils horn death sign. Several years later, killers tracked Carl Carramusa down in Chicago and blew his head off with a shotgun. Harry Anslinger would cite the Carramusa/Catanzaro affair in his attempts to raise awareness of organized crime. The whole chilling story, from Catanzaro’s murder of young Frank, to brother Carl’s joining the Mafia, to Catanzaro threatening Carl in the courtroom, to Carl’s killing a quarter-century after his brother’s, seemed a perfect illustration of the breadth, scope and treachery of this complicated criminal conspiracy known as the Mafia.
Back when Tom Pendergast took over the First Ward from his brother Jim in 1910, Kansas City was a center for Ragtime music and 'saloon politics.' Tom cared little for music, but was enamored with saloon politics and the action of making friends, trading favors, and stuffing ballot boxes. From his Democratic club headquarters, Tom Pendergast promoted a wide-open town where every form of vice was well-organized and easily obtained. Big Tom himself was not exactly a barrel of fun. He was an ambitious, intimidating figure who drank little, danced none, went home to his wife and three children early and attended Mass religiously. He did have one, all-consuming vice, which was gambling. When Tom was at the height of his power in the mid 1930’s, he was one of the biggest 'whales' in the racing circuit, wagering close to 10 Million a year in today’s dollars.
Mafia Casino
By the time Prohibition started, Tom had exchanged elected office for behind the scenes political control and a business empire that included a concrete monopoly in the rapidly growing metropolis. His political power grew exponentially in the 1930’s, when he became the most powerful man in Missouri and sent Harry Truman to Washington. He also partnered with Johnny Lazia in a takeover of the police department, staffing it with ex-cons and corrupt officers who protected the rackets and took orders from gangsters. This arrangement led to the Union Station Massacre, a seminal event in the history of American organized crime that changed the nation’s legal landscape and gave birth to the modern form of federal law enforcement that we are familiar with today. The Mafia/Machine combine also made KC the setting for some notoriously corrupt and violent elections.
Johnny Lazia rose to the top by challenging Irish control over politics in Little Italy. In 1928 he launched a successful coup that made him the boss of the North Side Democratic Club. A year later he joined Al Capone, Lucky Luciano, and the other top hoods at the historic Atlantic City Mob Summit. Pulling the strings behind the 30-year-old Lazia was a triumvirate of native Sicilians: Joseph and Peter DiGiovanni, and James Balestrere, Balestrere was a high ranking member of the Unione Siciliano who spelled his last name slightly different from his kin in the Milwaukee Family. These three men were old-world Dons who sequestered themselves inside the Italian community while the American born Lazia became a public figure, a downtown dandy who put his swarthy good looks and stylish clothes on exhibit during his frequent strolls of the city streets. Lazia propelled his trim, welterweight figure with a crisp, confident stride, pausing to give a few coins to a panhandler or engage in an articulate conversation with businessmen and their admiring wives. If Lazia stopped on the sidewalk at the intersection of Twelfth and Baltimore, it meant that he was available without appointment to favor seekers whose numbers swelled as times got worse during the Great Depression. When the crowds got too large or too pushy, Lazia’s bodyguard Charley 'The Wop' Carollo would insert his ample body and act as a buffer. As the unofficial but publicly obvious Chief of Police, Lazia turned KC into a safe haven for criminals willing to pay for the privilege. Lazia made friends and drew loyalties from street people who ate in his soup kitchen and high rollers who gambled in his plush casinos. He controlled every racket and amassed a fortune but his empire attracted the envy of two separate crews headed by Joe Lusco and Jimmy 'Needles' LaCapra. Both men became prime suspects when Lazia was gunned down on a hot summer night in 1934. Lazia’s funeral likely holds the record as the largest ever in Kansas City. The DiGiovanni/Balestrere triumverate lived on and continued to supervise Family affairs for decades to come. Their inner circle included the aforementioned Paul Catanzaro, the DeLuca and Lascoula brothers, Gaetano Lococo, John Blando, and a name that suggests a link to the Pittsburg Family: John La Rocca
Charley 'The Wop' Carollo, took over as front man after Lazia’s demise but ended up snared in a federal probe that sent both him and Tom Pendergast to prison in 1939. Rising to fill Carollo’s shoes was a politically savvy Mafioso named Charlie Binaggio, who successfully merged the Mafia and the Machine and launched a political coup to open the entire state of Missouri to police protected gambling and vice. The prospect of a Missouri-sized Las Vegas was tantalizing to say the least, and Binaggio had little trouble enlisting the help of the national syndicate. In the 1946 election, Binaggio delivered a landslide victory for his pet governor and a slate of other candidates. With a friendly statehouse and Harry Truman in the White House, The KC Family seemed poised to leap ahead of Cleveland to claim the #3 spot behind NY and Chicago. Binaggio came remarkably close to changing Missouri and the Mob forever but came up short. In 1950 he and long-time KC enforcer Charlie Gargotta were murdered in a Democratic Club on Truman Road. The sensational double murder and its political overtones were the catalyst for the historic Kefauver Investigations into Interstate Racketeering and Organized Crime.
Anthony 'Fat Tony' Gizzo bossed the family for a brief period in the 1950’s before dying of natural causes and leaving the reigns to his former chauffer, a no-nonsense gangster named Nick Civella. Civella was caught at the Apalachin Confab in 1957 but went on to rule the family until his death in 1983. With his brother and trusted Underboss, Carl 'Cork' Civella, at his side, Nick Civella led the family into lucrative ventures in the Teamsters Union and Las Vegas casinos. He also presided over an intra-family war that led to the destruction of an entire city district known as the River Quay. Making up Civella’s inner circle were; brother Cork, nephew 'Tony Ripe', gambler Max Jaben, and enforcer Carl 'Tuffy' DeLuna. On the fringes was a powerful Capo named William 'Willy the Rat' Cammisano, who headed a semi-autonomous crew in the vein of the Riccobene faction in Philly or the Licatas in Cleveland. Nick and Cork and Max Jaben became charter members of the first edition of Nevada’s 'Black Book' in 1960.
Nick Civella’s influence with the Teamsters came mainly through Roy Williams, a Kansas City truck driver who would eventually succeed Jimmy Hoffa and Frank Fitzsimmons as top man of the most powerful labor union in the country. Williams and Civella met through Democratic circles in the late 1940’s and became, in Williams own words 'very close.' Civella used a blend of sincere friendship and sheer terror to keep Williams in his pocket and reap the rewards that came with owning the Teamsters. By the 1970’s, The KC Outfit was skimming a steady stream of cash from several Las Vegas casinos that were purchased with Teamster loans approved by Roy Williams and other mob-friendly trustees. Sharing in the Las Vegas largesse were the families in Chicago, Cleveland, and Milwaukee. It was a sweet deal for the modern mob; a hands-off, mostly non-violent, white-collar conspiracy that delivered cash from the counting rooms by charter jet. It represented the new, relatively clean way of doing things. Unfortunately for Nick Civella, a messy mob war was brewing on the streets of Kansas City. Adding to the pressure was the Kansas City Organized Crime Strike Force, which was patiently bugging businesses and building cases.
The River Quay went from a creaky relic of the 19th Century to a hip and happening center for culture and nightlife when it was redeveloped in the early 1970’s. A mob-connected entrepreneur named Freddie Bonadonna invested heavily in the Quay and became the president of its merchants association. The Quay was rising just as a seedy stretch of 12th Street was being condemned to make way for a hotel project. William Cammisano made a push to relocate go-go dancing and pornography to the River Quay. His efforts were resisted by Freddie Bonadonna, who was loosely aligned with a faction led by the Spero brothers – a trio of tough guys who blamed the Civellas for the murder of their fourth brother; a Teamsters official who turned up in a car trunk in 1972. Tensions between the Civellas and Speros heated up just as Bonadonna’s troubles with Cammisano mounted in a dispute over parking spaces. A lingering distrust between the Civellas and Cammisano’s further complicated the situation. The River Quay became a pressure cooker that exploded in a series of bombings, arson and shootings that left the district looking like a war zone. The River Quay was dead by late 1977, an eerie urban landscape of boarded-up and bombed-out buildings studded with creepy peep shows –a phantasmagoric monument to mob war. Freddie Bonadonna, who lost his father and his business, went into the Witness Protection Program, leaving the Spero brothers to fight the power by themselves.
On May 16, 1978 at approximately 10:00 pm, three masked men stormed into the Virginian Tavern just east of downtown to pull the most aggressive local gangland hit since the Union Station Massacre. The three Spero brothers were in a booth eating a late dinner when the assailants bared down on them with shotguns. For a moment, all was wild chaos punctuated by the deep booms of the shotguns. When it was over, Michael Spero was killed, Carl was paralyzed from the waist down, and Joseph was hit in the arm. Joseph and Carl were both later killed by bombs. After his death, a letter was unsealed in which Joseph blamed the Virginian Tavern hit on Carl DeLuna, Joe Ragusa, and Charles Moretina.
Agents listening in on a meeting between Cork Civella and Carl DeLuna at the Villa Capri Restaurant onJune 2, 1978 were hoping to overhear some incriminating conversation regarding the Virginian Tavern hit when they perked up to some talk involving the Teamsters Union, the Chicago Outfit, and someone they called 'Genius.' The conversation turned the agents on their ears and spun their investigation off in an unexpected and exciting direction. It was the genesis of the famous Strawman case that was popularized by Martin Scorcese’s film adaptation of Nick Pellegi’s book Casino. The Strawman case uncovered the hidden ownership and conspiracy to skim cash from Las Vegas casinos. Two major RICO trials were held in Kansas City and the KC Organized Crime Strike Force made history with convictions of the top men from the four families of Kansas City, Cleveland, Chicago and Milwaukee.
The Strawman case marked the end of the Mob’s sway over life in the Heart of America. When Nick Civella died in 1983, so too did the loyalty and complicity of what was left of the Machine. With the other top guys in prison, there was no one left on the street with the type of chemistry, clout and connections to continue things as they had been before.
But the Mob dies hard, and activity continued. Gangland slayings continued into the mid-1980’s and an FBI affidavit mentions new members being made into the family in 1987. Willy the Rat and Tony Ripe avoided war largely by being in and out of prison at alternating times. The 73 year-old Cammisano was released from an extortion stint resulting from the River Quay just before Tony went away on gambling charges in 1984. Willy’s son William Jr. served as his father’s right hand and involved himself in construction rackets. He went to prison in 1989 just as Tony Civella came out to share power with the elder Cammisano for a few short years before going to prison yet again in 1992 for a conspiracy to divert more than a million dollars worth of pharmaceuticals onto the gray market.
Carl 'Cork' Civella and William Cammisano, Sr. died within three months of each other in late 1994 and early 1995. Cork, who was still imprisoned from Strawman, succumbed to complications from pneumonia at the age of 84. Cammisano died from lung cancer at the age of 80.
Mafia Casino Skimpy
Willie Cammisano, Jr. was now the highest ranking man on the street but only until Tony Ripe was released the following year. Willie and Tony soon found themselves added to Nevada’s Black Book in the winter of 1997, one hundred years after the word 'Mafia' first appeared in the Kansas City Star.
In 1998 Carl DeLuna was paroled after twelve years in federal prison. In Casino the movie, Martin Scorcese portrayed Carl DeLuna as Artie Piscano, a bumbling, doughboy of a wiseguy who never even went to trial because he dropped dead of a heart attack during a raid. In truth, Carl DeLuna is the only one of the defendants depicted in the movie who is still alive today. Fellow old-timer James Duardi, who was a suspect in the Binaggio/Gargotta hit in 1950, also lives on at the age of 87.
After years of emotional turmoil and frustration with the Witness Protection Program, Freddie Bonadonna took his life with his own hand in the spring of 2002.
Violence has continued to plague the Cammisano family into the 21st Century; One of Willy’s nephews was gunned down in his yard in 2001 and another inside his home in 2007. Both crimes remain unsolved.
On February 14, 2006, Anthony 'Tony Ripe' Civella died at the age of 75 while on a golfing vacation in Phoenix, AZ. It is tempting to use his passing as a conclusion to the KC story. Then again, a curious mind can’t help but wonder about a teasing remark in Civella’s Star obituary: 'Although he only fathered five children, Tony became a beloved father figure to many, many others.'