The Civella Crime Family of Kansas City, MO

One of the quieter Mafia borgatas to operate in the last 20 years has been the Kansas City Crime Family. But it wasn’t always that way.

Once upon a time, not that long ago, corrupt politics and gangsterism were rife throughout this city. Kansas City was a wide-open cesspool of blatant corruption and wanton gangland violence that shocked the entire city and the nation.

It was a bloody business model that the Kansas City Crime Family would repeat over and over through the years.

This is their story.

Kansas City, Missouri, is the largest city in the entire state. It has a population of just under a half-million residents. The 2019 federal government census recorded 497,000 people, making Kansas City the 38th most populated city in the entire United States.

Aerial view of Kansas City

When Kansas City’s greater metropolitan area is figured into the equation, which straddles the Kansas-Missouri state line, the combined population is just shy of 2,500,000 residents.

Kansas City in the U.S.

Italian immigration to the state of Missouri started in the early 1880s. Within less than two decades, by 1900, there was a sizable block of Italians mostly from Southern Italy and the Island of Sicily who had settled into the major urban cities of St. Louis and Kansas City.

Similar to other immigrant ethnicities, they were a very insular people who congregated close together forming their own neighborhoods for their mutual benefit that came to be called Little Italy’s and Little Sicily’s.

Kansas City’s Little Italy school children

Along with these hard-working Italian immigrants came small bands of criminals who were lawless back in the old country, and continued this lawlessness in their new homeland.

And because of the tremendous abject poverty and discrimination that these new immigrants faced in America, many of their now American-born young sons and nephews soon also took to crime as a way of life.

Dating to the years before Prohibition, back to the 1910s, there were many fledgling gangs of independent hoodlums and gangsters of varying ethnicities forming in Missouri.

This was especially true in big cities such as St. Louis and Kansas City. Some were independent bank robbers and heist men like Pretty Boy Floyd, who later became notorious names and even folk heroes to some.

1953 - Downtown Kansas City

1950s - The heart of Kansas City

Mob historians say that by at least the end of the decade these groups started to form into what would later become established Families of Sicilian and Southern Italian racketeers recognized by authorities as “Black Hand” extortion gangs tied to the dreaded Mafia that were imported directly from Sicily.

In time, these Italian groups would slowly eliminate all other independent criminals, and sometimes each other, until they alone controlled those two cities.

They were an extremely violent bunch of racketeers and gangsters who continually raked the streets with shotgun and pistol fire over the years against one other, as well as the local police and other law enforcement officers, while plying their trade of burglaries, jewel and fur thefts, armed bank heists, truck hijackings, payroll thefts, and other such mayhem.

With the enactment of The Volstead Act in 1920, liquor quickly became the number one revenue producer for the local underworld, much as it had for the rest of the nations lawless.

It also accelerated violence to unprecedented levels, giving birth to a whole new generation of highly organized racketeers and mobsters. Along with a new invention called the Thompson Submachine-gun, or “Tommy-Gun” as it was called, gangland killings increased to a level of bloodletting never before seen as the gangs fought each other for money and power.

Downtown Kansas City

Early leaders of the Kansas City Mafia included such notorious Italian hoodlums as Giuseppe (Scarface Joe) Di Giovanni, and his brothers Paolo and Pietro (Sugarhouse Pete) Di Giovanni, Vincenzo Chiapetta, Giovanni (Johnny) Lazia, Charlie (The Wop) Carrollo, Charlie Binaggio, and Antonio Gizzo.

These men would become the foundation for what was to come. And unbeknownst to local officials and police at the time, they were the original seeds that formed the first Sicilian “borgata” in the city.

After a somewhat rocky start that saw much infighting and shifting of alliances among several subgroups of mafiosi, by 1918 or so, the Sicilian-born brothers Giuseppe (Scarface Joe) Di Giovanni and Pietro (Sugarhouse Pete) Di Giovanni were said to have become the first recognized leaders of the Kansas City Family.

They ruled throughout the 1920s Prohibition era.

The coppers raid an Alky-Still

Although they were actually mafiosi to the core, their organization was referred to by the general public and independent hoodlums alike as The Sugarhouse Gang for their near total, ironclad control over the supply and distribution of sugar, which was a key ingredient in the manufacture of bootleg booze and beer.

In time, the Di Giovanni brothers retreated to the shadows with their ever-growing power and influence intact and used other Italian hoodlums up front as “straw bosses” in the coming years.

Ostensibly, the next boss of the Family was said to have been the politically connected Giovanni (Johnny Lazia) Lazzio, who headed the borgata for a few years until his murder in July of 1934.

Johnny Lazia and Charlie Gargotta

Lazia’s strength had come from his tight control over large voting blocks for a fledgling, up-and-coming corrupt political power in the city by the name of Thomas Pendergast.

Working in tandem with racketeers in exchange for votes, the highly ambitious and unscrupulous Democratic boss Pendergast allowed Lazia to take control of the city’s underworld, with Pendergast and his allied corrupt politicians backing Lazia’s play.

A shocking example of Lazia’s strength and his tight control over the city’s politics and police department was the fact that after Lazia came to power, he personally installed over 75 policemen to their posts.

The interesting part is that these 75 newly hired Kansas City cops were all ex-convicts and fellow Outfit hoodlums.

He and Pendergast maintained the status quo by keeping Pendergast in power. That sometimes meant conducting “Pineapple Elections,” doling out beatings and lobbing hand grenades into polling places.

In one particularly contentious election, no less than four politically connected murders were committed in order to keep control of Kansas City.

But in time, Lazia’s high-profile and violent style of management was said to have become a political liability. Eventually, the political powers that be, withdrew their police protection and support of him.

Johnny Lazia

Once this “protection” of the city’s political machine was withdrawn, he was quickly and repeatedly arrested in a series of criminal investigations. He got convicted and faced jail. Pendergast had secretly backed another mob faction opposed to Lazia.

Soon, Lazia’s troubles would get a lot worse.

Johnny Lazia was ambushed one evening while out clubbing with his wife and personal bodyguard. He was gunned down right in the street while exiting a building.

His bodyguard, Vincenzo (Charlie the Wop) Carrollo, would succeed him after being tapped to lead by the Outfit’s elders. He operated unimpeded by law enforcement until a reform movement was started to try and put an end to the wanton lawlessness and racketeering running rampant throughout the city.

Charles Carrollo

This reform agenda eventually led to Carrollo’s criminal conviction as well as that of his partner in crime, the previously untouchable Tom Pendergast himself. They were both convicted of tax evasion and jailed in 1939.

Side Note: To give the reader a better idea of the power and wealth of Tom Pendergast, and the type of money we are talking about here, Pendergast and his family resided in a French Regency-styled mansion that he had custom-built in 1928, at a cost of $175,000 for construction.

The Pendergast home was described as “nouveau plush,” opulent and immaculate. It was an enormous amount of money for that era.

His wealth emanated from his tight control over the city’s politics and its politicians. But he also owned extensive real estate, as well as the Ready-Mixed Concrete Company, which held exclusive contracts for concrete pouring jobs across the city.

And if that wasn’t already enough power for any one man, Pengergast also either owned or was partnered in a major wholesale liquor company and an asphalt paving firm. All of the above-listed companies held lucrative, no-bid municipal contracts with the local Kansas City government for years….He was a powerhouse!

Thomas Pendergast

Another very interesting aside is that at the height of his power, Pendergast (never a public-office holder himself), had tapped three men to handle the day to day political affairs of his corrupt Democratic machine.

They were the administrative triumvirate of Johnny Lazia, Henry McElroy, and Harry Truman….. Yes, that Harry Truman! In years to come Pendergast sent Truman onto the United States Senate.

Some years later Truman of course would run for the highest office in the land, and become the elected President of the United States.

But Truman always maintained his almost slavish devotion to the Kansas City Democratic political machine that had originally backed him and put him into power.

That plain, but well-hidden fact meant that Truman was in fact a pawn of sorts for mafia boss John Lazia, and by proxy, Lazia’s Mafia superiors in Kansas City and the Mafia Commission back in New York.

Batter Up!

Next up was Charles Binaggio aka “The Iron Man” who ruled for over a decade until 1950. Binaggio was also deeply entrenched in city government, in league with their corrupt political machine.

Layout of Binaggio rackets operations

At first, these connections greatly helped his rule as well. This confidence and feeling of invincibility may be a reason why he moved his borgata more heavily into the narcotics traffic, partnering with key members of the Dallas, New Orleans, Tampa, and St. Louis Families, to move pure morphine and opium across the country.

Side note: Although it seems the Kansas City “Outfit” had always handled narcotics, which was clearly evident by the arrest records for many of its early members, with Binaggio’s ascension they went knee-deep into the cocaine, morphine, and heroin traffic.

In fact, the FBN (Federal Bureau of Narcotics) eventually made a rock-solid case against scores of mafiosi and their associates in various cities across the south and midwest area in the late 1930s-early 1940s, after a low-level KC trafficker named Carl Carramusa got caught and turned states evidence.

It led to a series of well-publicized police raids and arrests in 1940, and the later convictions against the drug gang. Important mafia members were also snagged and jailed in this case, among them were the brothers' Paul and Joe Antinori, who were ranking members in the Santo Trafficante Family in Tampa, as well as Anthony (Tony Lip) Lopiparo and Antonio (Tony) Buffa of the St. Louis crew.

For his treachery, Carramusa was later tracked down by mafia assassins and shotgunned to death on his front lawn in 1945. The blast reportedly tore his head off his shoulders.

As mentioned above, Binaggio had also turned his eye toward politics. So much so, that he later become a political power of sorts in his own right to better control the city’s rackets.

Charlie Binaggio with election results

It would bring him into a direct rivalry with his former close ally, the ousted Tom Pendergast, whose son Jim was now being backed by his dad in his rise to head the City’s Democratic Party.

Binaggio was said to have been a heavy-handed hood who slowly grew to be strongly disliked by rival factions in the Kansas City brotherhood.

This dislike became clearly evident when Binaggio was murdered along with his chief aide and enforcer Charlie (Mad Dog) Gargotta, each of them shot four times in the head and upper body on April 5, 1950, by their former underlings.

Binaggio and Gargotta get the lead!

They were found inside their underworld headquarters, the First District Democratic Club, which essentially had been turned into a private mob social club.

The next man up “on deck” was veteran mafioso Antonio (Tony) Gizzo, who was tapped to quietly run things for several years until a young mafioso named Nick Civella eventually came into power.

Tony Gizzo as boss (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

Nick Civella at the height of his power

As stated above, much of “The Outfit’s” early power derived from their tight control over Kansas City’s political machine.

Thomas Pendergast was the top politician and half a hoodlum himself, who headed what was referred to as “The Pendergast Machine.”

He basically controlled Kansas City’s local government and was central to the underworld’s successful control over the city. He opened the city wide up to racketeers and allowed them to run their Alky-Bootleg operations and other rackets unimpeded from arrests and imprisonment.

With the repeal of the Volstead Act in 1933, this “indemnity” continued when the Outfit made a major expansion into gambling rackets.

Traditionally the Mafia’s power base emanated from the heavily Italian “North End,” which was Kansas City’s version of a Little Italy neighborhood, where many future mafiosi hailed from.

By 1940, the Family’s power from street rackets derived primarily from their substantial control over gambling-type businesses. Horse and sports bookmaking, slot machines, roulette, chuck-a-luck, blackjack and poker games, crap games, and a popular Italian card game called Ziganette.

Another big moneymaker was the “policy wheels,” first established in the late 1930s. After the repeal of Prohibition in 1933, the Outfit strong-armed this racket away from the black criminals and gamblers who ran them in the city’s ghetto areas, and the mafiosi glommed up and other illicit games of chance as they became available.

The KC mob also ran a wide-ranging “shakedown” of all independent gamblers operating in their territory - a time-honored money-maker for the Mafia, or “Outfit” as it is referred to in Kansas City and other midwestern states.

This was essentially a crude form of extortion that applied to anyone operating illicitly in the streets who wasn’t directly connected to, or tied into the “Family.” Called “tribute,” it was demanded from any independent hoods who didn’t want their heads cracked open, or worse, to be found hog-tied in the trunk of their car with two slugs behind the ear.

Other dependable rackets included various burglaries and thefts, and the “fencing” and disposal of those stolen goods.

But aside from whatever rackets this violent crew ran, seems to have also been their propensity and habit of investing their money in, putting the “arm” on, or otherwise affiliating with legitimate business.

This desire to invest their funds and racket profits in legitimate industry manifested itself in many varied types of businesses.

But paramount among them seems to have been their preference to open or buy into bars, taverns, nightclubs, restaurants, and other food-related firms such as bakeries and food suppliers.

A shortlist included the 606 Supper Club, Bagdad Lounge, Hello Dolly Bar, Antonio’s Pizza, Nothing Special Bar, Roma Bakery, B & C Meat Co., and Jasper’s Restaurant.

Another durable and time-honored semi-legitimate industry the Kansas City mob was knee-deep into was the jukebox and vending machine business.

More appropriately described as a “racket,” the coin vending business was truly tailor-made for the Mafia.

With its control and extensive ownership over so much of the city’s entertainment industry such as licensed bars and eateries, as well as other retail businesses, it was an easy and natural fit for racket guys to “push” their machines into various establishments. using their underworld reputations and clout as their calling card and sales pitch.

Among the perks of this business was that it was all-cash, which made skimming profits and evading taxes from the IRS very easy. Another attraction was that after their installation, the machines pretty much ran themselves.

After an exhaustive 1950s investigation, Federal agents of the FBI determined that borgata members held ironclad control over an estimated 90% of the city’s coin-machine business through their ownership of the B & G Amusement Company, and Paramount Music & Vending Company.

No outside vendors even had a shot at gleaning any of Kansas City’s vending businesses. Nor would any sane vendor even dare try!

The Top Hoodlums and Creme de la Creme of the Kansas City Mob

At their 1940s-1960s peak, they reportedly had an inducted membership of approximately 40 to 50 initiated mafiosi with hundreds more associates.

Among the more prominent and publicly known of their members and activities were these 14 mafiosi:

Giuseppe (Scarface Joe) Di Giovanni

Guiseppe (Scarface Joe) DiGiovanni

This man was born in Palermo, Sicily on February 23, 1883, and immigrated to Kansas City in 1912. He resided at 1217 W. 70th Terrace, Kansas City.

He stood 5-feet 6-inches tall and weighed approximately 170 pounds, with thinning hair. The entire right side of his face, ear, neck, and hands bore horrific old burn scars. He was an excellent dresser, typically wore horn-rimmed glasses most of the time, and spoke with a thick Sicilian accent.

He was thought to have been a respected mafioso back in his homeland of Sicily, and upon his arrival in Kansas City, he immediately took control over the local Black Hand extortion rackets. During Prohibition, he and his brother Pete took control of all supplies needed to make whiskey, as well as controlling the manufacture and final distribution of the finished product.

In the 1930s, he was a top organizer and architect of nationwide heroin and opium trafficking ring later busted in 1942. Authorities alleged that he was the overall “boss” of the Kansas City mafia for decades, receiving a cut of all rackets which included gambling, policy, labor union rackets, extortion, narcotics, etc.

His legitimate business interests included ownership of the Midwest Distributing Company, a wholesale liquor firm that was the largest liquor wholesaler in Kansas City, and the exclusive franchise holder and distributor of all Seagrams products for Jackson County which included Kansas City.

This firm was involved in a huge interstate black market whiskey ring. In December of 1943, Di Giovanni, listed as the president of the company, was arrested along with Charlie Binaggio and a dozen other top KC hoods for this racket and charged with Federal liquor law violations, failing to keep proper records, and conspiracy.

In January 1944, all the cases were mysteriously dismissed by the U.S. District Attorney for a “lack of evidence.”

Other business interests of Di Giovanni, his brothers, and mafia associates are partnered in included; the Happy Hollow Liquor Store Chain (retail package liquor stores), and several Italian restaurants.

His brother Vincent was partnered with fellow mafiosi John Blando and Vincent Chiapetta in the Superior Wines & Liquor Company, which had the franchise on one of the better Schenley liquor lines, and was a very large wholesale house.

In the 1960s, the IRS said that Di Giovanni claimed an annual income of between $55,000 and $80,000 a year. A huge amount for that time era. He was considered to be one of the wealthiest mafiosi in Kansas City, and this amount represented a mere fraction of his estimated yearly income.

“Scarface Joe” Di Giovanni had a criminal record that included:

1915 - Black Hand extortion letters and extortion (dismissed after 20 alleged extortion victims lost their Nerva and refused to testify against Di Giovanni and 14 other black-handers 1918 - Murder (dismissed) 1920 - Bootlegging ($500 fine) 1925 - kidnapping (dismissed) 1928 - Possession of 40,000 gallons of illicit liquor (dismissed) 1928 - Operating a 250 gallon still, possessing 70 gallons of whiskey, and 2,000 gallons of mash for whiskey (dismissed) 1928 - Still charge ($500 fine) 1929 - Possessing a 75-gallon still, 300 gallons of mash, 300 pounds. of corn sugar, 120 gallons of finished whiskey in barrels, (2 years probation and $1000 fine) 1929 - Selling illicit whiskey ($400 fine and 4 months in jail) 1929 - Possession of 75 pints and 130 half-pints of whiskey (dismissed) 1930 - Possession of 22 gallons of whiskey (60 days in jail); 1941 - material witness (discharged) 1943 - Speeding and resisting arrest (dismissed)

Pietro (Sugarhouse Pete) Di Giovanni

Pietro (Sugarhouse Pete) DiGiovanni

The brother of Scarface, was born on June 28, 1886, in Palermo, Sicily. He came to the U.S. in 1903 and was naturalized on July 7, 1924, in Kansas City, Missouri. Resided at 502 Campbell Street.

He also stood about 5-feet 6-inches tall and weighed a stocky 170 pounds. He was known as a sharp dresser wearing quiet-toned, double-breasted suits.

“Sugarhouse Pete” was a full partner with his brother in the Midwest Distributing Co. and the Happy Hollow Liquor Store Chain.

In 1942, when federal agents seized some packages of heroin in a raid during a series of arrests for a huge eight-state Mafia narcotics ring that brought its heroin in from Tampa, Fla., the drugs were in a briefcase belonging to Pete.

He had a limited arrest record since 1915 that listed:

1915 - Black Hand extortion 1918 - Murder (no disposition) 1921 - Violation of the Prohibition Act 1921 - Criminal investigation (no disposition)

Police said that Pete was active along with his brother in the 1920s in “Black Hand” extortion rackets until the advent of Prohibition when racketeers switched over to alcohol bootlegging, gambling, and dope.

His immense power and position was felt, too, largely because of the strength of his brother Joe.

Giuseppe (Joe) Filardo

FBI # 753474C, KCPD # 89990

Consigliere Joseph Filardo

This iconic mafioso was born back on August 10, 1898, in Castelvetrano, Sicily and was naturalized in the U.S. in April of 1940.

In Kansas City, he resided in a modest home with his wife Carmen at 103 South Van Brunt Boulevard.

Filardo was ostensibly the president of the Midwest Bakery and Macaroni Company and the Roma Baking Company, both located at 1303 Independence Avenue. These food companies allegedly used mafia strong-arm tactics to convince potential customers to buy their products.

1960 - Roma Bakery

The expanded Roma Bakery today

Roma Bakery was also the well-known hangout of many top Kansas City mobsters including Nick Impastato, Jimmy DeSimone, etc. Filardo and his associates also held a hidden interest in the Fifth Street Drug Store, another known mob hangout.

His longtime next-door neighbor was Giuseppe (Joe) Cusumano who also served as the vice-president of Filardo’s two companies. Born in Sicily in 1900, although Cusumano had no known criminal record, he was considered a top mafia member.

A third mafioso who was also connected to Roma Bakery, and the Midwest Bakery and Macaroni firms was Giacomo (Jack) Binaggio who served in the capacity of secretary-treasurer of the companies. A highly influential mafia member.

Roma Bakery (far right is John Mangiaracina, Joe Filardo is behind the counter)

Filardo had an arrest record dating to 1922 for blackmail, murder, federal liquor law violations, and violations of the Food & Drug Laws (thrice).

On November 14, 1957, Filardo would come to national attention of both law enforcement and the general public when he was nabbed along with over fifty of his Mafia contemporaries at the infamous Apalachin Mafia Summit Meeting at Apalachin in Upstate New York.

It showed his true power and influence on the national underworld stage. Always in the shadows, thereafter this quiet, bespectacled immigrant Italian was recognized as a “top boss,” or more appropriately a “counselor” of sorts for the Kansas City mafia.

Nicolo Impastato

aka “Nick Tousa” and “Nicholas Tousa” FBI # 2716692, KCPD # 52296

Soldier - Nicolo (Nick) Impastato

He was born on June 1, 1900, in Cinisi, Sicily (Trapani Province). His brother was the top mafioso and enforcer Vito Impastato of the Springfield, Ill. Family.

He listed his employment as a front clerk in a retail liquor store of the Di Giovanni brothers, and at times for the Roma Bakery which was owned by underboss Joe Filardo.

In truth, he was the manager and overseer for the Kansas City Outfit’s interest in a heroin smuggling and distribution ring which was broken up in 1942 and 1943. Authorities also suspect him as one of the killers of informant Carl Carramusa in Chicago in 1945.

Impastato was known to travel to various US cities in furtherance of their narcotics operations including New Orleans, New York, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Denver, Detroit, and St. Louis.

His closest associates included mostly top narcotics peddlers such as Kansas City's Jimmy DeSimone, a known mafia executioner; Joe Oliver, Patsy Ventola, Joe, and Frank DeLucca; “Joe School” Lascuola, a known gunman; Steno Lamento and Angelo (Bossie) Nigro, all convicted dope peddlers.

Soldier - Steno Lamento (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

Others associates included Tony Lopiparo of St. Louis, a top figure in that city’s rackets; the Miller brothers of Dallas, Texas; and the Belen brothers of Houston, Texas.

Another close friend was John Mirabella. He was nabbed at the Hotel Statler in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1928 with other top mafia bosses from around the United States in what can only be described as a “Commission” meeting of sorts among the strictly Sicilian branch of the Mafia “pre-1931.”

Vincenzo (Charlie the Wop) Carrollo

Born in 1903 in Sicily, he entered the U.S. in 1906 as a baby. With his first arrest for robbery at 21 years old, he slowly rose up in the North Side Mob, until he became one of their top bosses.

He was largely looked upon as the underworld's link to local government officials. It soon gave him absolute power over the entire crime family. FBI agents later testified that his word became “law” among his fellow mobsters.

For the years 1935 to 1938, tax agents reported that he had earned $288,000 from one gambling den alone but never reported the income on his income tax return. His net income for four years was $654,000.

He was partnered with his brother Frank, Tano Lococo, and Louie Rabinowitz in this gambling operation. He reportedly was the overlord of 34 gaming houses that offered blackjack, rummy, poker, and horse betting.

He and his Family soldiers allegedly collected a weekly “shakedown” from more than 30 independent nightclubs, cigar stores, and gambling dens, each bringing in sums of from $200 to $15,000 per year. From 5000 slot machines, they allegedly collected another $1,000,000 a year.

Forty additional handbooks added many millions more to their annual coffers. Enormous earnings! No gambling houses could operate without his blessings.

He was also said to have taken over the “beverage” business in Kansas City.

He was later indicted, convicted, and jailed for a 6-year jail term. He picked up another 2 years in jail on additional counts in a second case.

After serving one-third of his sentences he was paroled from Alcatraz, and although the INS tried to deport him, he staved off those efforts and was allowed to return to Kansas City.

Thereafter, Carrollo invested in taverns, nightclubs, and other legitimate businesses and fell under the purview of succeeding boss Binaggio.

Charles (Mad Dog) Gargotta

Bodyguard Charlie Gargotta

Born in Kansas City, he originally started out as the trusted sidekick, driver and bodyguard of boss Charlie Binaggio during his time in power.

He has a mile-long yellow sheet that listed over 40 arrests over 30 years for such charges as bootlegging, murder, gambling, robbery, carrying concealed weapons, auto theft, extortion, attempted burglary, and vagrancy.

He was once nabbed for murder after being caught red-handed at the scene of the killing with the warm body. His case was continued 27 times in court before finally being dismissed altogether. It was a blatant example of Kansas City corruption running rampant at the time.

Every single case was dismissed against him, with the exception of “assault to kill” for his attempted murder of Sheriff Tom Bash, and he only served a mere 19 months in jail of a three-year sentence.

As his bodyguard, he was also with Binaggio when his boss was machine-gunned to death.

Another blatant and shocking example of government corruption was Gargotta’s arrest for possession of two stolen pistols, one of which was used in the murder of bootlegger Ferris Anthon.

During Gargotta’s trial, a local police detective perjured himself on the witness stand, lying about switching the evidence tags between the murder weapon with another gun to confuse ballistics tests in order to protect Gargotta from conviction.

It became a major city scandal, showing the connection between organized crime and politics. It also led to the removal of the assistant prosecutor and several policemen from their posts.

Gaetano (Tano) Lococo

Alias Tommy Coco, Thomas Lococo, Tono, Young Tommy FBI # 278541, KCPD # 9640

Gaetano (Tano) Lococo

He was born on January 3, 1895, in Jackson County, Missouri. He resided with his wife Edith, and his daughter Santa before she got married, at 346 South Jackson Avenue, in Benton, Missouri.

Tano was another veteran mafioso and Outfit member who also benefitted from a corrupt city government. He had a long record of arrests but was rarely ever convicted of anything.

In fact, his police record, along with those of many fellow hoodlums, disappeared from the files of the KCPD in the 1930s. Nonetheless, his record of nine arrests was reconstructed the best that could they could by Kansas City Star reporters from old newspaper files and FBI files:

1913 - Vagrancy (10 days in jail) 1919 - Grand larceny for the theft of $6,000 in furs 1923 - Bootlegging 1935 - Murder 1939 - Gambling 1942 - Gambling 1943 - Gambling ($1000 fine)

In 1923, Lococo was a partner in the Ringside Athletic Club. The club was bombed in 1928, but it is believed that Lococo and his partners did it themselves to collect the insurance.

By the 1930s, Lococo was a part-owner of what was described as the biggest gambling club in the city - The Fortune.

In 1950 he was finally convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to serve two years in federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas.

Tano Lococo had a deadly reputation as a skilled, professional killer for the mafia. He was a suspect in numerous homicides over the course of a 30-year period but was shrewd and savvy enough to generally avoid detection.

It is said that he was a key member of a mafia execution squad along with Tony Gizzo and Charlie Gargotta who took on many assignments to exterminate enemies of the mafia during the 1920s and 1930s period.

He once escaped a “spot killing” he committed in 1933 that ensnared his partner Charlie Gargotta. He had also worked as a “bomber” in the labor-union wars to gain control over various labor organizations in the 1930s and 1940s.

He once hired a local hood to blow up an athletic club Lococo was partnered in but after getting caught, the bomber, Tony Miceli, ratted Lococo out as the man who had hired him. Upon Miceli’s release from prison, he was promptly murdered on the front steps of his home.

He was also a suspect in the Binaggio-Gargotta double murders. Informers allege that he was one of the triggermen who slaughtered them inside their Democratic that evening back in 1950 after receiving marching orders from Family higher-ups.

Lococo had a nephew named James (Jimmy) Duardi - FBI # 5092078, KCPD # 9145 - who Tano brought into the rackets as the kid got older.

The 6-foot 2-inches tall and 200-pound Duardi, said to have had hands like ham-hocks, soon became a prime suspect in nearly every gangland homicide seen in Kansas City…like uncle, like nephew.

And although he may not have been a giant like his nephew, the slightly built Lococo, who stood at 5-feet 7-inches tall and weighed 150 pounds with his wavy raven hair and dark eyes, was a scary guy indeed. He was known to make even the toughest hoods shake in the boots.

He and a buddy Charlie Carrollo once went partners in a very profitable bingo joint after they muscled the place away from a Jewish hood who had started the racket. They paid the Jew one dollar and told him to blow town. He did!

Lococo was considered the “boss” over the largest gambling casino in the city, and was a partner with three pals in the operation of a “racing wire service” that they strong-armed away from independents in 1916 during a time that the Capone gang in Chicago was also wresting control of a national race-wire service called Continental Press that operated out of Cleveland.

He was also a prime suspect in the Union Station Massacre.

Lococo rose to become one of the most prominent gambling kingpins in all of Kansas City, sharing profits with other hierarchy members.

He was also said to have been an investor in the interstate narcotics smuggling ring broken up by federal agents in 1942 that ran from the southern cities of Tampa, New Orleans, and Dallas up into various midwestern states. He later also came under investigation by customs bureau agents for trafficking dope into Nogales, Arizona.

He became a very wealthy hoodlum.

Along the way, he bought a 108-acre farm, built an artificial lake right in the middle of it, and, in 1948, went to Nogales, Arizona where he posed as a retired businessman. After hiring the mayor as his personal attorney, he purchased the El Reposa Motel for a reported $48,000. It was a 10-unit tourist court.

Other legitimate investments have included two drugstores and the Casablanca Liquor Store, located at 501 Independence Avenue.

In later years, he owned and operated the popular Gaetano’s Restaurant & Cocktail Lounge during his semi-retirement from the rackets.

Girolamo (Jimmy) Balestrere

aka “James Balestrere"

Leader - Girolamo (Jimmy) Balestrere

He was born on June 24, 1891, in a small village on the outskirts of Palermo, Sicily. He came to the U.S. at the age of 12 in 1903.

He had the talents of an artisan and was known as a skilled mason and bricklayer. After coming to this country, he was naturalized in 1922. It was said that among the Italian community he was the most feared and respected mafia figure, second only to Joe Di Giovanni.

He resided at 5421 Brooklyn Avenue, Kansas City.

He was said to be the “bankroll” behind a huge floating crap game. For years, he quietly operated as a top racketeer while ostensibly running a grocery and, later, a garage business.

In 1924, he went into business with his close partner, mafioso John Blando, in a drug store. Blando would later become a major business figure acquiring one of three Schenley liquor dealerships in the Kansas City area and took over several additional Schenley lines after the murder of liquor wholesaler Wolf C. Rimann.

But aside from this information, little more was ever discovered about the shadowy Balestrere. What is known is that he was one of the controlling powers of the Kansas City underworld.

Early photo of Jimmy Balestrere

He was one of the earliest mafiosi and Black Hand members active in Missouri. In its early years, he was considered to be the head of the Kansas City Mafia and thought to have been the true power broker behind the ascension of future “front” bosses.

In his senior years, Jim Balestrere occupied the position of a de facto consigliere, giving advice and counsel to his minions and was overlord of gambling rackets which included a big bingo racket and policy-numbers. He was given a percentage of the Green Hills gambling casino by Charlie Binaggio out of respect.

As a senior elder statesman of the Outfit, even in semi-retirement, Balastrere was thought to receive a percentage of all racket operations and several labor unions under his personal control in Kansas City, as well as Wichita, Kansas, where mob associates Bobby Carnahan, Joe LaSalle, and Max Cohen were said to operate.

Tony Gizzo oversaw these interests for Balastrere and a “Tony Long” was thought to be the “personal” representative of Balastrere.

His persona was that of a very humble, polite type old Italian who tipped his hat to everybody. But it’s said that he considered murder the only proper way to what he referred to as “traitors.”

He had three sons: Angelo, Buster, and Sam. Angelo had a liquor store named National Tobacco & Liquors, that Balastrere worked in every day.

Buster was a racketeer and John was active as the business agent of the Retail Package Liquor Clerks Union. He also owned a tavern named the White Horse Tavern and the property under it. This location was operated by minions of his and was said to be active as a bookie den, bootleg outlet, and where large dice and card games took place.

As a side note: Jimmy Balestrere always made it a point to plead poverty, claiming he was a poor old immigrant who only had whatever money his sons gave him.

But in truth the IRS and FBI considered him to be one of the wealthiest mafioso in all Kansas City. No federal agent was ever able to trace a dime to him. No bank account, safety deposit lockbox, real estate, or anything else of value….but it wasn’t for a lack of trying.

Curiously, a great many influential people including politicians in both parties, police, government officials of all kinds, and leading gangsters alike felt he was a man worthwhile as a friend.

Antonio Roberto (Tony) Gizzo

KCPD # 12572

Early mugshot of Antonio (Tony) Gizzo (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

An old-line member who was later installed as boss of the Family. He started out in the 1920s as a narcotics peddler and bootlegger under the old Capone mob.

Once, when he was nabbed with $3500 worth of cocaine and heroin, he tried to bribe two policemen offering them two brand new automobiles and $10,000 cash. The bribe was rejected and he went to prison for a year and a day.

In 1925, he was arrested for shooting a girl and a policeman but was later released with no charges lodged against him. The very next year he was arrested for murdering a former detective named Jack Farrell but turned loose again. He was one of their top enforcers and “whips” for their gambling syndicate.

Gizzo later acquired partnerships in various handbooks, crap games, and a racing news service pivotal to bookmakers in Kansas City.

His tenure as acting boss was short-lived, with Civella taking the reins of power from him by the early 1950s. But through the years, he still maintained his 25% interest and “cut” of profits from the Duke Sales Company, wholesalers of Canadian Ace Beer, and other alcohol brands.

Thomas (Highway) Simone

aka “Tommy Highway” and “Joe Leone” KCPD # 23405

Thomas (Highway) Simone

Resided at 414 Wabash with his wife Mary. He was one of the younger set of hoodlums who was known as brazen and arrogant. He stood 5-feet 10-inches tall and weighed a solid 210 pounds. He served as an enforcer.

Simone sported a long criminal record dating to 1933 that included many arrests for murder, armed robbery, theft from interstate shipment, vagrancy, burglary, kidnapping, auto theft, and counterfeiting (for which he received an 18-month federal prison term at El Reno, OK).

He was utilized as a strong-arm by the older, better-established mafiosi while he worked his way up the mob ladder.

In the last few decades, Simone had risen to serve in a hierarchy position over whatever membership still existed. He was one of approximately a dozen or so formal members left in the ranks of the borgata.

Giovanni Battista (John) Blando

Johnny Blando

He was born on June 12, 1897, in Sicily, immigrated to this country and was naturalized in October of 1927. He resided at 637 East 74th Street, in Kansas City.

Blando had a police record that listed mostly bootlegging and arson charges from his early days.

He was a blood nephew of boss Jimmy Balestrere and was listed as a one-third partner in the Superior Wines & Liquor Co., of 2035 Main Street. The company had an exclusive for a Schenley line.

His partners were Vincenzo Chiapetta, and Blando’s uncle Vincenzo Di Giovanni. Each man took about a $100,000 annual profit out of the business and had about $100,000 invested in the firm.

When Wolf Rimann was murdered in Kansas City in 1949, it was said that he had gone directly to New York and obtained a Schenley liquor franchise.

He was allegedly later instructed by mafioso Charlie Binaggio that he could not have that franchise because it belonged to his friend John Blando. But Rimann obviously didn’t listen to reason… It was thought by law enforcement that it cost him his life.

Vincenzo Chiapetta

aka “Vincent Chiappetta”

Vincenzo Chiapetta

Chiapetta was born on November 22, 1886, in Poggioreale, Sicily. He immigrated to the states in 1905, first settling in NYC. He later relocated to an uncle living in New Orleans, before moving to the midwest city of Kansas City in 1909. Once there, he went into the grocery business.

He stood 5-feet 6-inches tall and was a slender 155 pounds with brown eyes and grey hair. He was a dapper dresser, polite in manner, and spoke English fairly well although with a slight accent having been self-taught through reading.

He had a large extended family who also lived in Kansas City, including his brothers, sisters, wife, and children. He had a very limited police record which belied his true position in the Mafia.

He was listed as the secretary-treasurer and a full one-third partner with mafiosi Johnny Blando and Vincent Di Giovanni in the Superior Wines & Liquor Corp. At the end of WWII, this company was reported to be grossing over $3,000,000 a year, which was a whopping sum of money, especially for that era.

He was also President of Supreme Concilio, an Italian charitable organization that aided needy Italians as well as the vice-president in a real estate company that owned the Medical Arts Building located at 5899 Delmar Blvd., in St. Louis.

Chiapetta was also listed in the personal phone books of Nicolo Gentile, a notorious mafioso and international narcotics trafficker active in both Sicily and several major American cities.

During Prohibition, he was also reportedly a partner of underboss and 1957 Apalachin meeting delegate Joe Filardo, boss Charlie Carrollo, and other top mafia members in bootlegging activities. He was subpoenaed to testify before the 1951 Kefauver Committee but was allowed to do so behind a closed-door session, away from the blaring television news cameras and The Kansas City Star daily newspaper.

Although by all accounts he was a very humble and quiet figure who maintained a great appearance of respectability, in recent years with the extensive new intelligence-gathering capabilities of federal law enforcement, it is now thought that Chiapetta may have indeed been in the hierarchy and summit of organized crime in Missouri, and specifically Kansas City.

Giuseppe (Joe) Cusumano

FBI # 828237B

Giuseppe (Joe) Cusumano

He was born in 1900 in Castelvetrano, Sicily, and was naturalized on 12-18-1944. He resided at 101 So. Van Brunt Blvd. in Kansas City. He was a partner in the Roma Bakery Co., with Joe Filardo.

Although intimately acquainted with all top members of the Kansas City Outfit and a devout mafioso himself, it is said that Cusumano never heavily engaged in street rackets per se.

He was viewed more as an astute businessman-type mafioso and was considered a “thinker” for the organization. Cusumano worked between the scenes in the shadows, while helping navigate the Family.

Alexander (Al) Presta

aka “Alex Presta” and “Alex Preston” FBI # 205947, KCPD # 14319

Soldier - Al Presta

He was born in 1902 in Kansas City and resided at 1048 E. 5th Street. His record dated to 1923 for burglary, bootlegging (twice), and extortion. He was convicted of the felony Prohibition Act twice.

He was the owner of the Presta Real Estate & Insurance Co. and was a partner in the popular Bridge Club, a large gambling casino.

Presta was an important political “frontman” and a liaison between the Kansas City Outfit and the city’s political machine and top government officials.

Very close associate of bosses Nick Civella, Jimmy Balestrere, and Joe Filardo.

Second Tier hoodlums and Mafiosi of the Outfit

The following list of 19 individuals were considered by both federal law enforcement and the local Kansas City police department to be important enough to be noted, yet were thought to occupy a “second-tier” level within the Mafia organization of Kansas City.

Most of those named below served in the capacity of either inducted soldiers or top-tier mob associates. Several of them would later rise up into the Outfits hierarchy.

They were but a smattering of the dozens of others who were also affiliated with this underworld network.

Joseph (Joe School) Lascuola

He was born on January 1, 1897, in Palermo, Sicily. “Joe School” was a longtime hoodlum and mafia soldier who engaged in narcotics and gambling rackets. He resided at 627 Benton, and later 1910 E. 72nd Street in Kansas City.

Lascuola was nabbed as the strong-arm man and arsonist who once burned down a building where 15 black men were killed in the mob’s takeover of a black numbers racket. He was later charged but acquitted by a jury on five counts of arson and five counts of murder related to this arson case.

He was a dangerous racketeer and loyal mob enforcer, who along with his two brothers Mikey and Philly, became top figures in the city’s mob hierarchy.

He had a lengthy record of arrests dating to 1919 that included:

1921 - narcotics (6 months in jail) 1923 - five counts of murder and arson (dismissed for lack of evidence)

Other arrests included charges ranging from shootings, holdups, investigation, bootlegging, murders, narcotics, criminal association, and Election Day sluggings and intimidation. But each of these arrests was eventually dismissed.

He operated a horse-handbook office for years out of 1910 East 72nd St. and was said to layoff bets interchangeably with notorious Jewish bookmaker and hoodlum Mickey Cohen of Los Angeles.

He utilized one of his two brothers, Michael (Mikey School) Lascuola, as an overseer of this gambling ring. Mikey had a lengthy record of over 30 arrests on mostly bookmaking charges but was once pinched on a narcotics rap.

“Joe School” and two of his four brothers (Mike and Phil) were also engaged in heists and fencing stolen jewels, heroin wholesaling, shylocking, and extortion. He was a feared enforcer and well respected.

Philip Thomas (Fooley Babe) Lascuola

aka Phil Lascuola

Philip (Fooley Babe) Lascuola (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

He was the younger brother of “Joe and Mikey School” and allied with them in gambling and bookmaking operations. He was once charged as the prime suspect in a major murder investigation.

Arrests ranged from liquor law violations, murder (twice), various heists such as theft of a shipment of tires, and handbook operations. He generally paid fines or served minimal jail sentences.

Michael (Mikey School) Lascuola

FBI # 1806821, KCPD # 17588

Michael (Mikey School) Lascuola (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

He was born in Kansas City on May 19, 1906 and resided at 6744 Montgall Avenue in Kansas City. His police record dated to 1929 for gambling, armed robbery, and narcotics law violations.

He ostensibly owned and operated The Art-Craft Store Equipment Company, but in reality, was the overseer of several gambling clubs under his brother Joe’s jurisdiction.

These included a casino at 121 East 5th Street, and another illegal casino called The Bridge Club. Mike and his brothers were also well known wholesale narcotics distributors who received their supply from mafia drug sources back in NYC, Chicago, and New Orleans.

Giuseppe (Joe Oliver) Oliveri

aka “Joe Olive” KCPD # 32176

Joseph (Joe Olive) Oliveri

He was born in Sicily on Christmas Day in 1887 and resided at 2931 Main Street in Kansas City.

He was a known close associate of Nicolo Impastato and other top hoodlums, many of whom were narcotics violators. Since 1921, he had a limited record of arrest for policy gambling.

Charles (Chucky Morgan) Cacioppo

aka “Charlie Cappo”

He became an ex-con early on, having served four years for burglary and larceny. At 5-feet 11-inches tall and over 200 pounds, he was another hood utilized as a strong-arm enforcer for the Outfit. He resided at 920 Chestnut.

In the early 1950s, he was indicted for extortion and assault for his attempt to muscle in on the policy rackets of independent gamblers.

Louis (Black Louie) Cangelose

alias Louis Mallo, Louis Cusumano KCPD # 21625, FBI # 1703599

Louis (Black Louie) Cangelose (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

Born on August 7, 1912, the 5-foot 6-inches tall and 140-pound Cangelose served for a time as the personal driver of boss Tony Gizzo.

His criminal record dated to 1931 for hijacking, robbery, concealed weapons, and kidnapping (jailed for 20 years in Missouri State Prison.)

William (Willie the Rat) Cammisano

aka “Willy Cummings” KCPD # 38222

William (Willy the Rat) Cammisano Sr.

Born on April 26, 1913, in Williamsburg, Iowa. He stood 5-feet 9-inches tall and weighed 210 pounds, with blue eyes, brown curly hair, and a chunky build. He and his wife resided at 333 South Jackson. Cammisano ostensibly operated and owned the El Reno Bar and the El Reno Delicatessen.

His arrest record dated back to 1930 for a series of armed holdups and possessing and selling stolen .45 caliber automatics. He beat those raps, but in 1934 and again in 1939, he was jailed for 6-months at El Reno Federal Penitentiary and another two years in Leavenworth for IRS violations.

Cammisano had a notorious reputation within Kansas City. He was a prime suspect in numerous gangland killings through the decades and was considered a dangerous and feared mafioso.

He allegedly garnered his underworld nickname of “Willie the Rat” for his propensity of disposing of his murder victims by dropping them into sewers.

His listed among his closer associates such hoods as Tommy Simone, Jack Brancato, Nicky Dragna, Willy Lugge, Pete Vittorino, Earl Brewer, Samuel (Detroit Sam) Licavoli, and Joe Licavoli.

Mafioso Guiseppe (Joe) Licavoli (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

Soldier - Salvatore (Sam) Licavoli (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

In future years Cammisano would rise to a capo post, and later still, would ascend to boss after the death of Nick Civella.

Joseph (JoJo) Cammisano

alias Joe Cummings

Joseph (Jojo) Cammisano

Born August 22, 1915, in Iowa. He was an ex-con after serving two years in prison for operating a still in 1938. He lived at 3534 St. John Street. His brother was future boss “Willie the Rat” Cammisano.

He was reported to be allied with Willie and Louie Cangelose, among others, in the Outfit's attempt to “shakedown” operators of policy gambling businesses.

JoJo was in steady contact with mob guys from Colorado such as Eugene (Checkers) Smaldone. The Cammisano boys ran the El Reno Bar, at 801 East 9th Street, which they used as a headquarters.

Frank La Rocca

aka “Francesco Franco” (TN) FBI # 64795, KCPD # 10734

Francesco (Frank LaRocca) Rocca

He was born on February 14, 1889, in Agrigento, Sicily. Naturalized in KC in 1944. He resided at 136 So. Spruce Avenue, KC, and owned and operated the La Rocca Wholesale Grocery Co.

Considered an important member, La Rocca had the reputation as that of a strong-arm enforcer and killer. This is clearly evidenced by his police record which showed arrests for murder twice in 1920 alone.

In 1921, he was picked up in another murder investigation. Through mafia influence, his police record was purged from police department files.

Pasquale (Patsy) and Luigi (Louie) Ventola

These two brothers were born on 1910 and 1918 respectively, in Kansas City. They were well-known narcotics peddlers. Patsy was imprisoned for a year and a day at Texarkana Penitentiary for a federal drug rap in 1940.

Patsy, FBI # 1948062, was married to Sadie Di Giovanni, the daughter of Sugarhouse Pete, Patsy ostensibly operated the Stop N Shop Liquor Store at 427 W. 6th Street where Impastato and Speedy Dragna were also employed as “clerks.”

His brother Louie, FBI # 1947646, got two years on the same narcotics case, which they served together at Leavenworth. In 1944, he served another two years at the Missouri State Prison for theft.

He listed himself as the manager of Patsy’s Restaurant at 608 West 6th Street but was suspected to have actually been the hidden owner.

The Ventola brothers were viewed by police as “middle management” hoodlums in the Kansas City setup.

John (Johnny Mag) Mangiaracina

John (Johnny Mags) Mangiaracina (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

A notorious hood who had a long record with dozens of arrests and over 11 convictions.

1925 - He was sentenced to five years for highway robbery but only served 15 days in prison. 1927 - He and his gang were charged with a series of four armed holdups, but not convicted. 1928 - He was charged as the getaway driver in a $50,000 bank holdup, but was not convicted. 1929 - He finally served a year and a day on a bootlegging conviction. 1934 - Murder by gunshot (dismissed) 1935 - Theft from interstate shipment (he served 5 months in jail) 1935 - Bootlegging (3 months in jail) 1937 - He was arrested for a $4,500 fur theft (5 years in prison) 1939 - Organized auto theft (3 years in prison).

Although affiliated with the Kansas City mob, he was also tied into the Milwaukee Family for a while underboss Frank (Frankie Bal) Balastrieri, where he was basically known as a strong-arm man, enforcer, and gunman.

In a 1934 murder case, he was identified by two women who said they witnessed him shoot and kill their companion Lloyd Billings in front of the Silver Moon Nightclub. The women also provided the license plate number of the getaway car used in the murder. It matched Mangiaracina’s auto.

Sixteen days later he was arrested, but the case was put over 21 times until finally being dismissed outright by the judge for “want of prosecution.”

The two women witnesses later stated that they had been offered bribes, then threatened, and later jeered in the courtroom by Mangiaracina’s friends and supporters from the spectator benches…it was another blatant example of the corrupt Kansas City judicial system.

Giuseppe DeLuca

aka “Joseph DeLuca” “Joe DeLucca” “Joe DeLuce” KCPD #40870

Soldier - Joseph DeLuca (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

DeLuca was born in Giordinello, Sicily, on April 17, 1893. He arrived in the U.S. on April 10, 1910. He and his wife resided at the Sterling Apartments, 2840 Forest Avenue.

He had a brother Frank DeLuca who was closely partnered with him in the rackets. They operated several retail liquor stores named National Liquors, and State Line Liquor, both located along West Ninth Street. His bootleg and narcotics profits allowed him to purchase a great deal of real estate over the years.

During Prohibition, the DeLucas were considered among the biggest bootleggers in the area, and his police record reflected a series of Prohibition bootlegging raps. Aside from that his criminal record was thin with the exception of a three-year prison term he received in 1942 for possession and sale of narcotic drugs. He was paroled from the Federal Penitentiary at Texarkana in August of 1945.

Dating to the mid-1920s, the DeLuca boys were considered to be among the top strong-arm enforcers of the Outfit. In 1924, police stopped after they were tailing a man. In the car they were riding in was a lead pipe and a loaded .32 caliber revolver. They were both considered to be vicious, and potential killers.

Joe was also named as an important figure in the 1942 interstate heroin and cocaine ring busted up by authorities.

Francesco (Frank) DeLuca

KCPD # 30610, FBI # 1820551

Soldier- Francesco (Frank) DeLuca

The younger brother to Joe, he was born April 1, 1898, back in Sicily. He stood 5-feet 7-inches tall and weighed 175 pounds. He had greying brown hair, brown eyes, and a dark complexion.

Frank stood out by a permanent twitch in his left eye that gave him the appearance of winking at everyone. His face was also lopsided, with his mouth slanting down to his left.

He sported over eighteen arrests for crimes ranging from murder and concealed weapons to being charged as an enemy alien during WWII when he was put in an alien camp for a short time.

While running a saloon back in 1936, he killed a black customer who had thrown a glass of beer in his face but pleaded self-defense even though all the bullets struck the man in the back.

DeLuca allegedly traveled a great deal on mafia business. He was known to regularly fly to such cities as Miami, Houston, St. Louis, New York, Chicago, and Memphis.

In July of 1943, he was arrested in Los Angeles but no details were available. He was a well-known bootlegger along with his brother back in the 1920s and had several arrests to show for it.

Giuseppe (Joe) Patito

Soldier - Joseph Patito (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

This mafioso was somewhat of an enigma. He was often overlooked by law enforcement because of his respectable front as a licensed lawyer, and a principal of a finance and loan business named the Colonial Loan & Finance Company.

He was also associated and partners with a highly respected lawyer named Hunt Moore who was the president of their finance company. Patito had studied law under Hunt as a young man. Patito was born in Italy.

He stood 5-feet 8-inches tall and weighed a solid 215 pounds, with brown eyes and hair streaked with grey giving him a scholarly appearance. He spoke English well despite a slight accent and served as an interpreter in various courts. He resided for years at 2608 East Tenth Street.

He had a minor police arrest of four arrests; three on charges of speeding and a whiskey charge which was dismissed in 1925. But he was strongly suspected by federal authorities of having provided financing back in the late 1930s for the purchase and distribution of large amounts of narcotics.

Mob figure Joe DeLuca was said to have been a major stockholder Patito’s finance firm.

Patito had two brothers named Carl and Nick who ran a retail liquor store. Nick was shot to death during an attempted robbery of the store by a punk named Leroy Dean Crist. When Crist beat the case and was turned loose in court, Joe Patito employed Outfit enforcer Jimmy DeSimone to track down and slaughter Crist, who was killed gangland style shortly after his acquittal.

Leonard (Lenny Green) Calamia

aka “Culanis” FBI # 366116

Leonard (Lenny Green) Calamia

Calamia was born on January 2, 1911, in KC. He sported a lengthy police record and was a well-known narcotics merchant and killer.

Calamia served one year in jail for an early narcotics conviction in 1936. He was questioned in the June 1945 murder of federal informant Carl Caramussa.

In December of 1948, he was arrested in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for another murder of notorious Chicago mobster Nick DeJohn, who figured into a major interstate narcotics smuggling ring with Calamia and other top hoods. Three other hoods were charged along with Calamia, but all suspects were eventually released when the prosecution was called off.

In 1966, Lenny Calamia was named as one of the 15 most important narcotics traffickers operating in the midwest and on the west coast.

Antonio (Tony) Balano

Antonio (Tony Bilello) Balano

Born on January 1, 1898, in Castelvetrano, Sicily, he lived at 401 Garfield Street in KC with his immigrant wife Rosa. They operated the Balano Tobacco & Liquor Company, 1427 East Eighteenth Street.

In 1920, Tony was shot and wounded by a policeman who had set a trap in order to catch a “Black Hander” attempting to extort a victim. Balano was shot after he retrieved an envelope of cash that had been placed there by the victim as per instructions of the extortionists.

In retaliation for this afront to their “brotherhood,” Balano and several “friends” tried burning down the home of the policeman who had wounded him.

Among his closer associates were Tony Gizzo and Charlie Gargotta. He was also thought to be close to Jimmy Balestrere, who lived a few blocks away from Balano.

Paolo (Paul) Catanzaro

Catanzaro was born on November 9, 1884, in Sicily, and naturalized in KC in 1924. He resided at 538 Olive Street.

He had a well-earned reputation as a wanton killer, clearly evidenced by his arrest for killing the 11-year-old son of Frank Carramusa Sr., a fellow Black Hander who was on the outs with his associates.

Dozens of people witnessed the murder but Catanzaro disappeared, turning up a year later and was promptly arrested. But he was later released after not a single witness was willing to testify against him.

Frank Carramusa was the brother of Carl Carramusa, a former mafia associate who later testified in 1943 against his confederates in a huge narcotics case brought against them. It was thought that his nephew's killing was one reason why he may have turned state's evidence.

While Carramusa was on the stand, Catanzaro sat in the front row starring the informer down. It unnerved the witness so much that Catanzaro was thrown out of the courtroom and arrested.

During the 1910 to 1920 period, he was repeatedly arrested for bombing the homes of Black Hand extortion victims to intimidate them.

He also had arrests for burglary, bootlegging, and mailing “Black Hand” extortion letters. Catanzaro listed employment at the Midwest Distributing Co., as a night watchman.

Joseph (Joey G) Gurera

KCPD # 46592, FBI # 4059366

Soldier/Rat Joseph (Joey G) Gurera

He was one of the younger hoods affiliated with the Outfit. He lived at 2818 East 8th Street with his wife. He owned the Couples Club, 1422 Main Street with his brother-in-law Joe Marchese.

Gurera had a long record of over 30 arrests for concealed weapons, murder, burglary, assault, and gambling.

Note: In recent years, it has been exposed through the FOIA that Gurera had been a federal informant. He seems to have been a frustrated hoodlum who viewed his associates with disdain and was thought to have turned rat to avoid several jail terms.

He was also never known to have accumulated any wealth to speak of, which may have also led to jealousy and a desire to strike out at his perceived detractors.

He had a checkered career that saw him switch affiliations back and forth between the Kansas City and Milwaukee Families over the years.

Motel (Max Jaben) Grzebienacz

Max Jaben

He was born on October 24, 1902, in Poland. Commonly known by the surname of Jaben, he came to the U.S. in 1920 and later moved to Portland, Oregon before coming to Kansas City in 1926.

He was said to exhibit a very cocky manner and attitude, with a cocky walk.

Max gained a well-deserved reputation as that of a strong-arm torpedo, arsonist, enforcer, and Outfit killer. He became a well-respected hoodlum who partnered with the Italians in various gambling rackets and ran a gambling operation in Colorado for several years.

Max Jaben had the “rep” as one of the “heaviest” guys in Kansas City and was a suspect in numerous gangland murders.

He was married with four sons and listed himself as a part-owner of the Cov-A-Car Seat Cover Shop at 1710 Grand Avenue. He reportedly also had a piece of a midget auto race track and Olympic Stadium.

He was said to have cut himself into partnerships with several independent policy and bookie operations.

Varying Value and Position

There were of course, many other lesser lights and mob associates of varying value and position within the mob’s ranks. But the above-named hoodlums would form the core of what became known as “The Kansas City Outfit.”

Side Note: In recent decades the KC Family has gone the way of the world at large. The world has vastly changed, and similar to other Mafia networks that remain throughout the country, the Outfit has seen a precipitous drop in its membership ranks which has been spurred on by the underworld's vastly reduced money-making activities and opportunities.

The remaining members operate the best they can, but it isn’t the same anymore. Their existing repertoire of rackets is still typically gambling, shylocking, and narcotics. But the gross volume and net profits have been greatly reduced.

By the late 1980s, into the early 1990s, the Outfit had seen its salad days behind them. In more recent years they are but a wisp of their former selves and are on their last legs. And that's putting it kindly. It has currently been reported by both law enforcement and The Kansas City Star that there are less than a dozen core Outfit members left remaining.

With an original membership roster thought to have once hovered around 40-50 formally “inducted” members, and many more “associates,” the Kansas City Family always ranked as a small to medium-sized borgata within the Cosa Nostra orbit, to begin with. They were but one of the 24 or so borgatas sprinkled throughout the United States.

Nonetheless, over the years, they had made their mark in Kansas City and its outlying territories.

Outfit boss Nick Civella was a tough hood, who ran a tight ship and a very profitable borgata for decades. Yet, even Nick Civella himself was required to report “in” periodically to the heads of Cosa Nostra over all the United States. This governing body was called “The Commission.”

He did this through his association with “Scarface Al” Capone’s old outfit based in Chicago. Windy City bosses Anthony (Joe Batters) Accardo and Felice (Paul the Waiter Ricca) Delucia acted as the overseers for all the smaller midwest and west coast borgatas.

The KC Outfit was subject to the same rules and dictates of the Commission for upwards of 60 years.

Side Note: Numbered among the Families that fell under the oversight and purview of this “second” Chicago-based Commission were the Windy City Outfit itself, the Frank Zito Family of Springfield, and Joseph Zammuto Family of Rockford, all three crews located in Illinois.

Plus, the Joseph Zerilli Family of Detroit, Michigan; Anthony Giordano Family of St. Louis, and Nick Civella’s Outfit of Kansas City, both in Missouri; Frank Balistrieri Family of Milwaukee, and the tiny 10-12 member Carlo Caputo Family of Madison, both crews located in Wisconsin. And lastly, the small Vincenzo Colletti Family of Boulder-Denver, Colorado.

The three California-based borgatas of Frank Lanza in San Francisco, Joseph Cerrito in San Jose, and Nicholas Licata of Los Angeles also reported to this second Commission. Collectively, senior bosses Accardo and DeLucia were entrusted by the powers back in New York City to properly govern and lend guidance to approximately 12 Mafia Families for the brotherhood.

This still left a daunting task for the original Commission based back in New York. For they still held the responsibility for oversight of more than 14 Families, many of whom held the largest rank and file memberships in the nation.

These included the fabled Five Families of Genovese, Gambino, Colombo, Bonanno, and Lucchese as well as the Stefano Magaddino Family or “The Arm” of the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area, all six crews located in New York State; The Sam DeCavalcante Family of Elizabeth, NJ; and “The Office” or New England crew headed by Raymond Patriarca, which was headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island.

There were also three Families based in Pennsylvania; the Angelo Bruno Family of Philadelphia, the La Rocca Family of Pittsburgh, and the Russell Bufalino Family of Pittston-Scranton.

Another crew under the east coast Commission’s jurisdiction included the John Scalish Family of Cleveland, Ohio. And lastly, representing the southern borgatas were the Carlos Marcello Family of New Orleans; Joseph Civello of Dallas, Texas; and Santo Trafficante of Tampa and Miami.

This East Coast “Commission” also watched out for the interests of underworld legend Meyer Lansky and the Jewish-based crew he headed. They were a large contingent of Jewish hoodlums who had originated in NYC, but over the decades, had expanded their gambling operations and other schemes to South Florida, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, and Las Vegas.

Dating back to the very formation of Cosa Nostra in the United States, you see at one time all Families in the country reported back east to the original “Commission” which was headquartered in New York City.

It was formed in 1931 as a “peacemaking body” by Salvatore (Charlie Lucky) Luciano and the other bosses after rival mafiosi fought the infamous “Castellammarese War” of 1929-1931. This “Commission” set overall policy and the rules that all Families were required to follow in order to keep the peace and share the wealth.

But with the tremendous law enforcement pressure brought to bear on them in recent years, as well as their vastly reduced mutual partnerships and involvement since the demise of the mob’s pervasive involvement in nationwide liquor bootlegging, the international narcotics racket and its nationwide distribution network, and more recently their former multimillion-dollar partnerships in Las Vegas casinos are a thing of the past. By the late 1970s, a “second” smaller Commission had been formed which was governed by the Chicago mob that settled all matters for Families west of the Windy City.

The Representante

Representante Nick Civella

FBI # 1224024

Young mugshot of Nicholas Civella

Digressing a bit to discuss the hierarchy of the Outfit.

Of all the capable leaders to ever rule this borgata, the one boss who was considered to have had the longest tenure, and was its most iconic leader was Nicholas Civella.

He was “Capo Famiglia” over Kansas City from 1953. until his natural death in 1983. A 30-year run at the top. Once in the “boss” seat, Civella quickly became known as a no-nonsense leader.

He was a very sharp and astute hoodlum. A man who never trifled around, or hesitated to use extreme violence in order to achieve his goals, keep his followers in line, or eliminate his enemies.

Yet, for years, he did so quietly, allowing his Family to thrive by staying under law enforcement’s radar.

Born in Kansas City’s Italian North End to parents of Sicilian lineage on March 19, 1912, Giuseppe Nicola Civella, better known as “Nick” Civella, as he was commonly referred to, was arguably the best known, and most prominent leader to ever rule over Kansas City.

He resided for years with his wife Kathryn (nee’ Anzalone), at 401 Maple Blvd., Kansas City.

Nick Civella’s well-appointed home

By 1963, authorities reported that Civella held ownership interests or a hidden “piece” in the Pompeian Room, Gallucci Real Estate Company, and a freight trucking firm.

Civella rose to prominence as a loyal soldier and enforcer who by the mid-1940s was elevated to a “capo di decina.” It was thought that he had become the acknowledged “Representante” around 1953.

This was at a time and era that saw the FBI accelerate its probe of the Mafia nationwide. Together with its law enforcement partners in the criminal division of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), and local police authorities, the FBI led the way in trying to uncover just how powerful and extensive the Civella Family underworld operations truly were.

This, of course, was at about the same time that an overly ambitious young Senator named Estes Kefauver started his famous “Kefauver Hearings” in 1951 to investigate the nation’s underworld. His committee went from city to city with televised probes, subpoenaing known top racketeers for their testimony before a viewing audience.

The public was captivated. It became one of the hottest programs on television and in hindsight can arguably be considered the very first “reality TV” show.

When they got to Kansas City, local authorities and informers alike named Nick Civella and his partners as being among the top racketeers in the nation.

A few years later, in November of 1957, Cosa Nostra would arguably have the worst day ever in its shadowy history.

The infamous Apalachin Mafia Meeting in Upstate Apalachin, New York, was where over one hundred of the Mafia’s top echelon was thought to have gathered for a mob-style barbecue and underworld conference.

More than 50 of their most important bosses were captured by curious NYS Troopers who raided the estate of mob boss Joe Barbara. This watershed event exposed Cosa Nostra for the true nationwide menace it was.

Several years later, then-Attorney General Robert (Bobby) Kennedy started his famed deep probe of corrupt activities in the “Labor and Management Field - Rackets Investigation.”

He opened a second senate investigation similar to the Kefauver Hearings that subpoenaed scores of mobsters from various cities around the country. With his famous brother John serving in the highest public office in the land, young Bobby Kennedy’s committee received unprecedented news coverage and strong support.

It also set Washington reeling back on its heels. In particular, longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover soon got an earful from John and Bobby Kennedy for Hoover’s almost wanton ignorance of “The Enemy Within” as Bobby Kennedy called them.

An embarrassed Hoover immediately had all resident case agents and field offices across the country startup their “Top Hoodlum Program,” and soon strike forces were also formed and added to the federal government’s arsenal in their attempt to tackle the Italian mob. Nick Civella and his Kansas City Outfit became instant targets.

In 1963, the American public, all of law enforcement as well as Cosa Nostra itself was further shocked when a little-known soldier in New York City’s Genovese crew by the name of Joe Valachi spilled the beans to yet another Senate Committee probing the mob.

The McClellan Committee further exposed “The Enemy Within” which was helped greatly with Valachi’s graphic testimony and organizational charts of this nationwide menace.

In hindsight, these investigations collectively became what has now been more than a 70 year, all-out assault on the Mafia.

Aging mugshot of Nick Civella

Innumerable investigations, arrests, and convictions over the years against the mob’s gambling, loansharking, extortion, labor racketeering, narcotics, hijacking, business infiltration, and other rackets uncovered the near-total monolithic control organized crime has played in our nation's history.

Not only was it discovered that the Italian underworld, or Cosa Nostra, ran America’s illegal rackets in near totality while edging out all other independent underworld entities in the process, but that they did so with near-total impunity from prosecution for many decades because of their uncanny ability to corrupt local police and government officials to protect them from arrest.

Especially troubling to federal law enforcement was the mob’s ability to seamlessly infiltrate big business and the American labor movement, the highest levels of government, and the nation's legitimate gambling industry from inside the Cities of Las Vegas, Reno, and Lake Tahoe, Nevada. Despite the fact that Civella was listed in the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s “Black Book” along with 11 other undesirables forbidden to enter any casino in the state.

In fact, years later, the FBI was able to trace Nick Civella and his associates to their hidden investments and infiltration into several major Las Vegas casinos.

The Kansas City Family gained lucrative “points” in the Tropicana Hotel and Casino and the Landmark Hotel and Casino through Nick Civella’s successful efforts to have multimillion-dollar Teamsters Union Pension Fund loans to the tune of a whopping $8.1 million dollars granted to several businessmen seeking to purchase and development these casinos.

Later Nick Civella and several other Family bosses were also pivotal to the Teamsters Fund granting another massive loan, a mind-boggling $62,000,000 to a San Diego businessman in order for him to acquire the Stardust and three other casino-hotels under a holding company they named the Argent Corporation.

Civella used a mob associate and minion named Joe Agosto as their point man at the casinos. Agosto officially held a job as the entertainment director at the famed Tropicana Hotel & Casino.

Las Vegas casino manager Joe Agosto

This would all lead to a major scandal and several interlocking federal indictments in 1981 and 1983, that snagged top bosses of the Chicago, Cleveland, Milwaukee, and Kansas City Families.

In the first indictment, Nick and Corky Civella were among 12 defendants nabbed for the $8.1-million dollar loan-kickback which was a long-running casino-skimming scam.

Caporegime - Carl (Corky) Civella (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

In September 1983, a federal grand jury in Kansas City handed down an even larger second indictment charging 15 organized crime defendants in the “skim-off” of the $62-million dollar loan-kickback scam of the Stardust Casino and other hotels-casinos under the Argent holding corporation.

Indicted along with the mafiosi were several Chicago police officers and Las Vegas hotel corporate officers and employees.

Dubbed the “Strawman” investigation by the FBI, the defendants were accused of having infiltrated and holding“hidden” interest in the Las Vegas casinos which allowed them to operate a complex profit “skimming” operation from casino gaming tables and slot machines for many years in tandem with their brothers in blood in other U.S. cities.

The Stardust Hotel & Casino

This massive conspiracy was nationwide in scope because, besides the above-named crime families, various other borgatas across the United States partnered with one another to better control the flow of untold millions from the money-counting rooms and cages right into the pockets of mafia bosses, thus avoiding Nevada State Investigators and IRS auditors in the process.

An aging Nick Civella

Ultimately, Joe Agosto turned state's evidence and testified against his mafia superiors and fellow associates at trial. His testimony was pivotal to the justice department winning convictions in these cases.

It was also documented by the FBI in several other similar investigations that other Cosa Nostra Families in such locales as New York City, Newark, New Orleans, Tampa, Providence, and Detroit were among those who shared in the untaxed, skimmed-spoils of casinos in Sin City.

For Civella, the casino skimming case would become the beginning of the end of his long underworld career. He along with his mob associates were held for trial in this highly-publicized case. They all faced long prison terms upon conviction.

Nick Civella shortly before his death

But before the case could even came to trial, Nick Civella became gravely ill with lung cancer while serving a four-year bid behind bars in another criminal case.

It related to his involvement in a conspiracy to bribe a prison warden in order to help transfer his nephew from the maximum-security Texarkana Federal Penitentiary to the more lenient minimum-security facility at Forth Worth, Texas.

He was eventually granted an early release and allowed to go home to die. Civella had been housed at the Federal Penitentiary at Springfield, Missouri, which is a prison hospital facility.

He was released on March 1st of that year in order to “die at home with some dignity.” But he never did make it home.

He was immediately transferred to a local hospital near his home and died 11 days later on March 12, at the age of 70 years old.

Gangland War and Other Bloodletting

Trunk music.... Kansas City style (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

In truth, the 1970s and early 1980s were not great years for the Outfit. An insatiable lust for power and money would lead various hoodlums and mob factions to wreak havoc on the streets of Kansas City.

The city became reminiscent of 1920s Chicago with bodies littering the streets. On a seemingly weekly basis hoodlums from various factions were found stuffed in car trunks, shot down in broad daylight, or disappeared, their corpses found weeks later shot or garroted.

The wanton gangland violence got so intense that on more than one occasion an entire building was blown to smithereens by remote-controlled homemade bombs and dynamite.

There were several causes that would lead to the carnage.

News of the Kansas City mafia war

One was a battle for underworld supremacy started by a band of well-known hoodlum brothers in the early 1970s who chafed at the policies and dictates of Nick Civella and his minions.

Refusing to buckle under and pay the “street tax” or “tribute” required of all those operating illegal activities within the bailiwick of Civella’s perceived territory, the Spero’s were a small, semi-independent crew led by four hoodlum brothers who decided to challenge the status quo.

Rebel hoodlum Mike Spero (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

The hard headed brothers told the Outfit’s soldiers, and by proxy Nick Civella himself, to go fuck themselves.

Not only did Nick Spero and his brothers refuse to pay any tribute to the Outfit on their racket earnings, but they actually went out of their way trying to wrest control of established gambling and other rackets from Outfit members.

Federal authorities also suspected that a prime motive for the conflict was the brothers' attempt to take over a Local of the Teamsters Union that was under the control of Civella…It didn’t take long for the Outfit to respond to this outrage.

The four brothers consisted of Nicholas, Michael, Joseph, and Carl who, in retrospect, were Kansas City’s answer to Brooklyn’s Gallo Gang and their leader, the infamous Crazy Joe Gallo.

Renegade hoodlum Nick Spero

The Gallos were a notorious band of hoodlums who fought one of the bloodiest gang wars the New York underworld had ever seen.

The first Gallo-Profaci War of 1961-1963 and its second round of carnage fought in 1971 through 1974, claimed dozens of lives and turned New York City into a veritable shooting gallery.

Kansas City’s gang war also saw gunfire going both ways, and for a while, at least, the Spero Gang seemed to give as good as they got. But it was only a matter of time.

This bomb leveled the entire building (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

It was essentially the Mafia equivalent of David and Goliath. One by one the brothers and their associates were gunned down and slaughtered.

The first brother bought the farm in April of 1973.

After having disappeared, gang leader, 37-year old Nick Spero, was found shot twice behind the ear with a .38 caliber handgun, his corpse stuffed inside the truck of his own Cadillac convertible. With Nick’s killing things slowed down.

The outfit figured the remaining brothers would either fall in line or drop out of the racket game.

Kansas City Gang War hits the papers

But the brothers became even more bitter after Nick’s killing and vowed to “get” those responsible. They continued making threats and showing disrespect every chance they got. T

he name Spero became a constant thorn in Nick Civella’s side. One that had to be removed.

It would take five years, but in May of 1978 that thorn was removed, permanently! In fact, all three remaining thorns were removed in one shot….make that multiple shots!

The brothers were lounging around one afternoon inside the Virginian Tavern when several gunmen donning ski masks suddenly walked in and proceeded directly to the booth where Mike and Joe Spero were sitting at the time.

Renegade hoodlum Joe Spero

The gunmen immediately opened fire, striking both men repeatedly. Mike was killed instantly. Joe was shot multiple times but later survived his injuries.

Carl, who had seen the killers enter and witnessed his siblings get shot, tried making a run for it but was chased outside by one of the gunmen and cut down in the street. Carl collapsed to the pavement after being shot multiple times in the back and spine. He would also survive but wound up paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life.

Another building bombed and leveled (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

Breaking with Omertà, from his hospital bed Joe Spero identified for authorities the three gunmen as members of Nick Civella’s crew. Besides himself with sorrow and raging anger, as soon as he was released from the hospital, Joe Spero plotted his revenge.

Spero concocted a remote-controlled bomb to place under the automobile of a guy who he thought he’d recognized that fateful day in the tavern, and it was one of the Outfit’s top capos. But before he could put his deadly plan into motion, federal agents raided his home and seized the explosive device.

In October of 1979, Spero was convicted in federal court of the murder plot.

Spero’s failed murder plot, as well as his arrest and conviction for it, was all over local television stations and newspapers for the public to see and read. Nick and Carl Civella and their disciples also paid close attention to the failed plot.

News of the Civella-Spero gang war

A year later, in June of 1980, Joe Spero met his maker when a massive remote-control bomb blew him to smithereens. Spero had been inside his shed when the massive explosion ripped the structure from its very foundation. Investigators later found his body parts strewn all over the property more than50 yards away.

But the Outfit never forgets, and there was one more piece of “work” to be done.

Four years later, they sent their final calling card to the last of the brothers. In 1984, the crippled Carl Spero, now using a wheelchair to get around, was working at a cousin's used-car lot on East 12th Street when another explosive device tore him to shreds.

1984 - Carl Spero’s wheelchair is all that's left of him

The deafening blast shook buildings along the entire street. Police had to scrap what was left of Spero off the sidewalk….and that was that!

The River Quay Quagmire

Throughout the rest of the 1970s and 1980s, the Kansas City Outfit would successfully meet all challenges to their authority. The result of this effort was a steady stream of murders, attempted murders, permanent disappearances, arson, and bombings, all designed to maintain their grip over Kansas City’s underworld.

Gangland War!

But their challenges didn’t always emanate from outside enemies. Oftentimes, it took the form of insurrections from within the borgata itself. And over time it would serve to substantially weaken the Family.

One of the major bones of contention, and one which would quickly lead to a serious bloodletting across the Kansas City underworld, was a major construction project created and developed in the early 1970s that was named The River Quay.

Advertisement for The River Quay (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

Dubbed as a major “revitalization project” that would resurrect Kansas City’s business district and its faltering economy, city officials unveiled an ambitious government-backed project to erect a planned “Civic and Convention Center” along 12th Street. Brand new eclectic shops, trendy boutiques, restaurants, and other entertainment venues that were soon to become the “crowned jewel” of the city.

But at the same time, it became a major thorn in the side of the Outfit.

You see, in order to properly promote and advertise this very ambitious, multimillion-dollar expansion and redevelopment of the 12th Street business district, it became necessary to eliminate a major blight that existed several blocks away.

A seedy, honky-tonk “red light” district of sorts that had grown over the years that offered sawdust joints, topless bars, prostitutes, pornographic book stores, peep shows, and sex-film movie theaters, pawnshops, and other seedy-type businesses that showed the raw underbelly of Kansas City.

Kansas City’s honky-tonk district

The Red Light District near River Quay (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

The developers and local government officials who financially backed and licensed the project hoped The River Quay revitalization would convert the depressed old River Market area into a “family-friendly,” eclectic, Greenwich Village-flavored, arts and entertainment mecca - a safe environment with an atmosphere that moms and dads felt comfortable to take their young families to dine and shop and where older folks and youngsters alike would feel comfortable.

The end result was that this “red light” district had to go!

There was one major problem. Many of those businesses were owned outright or had hidden partners who were members and associates of the Outfit. Their revenue went right out the window once these businesses were condemned by the city and shuttered.

The few mobbed-up businesses that remained saw their gross revenue and resultant profits plummet once the shiny new “diamond” entertainment venue opened, and was now only blocks away….the wiseguys weren’t happy!

The net result of this underworld upheaval was that many important mafiosi, killers, and varied hoodlums soon set their sights on acquiring an interest in The River Quay either through leasing a storefront, and then building and opening a business, purchasing or partnering in an existing business, or strong-arming and extorting their way into various establishments.

Soon, these newly designed bars, fancy restaurants, fast-food eateries, nightclubs and dance clubs, game arcades, and other businesses fell prey to the racketeers. The Outfit wanted in. And they didn’t care how they got in!

Over the next several years, legitimate businessmen, fringe players in the underworld, mob associates, and bona-fide mafia members alike would fight each for a slice of the pie….and it wasn’t pretty.

Within a few years' time, by the mid-1970s, the city’s gem had been destroyed.

1974 - Delaware St. in the River Quay

The Outfit’s push into the newly refashioned River Quay entertainment district was in tatters.

Mobsters had quickly moved in, muscling out honest and legitimate businesses. Hoodlums set up sleazy bars and strip clubs, B-girl clip joints, prostitution, gambling operations, and other seedy establishments that all but guaranteed that wholesome families and legitimate people would stay away from.

Side Note: In the midst of all this turmoil, in the mid-1970s a mob associate named Freddy Bonadonna, who was the son of mobster David Bonadonna Sr., who was shot to death and stuffed in the trunk of his automobile in 1976, became a federal FBI informant. He did so seeking to revenge for his father's murder as well as his ongoing conflict with local mob figures over control of several River Quay nightclubs he was invested in.

He ended up being another pivotal link in the FBI’s ability to infiltrate and bust up the Kansas City Outfit. By 1977, he had entered the Federal Witness Protection Program for his safety. In 2002, Bonadonna committed suicide. Capo “Willie the Rat” Cammisano had been the prime suspect in the elder Bonadonna’s slaying.

By 1977, the short-lived River Quay had completely lost its trendy, upscale flavor. It became a hollowed-out skeleton of its former self, with very few of its original boutiques and shops remaining. They were replaced by sleeze and gangland violence as mafiosi and other varied hoodlums cannibalized themselves in the fight for money and supremacy.

Gangland victim found in his truck

Prime examples of this underworld business infiltration and the resulting war between mob factions was a September, 1976, raging arson fire that completely engulfed Uncle Joe’s Tavern, a bar reputedly owned by the Cammisano brothers. The place was gutted.

Shortly thereafter, the tortured and mutilated body of a hood thought responsible for the carnage was found stuffed in the trunk of an automobile parked in the long-term lot at Kansas City International Airport.

Several months into the following year, the newly designed Pat O’Brien’s Tavern and Judge Roy Bean’s Tavern were both destroyed by remote-controlled dynamite bombs.

The aftermath of these blasts made The River Quay resemble Germany after WWII, with both buildings leveled to the ground.

During this tumultuous period in the Kansas City underworld there was a succession of gangland slayings. Bodies of known hoodlums littered the city’s streets like so much rubbish left at the curb. Here is a general timeline for some of the more high-profile killings;

‣ July 1976 - mob figure David Bonadonna found shot to death and left in the trunk of his car. ‣ November 1976 - John (Johnny B) Brocato shot in the head and stuffed in the trunk of his car. ‣ February 1977 - Outfit soldier John (Johnny Green) Amaro shot to death in his garage. ‣ February 1977 - Enforcer Harold (Sonny) Bowan is shotgunned inside a crowded bar. ‣ August 1977 - Hoodlum Gary Parker is blown to bits in his automobile by a remote-controlled bomb. ‣ May 1978 - strong-arm Myron (Alley Cat Andy) Mancuso is shot to death in his car. ‣ May 1978 - mob associate Michael (Minute-Man Mike) Massey is shot dead in his car.

All of the above murders were thought to have been tied to growing tensions and the struggle for power and control over The River Quay.

But over the next few years, and into the 1980s, the violence would continue to escalate. There were a variety of reasons for the following gangland-style executions.

Suffice it to say that all were related to one mob vendetta or another, as well as a gangland power struggle between mob factions.

‣ May 1978 - Mike Spero shot to death in a tavern (his two brothers are also wounded.) ‣ June 1980 - Joe Spero is killed when a shed he was inside was bombed. ‣ January 1984 - Carl Spero is also blown to bits by another bomb that exploded at his used-car lot. ‣ February 1984 - Outfit soldier Anthony (Tiger) Cardarella is found garroted in the trunk of his car three weeks after his disappearance. ‣ September 1984 - Outfit soldier Felix (Little Philly) Ferina is shot to death by two gunmen in front of his home.

The two soldiers who attempted to overthrow the Civella regime

The public was shocked, and the city was rocked to its very foundation. The citizenry and local politicians demanded that something be done to halt the violence enveloping their city. Soon an embarrassed FBI accelerated investigations into the Outfit to try and get to the bottom of it all.

Starting in 1978, the feds installed several listening devices in various Outfit hangouts including the Villa Capri Pizzeria at 2609 Independence Avenue. They did learn of the war. But of even greater importance was information the FBI recorded that exposed the Mafia’s control and hidden ownership of Las Vegas Casinos.

Hence, the seeds of the “Strawman” investigation began….It would be the beginning of the end of the Kansas City Outfit, and the jailing of key players in the Chicago, Cleveland, and Milwaukee Families as well.

After Civella’s death, the “boss” seat was filled by several proxies and former subordinates for the next few decades. His brother and underboss Carl (Corky) Civella was the first to assume power and led for one year until he was replaced by capo William (Willy the Rat) Cammisano, who had an eleven-year run at the top, from 1984 to 1995.

Next up was Nick’s nephew Anthony Civella, who also had an eleven-year run from 1995 through 2006.

Capo - Anthony (Tony Ripe) Civella

Joseph (Johnny Joe) Sciortino (Missouri Valley Special Collections, Kansas City Public Library)

The last known, and reputed current “official” boss is listed as John (Johnny Joe) Sciortino, who is alleged by federal agents to still be at the top of the heap, or whatever is left of the heap.

But admittedly, the power of this underworld network is quickly waning away. Never a large Family to begin with, in recent years, they have become a hollow shell of their former selves. A Cosa Nostra skeleton of what once was.

The Civella Family Chart

The following chart represents the known membership of the Kansas City Family from approximately the early 1940s era through the 2010s. A span of about 70 years of membership. Many names listed represent the original membership years of the borgata.

Others named are mafiosi from later decades. But all men listed were documented by either the FBI, local law enforcement agencies, or reliable mob informants. Also listed are many of their better-known mob “associates.”

I took the liberty to add in their known racket activities, legitimate businesses, labor union posts, and “political” positions.

Several known or “suspected” mafiosi actually held high-level positions in politics for years. It shows the tremendous “strength” that Cosa Nostra truly held at one time in our United States of America.

Prime examples of this are Sam Capra who doubled as an influential Kansas City Councilman while simultaneously serving as a mafia soldier. Or mafia soldier Alex Presta who served as the Democratic Party leader for the First and Eleventh Wards of the city.

If that's not enough, even more shocking was Missouri State Senator Jasper Brancato, who was also documented as an “inducted” Outfit soldier.

Collectively, these men would help give Nick Civella and their borgata solid control over Kansas City for many years, helping indemnify them from local law enforcement probes, criminal investigations and resultant arrests.

Nick Civella in his prime as boss

Although small to medium in size, they nevertheless cast a very wide shadow and exerted a muscle power far beyond their obvious numerical strength.

Similar to their brethren in other cities, the Kansas City “Outfit” also had deep connections and influence over various labor unions - the most significant of which being the ironclad control exerted over Roy Lee Williams, President of the Teamsters Union International, who was known to be under Civella’s control.

Several other affiliates of the Family also held important labor union posts within the national labor movement.

This allowed them to hold high-paying union jobs and receive free union-paid luxury automobiles and expense accounts while skimming union dues, providing “sweetheart contracts” to favored businesses, setting up lucrative kickback schemes, and embezzling money from various funds and trusts held for the rank and file under their fiduciary control.

The most significant example of this being their embezzlement of funds for granting a series of Teamsters - Central States Pension Fund loans that enabled Civella and his mob contemporaries to receive huge kickbacks, as well as hidden partnerships in the famous Tropicana Hotel and Casino, The Landmark Hotel and Casino, and other gambling meccas.

The Civella Family of Kansas City

[Note: The 108 reputed mafiosi listed below represent over 70 years of membership. I also named another 108 “associates.” Several of those named as inducted soldiers may have actually been associates. Nonetheless, each was important enough to be considered a potential member]

BOSS

Nicholas (Nick Bove) Civella B & G Amusement Co., Antonio’s Pizza, and many other businesses, Apalachin attendee

FORMER BOSSES

Giuseppe (Joe) Di Giovanni Family Founder (1st boss)

Vincenzo Chiappetta Shadowy figure thought to have served as a boss

Charles Binaggio Political influence, narcotics, gambling boss

Antonio (Tony) Gizzo Gizzo News Wire Service, political bribery

FORMER UNDERBOSSES

Thomas (Tommy Highway) Simone Paramount Vending Co., enforcer, heists, gambling

James Balestrere Former acting boss, later served as a senior consigliere/advisor

Pietro (Sugarhouse Pete) Di Giovanni Bootlegger, extortionist, righthand man to his brother Joe

UNDERBOSS

Carl (Tuffy) DeLuna B & C Meat Co.

ELDER STATESMAN/ADVISOR

Giuseppe (Joe) Filardo Roma Bakery Co., extortion, suspected narcotics, Apalachin attendee

CAPO DI DECINA

Bustiano Vito (Buster) Balestrere Nothing Special Bar, policy, extortion, dice games

Carl (Corky) Civella Nick’s brother-aide, fence, gambling overseer

William (Willy the Rat) Cammisano Sr. The Famous Bar, Grand Salvage Co. (strong-arm enforcer)

Anthony (Tony Ripe) Civella Antonio’s Pizzeria, Hello Dolly Bar, nephew of Nick Civella, fence, gambler

Leonardo (Lonnie) Affronti Repeat narcotics peddler(served 20 yrs), strong-arm man and killer, Canadian born

John (Johnny Green) Amaro Bena’s Drive-In Restaurant, Il Pagliacci Ristorante, bookmaker, fence, extortionist

Giacomo (Jack) Ancona Served 7 years for narcotics

Samuel J. Ancona Teamsters organizer Joint Council #56, Pres. Local #955, Fu Manchu Restaurant

Antonio Balano

Angelo Balestrere Brother of Bustiano and Veto Balestrere

Vito Balestrere Brother of Bustiano and Angelo Balestrere

Jack Binaggia Related to Charlie Binaggio despite the surname variation

John B. Blando Superior Wine & Liquor Co., liquor rackets, convicted bootlegger,a top boss

Charles (Red Brick) Bengimina B & G Amusement Co., B&G Cigarette Vending, coercion, extortion, narcotics

Thomas Bengimina Charlie’s son

Antonio (Tony Bilello) Bonino Quaff Buffet Tavern, bootlegger, narcotics, dice game operator

Gaspare (Jasper) Brancato Missouri State Senator from Kansas City

Nathaniel (Nate) Brancato

Onofrio (Norfie) Brancato aka “Murphy Saunders”, bootlegging, narcotics

Charles Bruno Bruno Bail Bonding Co., former bootlegger, fence

Charles (Chucky Morgan) Cacioppo Industrial Salvage & Wrecking Co., fence, bookmaker, dice games

Frank (Frankie Hobo) Cacioppo 606 Supper Club

Thomas (Tommy Morgan) Cacioppo Gambling kingpin

John (Horse) Caldrone (53 arrests)

John Calia

Joseph (Joe Cummings) Cammisano The Famous Bar, Il Pagliacci Ristorante

William (Little Willy) Cammisano Jr. Extortion, gambling, strong-arm

Louis (Black Louie) Cangelose Policy wheels, slot machines

Salvatore (Sam) Capra Kansas City Councilman, The Apartment Lounge, Al Presta’s nephew

Frank (Frankie Carroll) Caracciolo Landmark Towers Hotel & Casino (Las Vegas)

Anthony J. (Tony Cards) Cardarella Strong-arm enforcer, notorious criminal

Anthony Cardella

Joseph S. Carrolla Sebbeto Funeral Home

Salvatore (Sam) Carrolla Kleer-Air Sales Co., diamond fence

Carl Caruso

Antonio Carollo Later rose to capo 1940s-early 1950s era

Frank Carollo

Joseph Carollo

Paolo (Paul) Catanzaro Active in Black Hand extortion, arson, murder, strong-arm man

Carlo Cavallaro

Marco Chiapetta Brother of Vincenzo

Vincent (Jimmy) Ciarlelli Hyde Park Hotel

John Cirincione

Vincent (Vince) Civella Nick’s nephew, son of Tony Civella, bookmaker, later rose to the hierarchy

John Costanza

John Cuezze

Philip Cusumano

Giuseppe (Joe) Cusumano Roma Bakery Co., old line black-hander, a white-collar type mafioso

Frank DeLuca

Joseph DeLuca

Frank J. DeLuna Goldfinger’s Living Room Lounge, Carl DeLuna’s brother

Alfonso (Fonzie) DeMayo

Francesco (Che-Che) DeMayo Former capo, later deported

James DeSimone Old time Black Hand extortionist, enforcer

Paolino (Paul) Di Giovanni One of four Di Giovanni brothers

Vincent Di Giovanni One of four Di Giovanni brothers

James S. (Jimmy D) Duardi Old Fortress Cocktail Lounge, Tano Lococo’s nephew

Joseph Evola Paramount Music & Vending Co.

Nicholas Evola Paramount Music & Vending Co., coercion, extortion, strong-arm

Paul Farrantelli

Felix (Little Philly) Ferina Strong-arm enforcer

Thomas (Little Dude) Fontanella Midwest Tavern, gambler

John (Johnny Franks) Francoviglia

Joseph Gallucci

Anthony J. (Skinny Gus) Gargotta Bootlegging, extortion

Charles (Mad Dog) Gargotta Strong-arm enforcer, top member

Nicola (Nick) Gentile Iconic Sicilian-born member who was boss for a short time, (later turned informer)

Marco S. Gulotta B & G Amusement Co.

Robert (Tuddy) Gulotta

Salvatore (Sam) Gulotta Jukebox rackets

Joseph (Joey G) Gurera Tri-City Construction Co., strong-arm, dice games, extortion (*confidential informant)

Nicola Impastato A highly respected old timer, strong-arm and enforcer

Nicholas LaBruzzo

Frank LaRocca Strong-arm and killer, extortionist

Louis LaRocca

Jack Lascuola

Joseph (Joe School) Lascuola Raytown Auto Mart, bookmaking, extortion, enforcer

Michael (Mikey School) Lascuola Bookmaking, enforcer

Philip (Fooley Babe) Lascuola Bookmaking, gambling, enforcer

Joseph Licausi

Joseph Licavoli

Salvatore (Sam) Licavoli

Gaetano (Tano) Lococo Gaetano’s Restaurant, wire service, bookmaking, top member

Michael Malapronte North Hotel, gambling, loansharking

John Mandacina Convicted of a gangland murder

John (Johnny Mag) Mangiaracina Missouri Coin Shop, fence, gambler, gunman

Joseph (Joe Mags) Mangiaracina Brother of John and Tony

Antonio Marcella

Patrick M. Maturo Acme Jobbers Co.

Gaspare (Jasper) J. Mirabile Jasper’s Restaurant

Leonard Mirabile Jasper’s Restaurant

John B. Molle Director: Hopkins State Bank, Central Bank of KC, Sarann Auto Leasing Co., Sarann Truck Leasing Co.

Michael Molle Old line member

Charles (Chuckie) Moretina

James Moretina

Lawrence Musso

Dr. Dominick Nigro Downtown Hospital (owner-director)

Angelo (Bossie) Nigro

Giuseppe (Joe Oliver) Oliveri Suspected heroin trafficker

Salvatore (Sam) Palma Pancake Patio Restaurant, labor racketeer, strong-arm and enforcer

James Palma

Baldassare (Benny) Palmentere Bagdad Lounge

Benjamin (Benny) Palmentere

Joseph (Little Joe) Parello

Joseph Patito Mafioso Front-man, ostensibly a legitimate businessman

Carmelo Pelletieri

Filippo (Philly) Pernice

Alexander (Al) Presta Democratic Party leader (1st & 11th Wards), bribery, corruption

Joseph (Joe Rags) Ragusa Gambling, strong-arm

Peter (P.J.) Ribaste Strip club operator, later rose to capo, active in Las Vegas

Anthony Romano

John (Johnny Joe) Sciortino Current Outfit boss (reputedly)

Henry Scudiero

Joseph (Joe Pete) Simone Bookmaking, extortion, suspected strong-arm, son of Peter Simone

Philip (Anthony) Simone

Peter (Las Vegas Pete) Simone Current hierarchy member, hidden owner of Gilhooley’s Tavern & Grill

John J. Strada

Rosario (Ross) Strada The North Hotel

Peter J. Tamburello Chauffeur-bodyguard of Nick Civella, Holly Dolly Bar, strong-arm

Joseph (Johnny) Tarantola

John Termini

Frank A. Tousa Northview Social Club, real estate, bookmaking

Anthony Tousa Top bookmaker and gambling overseer

Non-Member Associates

Note: an asterisk * connotes a top associate

Many listed below not otherwise identified were gambling operatives; policy runners, bookies, dice-card game operators, etc. Others were corrupt political figures giving refuge to Outfit racketeers.

Max Jaben* Midland Coin Shop, top gambling boss, former top Outfit enforcer

Gerald (Jerry) Jaben Roaring Twenties Tavern, Lorelei’s, Leopard Lounge

Roy Lee Williams* President of Local #41, Joint Council #56, Teamsters Union International, bribery

Morris (Snag) Klein* Las Vegas Landmark Casino owner, voter fraud, bribery

Edward (Eddie Spitz) Osadchey* Front man, business infiltration, Town Club Cocktail Loung e

George Beskas* Top boss and racket coordinator

George Bevelle* Fence, thefts

James (Junior) Bradley Jr.*

Joseph Agosto* Key Las Vegas operative and casino employee (later turned rat)

Max Ducov*

Karl (Curly) Rogers President of Union Local #541, labor rackets

Richard Milone Secretary-Treasurer Local #541, labor rackets

Carl Mayfield Asst. Business Agent Local #541, labor shakedowns

Ernie Anderson Union official Local #541, kickbacks

Carl Gurera

Dominick Binaggio Brother of Charlie

Nicholas Spero One of four brothers who were independents, later went to war with the Civella crew

Michael Spero Burglary, thefts, fencing, gambling, robberies (19 arrests) one of the “Spero brothers "

Del Nabors Teamsters Union organizer, embezzlement

William Fabina Gigi’s Place

Joseph (Turk) Harris*

Michael (Angelo) Spero* One of three renegade brothers at war with the Outfit

Chester Presta* Brother of Al, bribery, corruption

Louis H. Schaefer*

Dr. James Di Renna* Union rackets/kickbacks from Locals #41, #541,#955

Harry Goodheart The casino manager of the Sands Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas

Walter Rainey Bootlegging, gambling, taverns

Samuel (Jew Baby) Goldberg Bootlegging, swindles, frauds

David Bonadonna

Harry Corbett

Anthony Begulia

John A. Costanza

Harry Huntley

Anthony (Tony Mags) Mangiaracina* Brother of John and Joe, gambling

Carmen Civella President of B.& C. Meat Co, son of Carl Cviella

Steven Plas

Salvatore (Red) Harris Hijacking, thefts

Mike Harris

Vincent J. Saccone

Francesco Vaiana

John Caresio

Anthony Gambino

Michael (Jimmy Needles) LaCapra

Kenneth Perry

Augustus (Gus) Fasone

Salvatore Fasone

Charles Forte

John Tortora

Anthony (Tony) Trombino Gunman, armed heists

Anthony (Tony) Brancato Gunman, armed heists

Anthony Orlando

Joseph K. Tigerman Top bookmaker

Alex Garcia

Carl Ardese

“Speedy” Dragna

Salvatore Crapisi

Danny Lawson

Nagel Lawson

Joseph Bruno Inferno Lounge

Salvatore (Sam) Rinaldo Soakie’s Bar

Louis Roccaforte Peyton Place Bar

John M. Seredich Acme Jobbers Co., thefts, fence of stolen goods

Louis Nigro Lucian’s Restaurant

Anthony Nigro

Pasquale (Patty) Sellaro*

Melvin Giarraputo Pompeii Room

Patrick O’Brien O’Briens Bar

Joseph Kostelac

Melvin Smith

Salvatore Abbott

Antonio (Tony Shirts) Camissa

Joseph Marlo

Peter Randazzo

Lawrence Strada Tavern owner

Joseph Boutross

Anthony Bradley

Joseph Boutross

Michael Bonahan Gigi’s Place

Louis Caldarello

John Costanza

Louis (Cuban Louie) Lerida

Mariano Nigro

Timothy Sears

Salvatore (Charlie Ryan) Taibi

Cooney Dinovitz

William Fabina

Anthony (Stringbean) Marcella

Steno Lamento

Chester Norman

Henry McKissick* Headed Democratic faction, bribery

Tim Moran* Gambler, corrupt politician, voter fraud

George R. Clark* Corrupt politician, voter fraud

Hettie Evans

Peter Spalitto

Essie House

Joseph Spallo

William Thomas

Luciano (Larry) Musso Later made and transferred to the LA Family

Nicholas Mandato

David Kramer

Patrick (Paddy) McGuire Strong-arm, convicted of a gangland murder

Philip Forte

Jack Di Benedetto

Earl Kennedy

Reuben (Ruby) Levine

Nagel (Snake) Maroon* Gambling, strong-arm, extortion, fence

Robert (Bobby) Maroon

Anthony George

James George

Vincenzo Esposito

John Mensco Heist guy

Paul Varsalona

James Riccardi

Dominick (Joe Fatico) DiMaggio

Louis Ventola

Pasquale (Patsy) Ventola

Vincent Scudiero

Dominick Scudiero Inferno

Paul Silvio* Antonio’s Pizza, Hello Dolly Bar

Bud Trolle

Raymond Bandel

Al Brandmeyer B.& C. Meat Co. (partner of Corky Civella)

John Lewis

Charles Nichols

Michael F. Bondon

George A. Bevelle Fence

Dominick Pepe Pepe’s Restaurant

James Fitzgerald Blarney’s Bar

Vincent Lusco Majestic Steak House

Santo Lusco Majestic Steak House

Salvatore (Shea) Lusco Majestic Steak House

Samuel Pernice

Angelo Donici

Anthony Ferrantelli

Paul Ferrantelli

Michael Farrantelli

Ralph Messina

Carlo (Louie Square Deal) Sorrentino

Vincent Picone

John Glorioso

Until next time..."The Other Guy"

The Civella Crime Family of Kansas City, MO

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The Civella Crime Family of Kansas City, MO

Unlock This Door to the Underworld

Take the Journey!

You May Also Enjoy

The Anthony Strollo Regime of NY/NJ

The Day Charlie (the Bug) Workman Saved a Horse

Racketeer Profile – San Francisco’s “Jimmy the Hat” Lanza

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