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Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins brings you the best in mob history with his unique perception of the mafia. In this episode, Gary recounts the criminal life of Carl “Cork Civella,” a key player in Kansas City’s mob scene. From humble immigrant beginnings with his brother Nick to street boss of the KC Family, he is subservient only to his brother Nick. Gary highlights Cork’s unpredictable nature, significant street presence, loyalty to Nick as an enforcer, and reckless behavior that led to notorious incidents. This narrative provides insight into Kansas City’s unique mafia culture and sets the stage for future discussions on Kansas City’s influential organized crime figures.
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Transcript
[0:00]Hey, all you wiretappers out there. I’m back here in the studio of Gangland Wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective, sergeant at the end. I want to tell you about Carl Cork Civella. I get a lot of guys commenting, hey, they want to know more about Kansas City. And I’ve done a little bit, and I’ve got some old stuff on Nick Civella, but it’s like several years old, and it’s not even on YouTube, I don’t think. And I don’t even know if you can find it on the audio app. I need to go get that out and re-edit it and put it up. But I’ve never really
[0:37]
The Civella Brothers’ Origins
[0:35]done Cork. And Cork is an interesting guy. Carl Cork Civella, born in 1910.
[0:41]Their father, he and Nick Civella, who is older brother, will become the mob bosses of Kansas City. And Nick will be more the major domo, if you will, the main mob boss. But Cork was right in there with him, as you’re going to find out. Now it’s Cork as i was told not corking he he’s named cork because he pops off i’ll give you a pretty good example of that he sometimes acts without thinking they were the sons of a Sicilian immigrant in Kansas City as you might well imagine they grew up in what we call the north end or Little Italy now this area is anchored by the holy rosary catholic church at 9 11 Missouri street uh it’s like these big church and the holy rosary church has always brought immigrants in and helped them learn English and get jobs they still do that to this day uh the don bosco center uh when the Vietnamese first started coming over after the war uh they came to the holy rosary church and the Don Bosco center where they learned English and they started moving in to little Italy i mean I mean, they were Catholic for the most part, and they took over a lot of Little Italy as this area changed. And, you know, the area looks like kind of like New York to me. It doesn’t look like anything else in Kansas City. It has this real big city look to it.
[2:06]These boys, Nick and Carl Civella, and they took the same path as a lot of immigrant children and a lot of the mob bosses and mob people I’ve talked about in every city in the United States. Their father actually was a pushcart peddler, I believe, and small businesses. Because mainly newly arrived immigrants that didn’t speak English couldn’t really get jobs in the United States. So they had to figure out, you know, start a restaurant or a push card, sell fruit on the street, whatever they could do, had to start their own business for the most part. And so their father had a small business and the boys took the same path as a lot of immigrant children. And like I said, all these mob guys I’ve talked about before, they left school early and they formed a small gang. Bang uh one of the things they got into was narcotics it got into narcotics too but first they got into tire theft that was a big thing they were tire thieves and and there was a several mob guys that had outlets out there so they could steal the tires go out into the suburbs if you will over into downtown uh and steal tires and bring them back and sell them through these uh black hand at the time associated outlets their father supposedly was victimized by the black hand which will maybe explain why this little gang led by Nick and Cork got into robbing some mafia-protected gangs.
[3:35]Cork did take a bust. He took a pinch and an arrest, and I don’t think he got a conviction for possession of heroin in the 1930s. You know, the mob was, was getting heroin out of, uh, Cuba to, uh, Tampa up to Kansas city. And we had a regular trade going.
[3:58]
From Tire Theft to Armed Robbery
[3:54]They kind of got out of it later on in life, but, but he did take a pinch for that. Now the Sabella gang will graduate from tire theft to armed robbery. And that’s when they started getting in trouble, you know, a lucrative place to rob that isn’t going to complain much. You don’t have to worry about the cops or gambling games. There’s gambling games all around. Now, some of them protected, some of them aren’t. And that’s where they first got in trouble was robbing some protected gambling games because Nick was always his own guy. He was never going to buckle down, buckle under to the old Mustache Pete’s.
[4:30]They tried to actually recruit his gang to do stuff for them. But again, he was his own guy. He always was. He was smarter than the average bear in this world. and he always remained smarter than the average bear in this world. Finally, in 1940, somebody gunned down a Civella gang member named Jake Maroon.
[4:52]Now, years later, his son or grandson, Bobby Maroon, will become the caretaker of the trap or the social club. But gunned down, Jake Maroon in an alley right behind the Northview Social Club or the trap at Fifth and Troops, which is in Little Italy. Nick will flee to Chicago at the time. Corky will just lay low. Corky, I shouldn’t call him Corky. You might get mad at me. Cork will just lay low. Somehow, a peace deal got brokered. Nick was able to come back, and they were able to come back to Little Italy, but everybody didn’t really agree to this peace deal. I think there was a guy named Big Jim Ballesteri who didn’t agree to it. I believe he was the one. We go through the war. As most mob histories are really incomplete during the war because a lot of guys took off and went to war, were drafted, and everything was really in disarray during the war. After the war, January 1946, a guy who was a long-time member of the Civella gang named Joe Buggy Ange was gunned down down in Little Italy at, I believe, 8th and Lydia, just east of Little Italy a little bit. A few days later, just a few days later, eight days later, I believe, Nick Civella and a Jackson County deputy sheriff named Cuccia.
[6:12]We’re sitting in Nick Zabella’s car in the parking lot of a liquor store just a few blocks south of Little Italy at 15th Street. Little Italy really stops about 7th Street. And two gunmen pull up in a car. They jump out. One’s got a shotgun. One’s got an actual machine gun. And they start filling that car full of lead. Well, Nick is sitting in the passenger seat, and the deputy sheriff has got in the driver’s seat for whatever reason. They kill the deputy. Nick rolls out and takes off running, and he goes back to Chicago. You know, during these times, he really established good connections in Chicago. They seem to like him up there. They say Cherry Nose Joey was kind of his mentor. Others will say when he comes back from Chicago this next time and Chicago actually brokers the deal. The story goes that Tony Accardo talked to the new boss in Kansas City in the late 40s, Tony Gizzo, and paved the way for Nick to come back. We know he came back in 1948 because he was arrested for gambling. Pretty soon, it’s noticed that Nick is now Tony Gizzo’s driver.
[7:22]
Nick’s Rise in the Mob
[7:18]So whatever, you know, however this worked out, nobody knows for sure. He comes back a reasonably important guy because he’s now the driver for the boss.
[7:29]And it’s really Tony Gizzo will die in 1953. They’ll have the murder of the two Charlies. Charlie Bonagio was kind of the boss. He was a politician slash boss. Gizzo was more of a gambler and a boss. He dies in 1953. Banaggio’s gone, and it’s believed that probably that’s when Nick Civella, a pretty young guy, started moving on in. By 1957, Nick Civella, and there’s an old Prohibition era Sicilian mobster named Joe Filardo.
[8:02]Who never really wanted to be the boss, but had been kind of on the ruling council, if you will, of Tano Lococo and Joe Filardo and a couple others who lived on into older age. Anyhow, Joe Filardo and Nick Civella are on a train on their way to the the Appalachian convention in upstate New York at Barbara’s place and the police catch them and supposedly nick’s belly said what are you doing he said well we’re looking for girls some people think that Florida was taking nick to the Appalachian meeting to introduce him as a new boss of kansas city i know there’s another guy he’s kind of an expert on this Bill Owsley is a retired FBI agent who was boss of the one squad for a long time and was the main agent that worked on the mob in Kansas City for his whole career, basically. He has a story that maybe Sam Giancana knew Nick Civella from his days in Chicago.
[9:00]Giancana wanted some more influence for Out West, and he was going to propose that Nick Civella get a seat on the commission along with Chicago. Now, I don’t know. A lot of people would argue with that. And a lot of people like to say that Chicago’s, you know, they would never share anything like that. But I don’t know. You never know. He’s smart. He expands his family’s, his crime family’s influence in the politics. He meets uh Roy Lee Williams who’s a local teamster boss and then who will go on to be you know he eventually will just before he dies become the international president uh he meets him on a jackson county committee to decide on who runs for office and who doesn’t so nick his brother cork we’re talking about court cork stays at his side but as an enforcer cork is not the kind of guy that you can put on this kind of a commission. He’s not that guy. He’s the guy you want for the street. He never really took on the official role of underboss or consigliere. He was always referred to as a brother.
[10:06]Eventually he’ll be known. You could call him the street boss, I would say, because he always spoke for Nick and he carried out Nick’s directions and people, when he spoke, they thought they were speaking for Nick. He was speaking for Nick. And some of these early things is we had a couple of mob soldiers named Felix Farina and Tiger Cardarella. They were charged with the attempted murder of a government witness in 1960.
[10:35]
Cork’s Role as Street Boss
[10:32]They needed an alibi. So Cork’s the guy that goes out on the streets. See, Nick was never the guy that went out and talked to people directly that weren’t, you know, like made guys or right next to him. He goes to the, he hits the streets. He finds a gambler that owes money, and he tells him he’ll forgive $5,000 in gambling debts for the guy if he’ll give the two hitmen an alibi, and he does that. Another thing he did, and this was 1960 and 1959, the mob-dominated Teamsters, Local 774, made a move to take over the Kansas City Fire Department and take away the firemen from the International Association of Firefighters. The IAFF union president was a real feisty battalion captain named Stanton Gladden, and he resisted. You know, but politics was all infused in the fire department, especially back then. Politically appointed fire chief offered a promotion to Stanton Gladden if he would.
[11:36]Support moving the IAFF out and the team sure saying, well, he was the president of the IAFF and he was not going to do that. He tried to get another lower ranking fireman and offered him a promotion to help with this. And Stanton Gladden learned about this and he exposed it to the media and it’s all in the newspapers. Now Cork has given the job to intercede. He offers Stanton and gladden the job of fire chief and he said the current chief will become known as the director of the fire department ef gladden will drop his resistance to the teamsters move gladden again refuses and over the next few months a mob controlled politician will offer gladden another promotion within the fire department if he’ll back off a little bit he won’t do it and finally somebody put a bomb in his car and he was severely injured uh out of that bomb but the teamsters never took over the IAFF or the Kansas City Fire Department. You know, another thing tells you a little bit about Cork. In 1960, we had a grand jury in Kansas City, and Nick and Cork were both waiting in the hallway, and there’s a lot of newsmen down at the other end of the hallway, and somebody snapped a photo, and Nick berated him. You know, hey, leave us alone. You know, we’re just businessmen. Cork threatened him.
[12:52]He actually threatened him, and then he exposed himself. He shook his dick at him. and got arrested for indecent exposure. That was Cork. Explosive and impulsive at the same time. During this time, the official underboss was Thomas Highway Simone. He died in 1968. And again, like I said, Cork was not named the underboss. He was always the same as Nick, but on the street. He was the street boss.
[13:17]He always spoke for him on the street. See, Nick Civella was not a street guy who was out in the joints. I never saw him out in a joint. You hardly ever saw him out in just a few places. Cork was out every night in the joints. He was running around to different businesses. He was down at the city market every day at DeFeo’s or hung around that particular area where people could find him. I know a guy whose father-in-law was a bondsman and politically connected in Kansas City, Kansas. And he told me that his father-in-law came over about once a week, about at least once a week, just to see Cork and talk to him. I asked him, I said, do you think Cork ran everything, you know, street stuff in KCK? And he said, yeah, he probably did. Not so much in Missouri, but in KCK, he definitely did. Because there was other members but the uh the willy Cammisano had a lot of uh stolen properties uh fencing outlets going and and different had a crew going here that were really good burglars and thieves he had to have his action i think kck was strictly for court and we’ll see a little more evidence of that later on nick.
[14:28]He might make a sporadic visit to the market, but didn’t hang around down. There was not a regular place. He did go to his lawyer’s office regularly and he used that space and he discussed business with Tuffy and made and received telephone calls out of the lawyer’s office. You know, I noticed he, I don’t remember seeing court down there and I don’t remember any of the wiretaps or the bugs mentioned in the Cork was there. And there was mainly, this was during the Las Vegas casino time. So a Cork was not, he was kind of involved in that, but, but not. Near as much as Tuffy and Nick were the ones that were really involved in the Las Vegas casino business and skimming from casinos and making those decisions
[15:11]
Cork’s Impulsive Nature
[15:07]and dealing with the people in Las Vegas and in Chicago, too. Cork did maintain close ties with corrupt politicians and law enforcement and KCK, like I said. He will attempt to organize and control several Kansas side strip clubs.
[15:22]There’s one guy named Vance Anderson had a pretty successful club over there called the Red Apple. And one time Cork had a couple, he had these two career criminals, Mike Ruffalo and Gene Shepard working for him. He told them to take a stick of dynamite and put it under Anderson’s Cadillac and detonate it out in the parking lot of the Red Apple. And later on, he went over to see Anderson. He said, you know, you got some problems, these young guys, you know, I can, I can protect, I can help you out here, you know, but you know, you got to bring me in here. And he wanted a piece of the clubs when he wanted. it you know and what’s interesting i noticed that over the next year or so anderson started making some moves to to partner up and buy other kansas side strip clubs so you know none of that ever really came out you know kind of an unusual situation with cork out of that he’s at the red apple he started dating a young stripper and she would i remember her she was beautiful she and he was like you know he was old at the time he was probably in his 60s you know i’m like 78, but he seemed old. He had this white wig he wore all the time, and he was a real dapper dresser, if you’ve seen any of the pictures on the internet.
[16:26]And he always drove a Lincoln Continental. He had a salmon-colored one for a long time, and he traded it for a kind of lime green Lincoln Continental. He didn’t have the black or the white or the gray. He had salmon-colored, and then he had green, lime green. Anyhow, he dated this Antoinette Lanfranca, who worked at the Red Apple. Some people say she was a manager over there some people say she was a stripper i i don’t know i remember over there and i remember following around a little bit whenever because she eventually she started dating another mobster named carl spiro who will become in a full-fledged war with him carl spiro and his brothers and car cork and nick Civella and tuffy de luna and the Civella family So go figure it out. Another thing about Cork, he had moved in on a gambler named Al Brandemeyer, which was interesting. I ran into this guy. He said his name was Brandemeyer recently. And I said, what’s your name?
[17:24]Father your grandfather uh have a meat market oh yeah yeah you know i said well what was the deal oh he was a big gambler and and you know a lot of stories about grandpa al but he didn’t really tell me too much but he had a you know like fresh meat distributors they got you know bought meat on the hook and had it butchered and they butchered it in there and supplied restaurants and and other their small stores and things like that and it pretty soon uh he lost a lot of money in gambling and he was he was a bookie too with him uh it became the brandemeyer meat company became the b and c mint company or the brandemeyer and Civella meat company Corky was a salesman he’d make the rounds of the restaurants as kind of a cover job and you know i know he was once overheard on a bug they tried to get a bug on him he was complaining about the business and he told other salesmen get out to all the goombas joints and he named off a couple of periphery uh guys who were italian and uh he said they’ll buy from us another story about cork as he was talking there was a new newly developed entertainment district called the river key it was right next to city market that’s a whole nother story on that get my movie gangland wire you’ll get that whole story but there’s a young restaurant owner named david bonadonna or freddie bonadonna his His dad was David Bonadonna, who was probably a made guy, a professional criminal.
[18:50]A low-ranking soldier in a crew for one of the other made guys, Willie Comisano. Cork was in Freddie’s joint. He put a new joint in this River Key area, this newly developed entertainment district. And Corky was running down, ragging on him, saying, you’re stupid. You had a good joint down on the boulevard. He had a nice place down in Southwest Boulevard. You’re stupid to move down here.
[19:19]And, you know, Freddie says, well, you know, whatever. Well, within a year, that place is immensely successful. The River Key was hopping. It was the place to be. And this young guy, Freddie Bonadonna, sees Cork comes in to sell him some more meat because he’s got a restaurant. And he said well cork he says you know we’re doing okay he said uh i don’t think you really knew what you were talking about of course yeah how much you making freddie probably a mistake he said oh about 10 grand a month now he wasn’t making that 10 grand a month but he said oh about 10 grand a month he wasn’t making that kind of money but so value believed it and he wanted in on the action but he couldn’t really move in on freddie because freddie’s father david was with With another guy named Willie Camisano, that will go spin off into another deal.
[20:07]
Cork’s Business Ventures
[20:08]Camisano wants a piece of Freddie’s action, and he ends up killing David. Like I said, that’s a whole other story about the River Key and the Camisanos. I have to do Willie Camisano one of these days. Cork had another plan. Here’s a longtime mobster named Paul Scola, Pauly the Pig. The Scolas all had the moniker of the pig. The first one was Sammy Scola or Sammy Hogg, and he was killed in the I did the story about the murder of Anton Ferris when the sheriff of Jackson County interrupted this hit that was going down and arrested Mad Dog. Charlie Mad Dog Gargata right in the act of killing this guy. And Sammy Scola, Pauly’s grandpa, was driving a car and the sheriff shot and killed him right away. As soon as he pulled up, he jumped out and he shot the dude sitting, he was a wheel man, shot him sitting behind the car. I know his great grandson. He is still not happy about the cops shooting the great grandpa, Sammy Hogg. Anyhow, Pauly, Thank you. Start coming in to Freddy’s and buddying up to Freddy and said, you know, I want to start a restaurant down here.
[21:25]And they both kind of had, Freddy has thinking about expanding. He had his eyes set on a place about the end of the block. He was like third in Delaware and down at fourth in Delaware. Freddy kind of had his eyes set on this other place because he could put another joint down there. And this guy knew it was open and he was wanting to put it down there. He’s hanging out down there. And Freddy’s dad, this is before he got killed. He encourages Freddy to help Scola. you know hey help this guy out paulie ends up getting that lease first and and he opens up a restaurant bar and he copies directly bonadonna’s menu and takes several key employees and pretty goes oh i see what that was all about now Cork Civella becomes a regular down to Scola’s place which means you know Scola’s with cork uh and several other bobs are like guy named johnny green amaro who was cork neighbor up in the neighborhood and nick Civella’s neighbor who was hanging out he was a main guy and a professional criminal and in his own right the name of the joint delaware daddies uh you know a little story about delaware daddies and this is like i said this i tell the story because this has to be cork’s joint it turns into a strip club of course you know and then cork likes those strip clubs you know so he can make money out of them river keys lost its popularity the the families aren’t coming down the young couples the regular Regular people aren’t coming down and there’s some strip clubs opening up. So he turns it into a strip club and, and he, he gets his used car manager.
[22:52]I think the, I won’t say what the guy’s name is because I’m not real sure.
[22:56]Anyhow, he’s a used car guy and he becomes the manager and he gets a local biker gang who he knew from his old used car gig where he used to be a salesman at. He gets a local biker gang to provide the strippers. I remember going in there and they’re all gagged up over the corner and galley get up and strip. And then she’d go back and sit down with the stripper. This is before they did the lap dances and all that. And these girls started stripping down to nothing. And this was totally verboten or forbidden at the time. Word gets around and a line forms and we hear about it. So I got the job. I get to go down there and I stand in line and it’s about 15 minutes down the line. And, you know, the manager’s there, and he’s talking to everybody, and he’s not taking even a dollar a coverage charge. He’d take it even a buck each. He would have made $1,000 a night, I think, because people were coming and going all night long. What he did was each person he came through, he asked, are you with law enforcement?
[23:58]
The Rise of Strip Clubs
[23:54]Like, you know, what the, well, WTF, you know. No, I work for the city. Well, what do you do? I’m in pollution control. Oh, okay. So go on then. They did strip totally. They even had a couple that would simulate sex late at night. Oh, it was wild. It was crazy. I remember this one night, this guy in the crowd, they’re all hooting and hollering, pushing up around the stage, watching these people.
[24:19]Act like they’re getting it on this one guy says man you didn’t even get it hard this dude they’re getting done he’s putting his clothes on he said man he said you get up here see what you can do that guy shut up then rated to join a few days later arrested this manager and several strippers and you know for some reason they never even reopened they just let it go after that they kind of reopened but then and this never took off again they didn’t have the same panache i guess and it didn’t last very much longer i think they’d made their money well this is during the middle 1970s nick has gone back to prison from an old gambling conviction he’s also gotten sick with cancer so he’s not really you know he’s still running things and you can hear him in the prison, they’ve got some wiretaps some bugs he’s still like sending messages out next going out or courts going up there and kind of you know running things by him and and we see court regularly at the trap of this city market and uh you know to the casual observer cork is now the boss but nick is still the boss trust me nick is still the boss well al brandemeier and bnc meat companies they’ve changed the mohawk meat company to take the Civella day by there so people won’t get nervous about doing business with them now we go into some whole another deal this really gets wild in kansas in the city to my put a bomb on the back door of the trap or the social club, just to send a message.
[25:43]There’s a guy named Carl Spero. His oldest brother has been killed, probably by the Civellas. They had to approve it. They had to approve of Nick Spero getting killed. Carl’s been in the penitentiary. See my brother, my movie, Brothers Against Brothers, for more on that. Carl Spero sends a guy named Leonard Crago, who was a bad, bad, bad man, to rob the Mohawk Meat Company and intimidate Al Brandenbaier, which he does. He puts him in the trunk of his car and he fires several rounds in there and says, tell Elnick Civella to A-Rab’s back in town. He was the A-Rab. And everybody knew by now who the A-Rab was. He was with the Spiros. Shortly after that, somebody kidnaps a Spiro associate named Johnny Brocato. He’s tortured and his body’s found. The contents of his stomach are still frozen. Meat market frozen. You know, I don’t know. Civella family member named Johnny Green Amaro. I mentioned him before, was hanging out down there at the Delaware Daddy’s. He’s gunned down his home, which is only a block from Cork and Nick’s house. It was a slap in the face of the Civellas. It was just getting wild.
[26:49]A young thief who was a friend of Carl Spiro’s and a friend of Fetty Bonadonna’s, he’s bragging that he’s the one that did it, and they kill Sonny Bowen a few days later. End up killing his partner, a guy that’s kind of his regular fall partner, rap partner, rides with him all the time, Gary T. Parker. They suspect Freddie’s been part of it because his father’s been killed because Freddy wouldn’t agree with some other things. Like I said, you need to watch that Gangland Wire movie and it’ll tell you a lot more about that. Freddy takes off to witness protection. Cork kind of tries to draw Carl Spiro in and pacify him, but he’s still out for blood.
[27:32]Another thing Cork did during this time, he oversaw a scam of government money. I bet Nick put this together and then he’s in penitentiary when this really is going down. There was a government program called CETA. I don’t remember what it stood for, but it’s supposed to help people get jobs. We had a bunch of CETA employees with the police department. They hired a bunch of parking control officers. They always civilianized the parking control people, write parking tickets and hire CETA employees for that because the government gave us money to hire them and some other civilian jobs. So Cork Civella set up something called the Columbus Park, which is what the Little Italy area is formerly called. The Columbus Park Safety and Energy Project. And they basically did nothing. And he got this guy, the Gene Shepard, to kind of set it up and hire all his friends and relatives. And they basically did nothing. He hired people as security consultants, clerks, secretaries, school counselors. And of course, Cork got a kickback from everything.
[28:34]Was during this time the fbi put their microphone in the bill of caprina pick up cork and toughy linda talking about las vegas and and one thing this court tells toughy tells cork and kind of gives you something about his nixon penitentiary and tells you about courts you know his influence here he he says cork you got to give the guy an answer right now we got to go find the phone so they go and find a phone and then we start following toughy and find their secret phone and put Taps on in. Really opens up that whole casino skimming investigation.
[29:08]
Cork’s Influence on the Streets
[29:09]But in the meantime, Tuffy is working with Nick really in a way on his own, but Nick’s gotten back out of the penitentiary about this time and working with him on the casino skimming and Cork’s still running everything on the streets. He’s the street boss. He’s taped reporting to Nick about the ongoing Spiro problem. Him he tells nick that he has a friend that’s all carl spiro coming up the villa capri which is kind of the Civella hangout bar late at night she saw carl spiro coming up there peeking in the window see who was in there he says well we’ve got we’ve got to do something and Cork’s complaining we got guys that aren’t doing anything you know they got to get off their butts and go do something You know, they’re just sitting around doing nothing. And next of all, you know, we’ve got some guys and named some old guys. And, and they talk about hitting Spero at the red apple strip club, which I mentioned before Anderson’s place. Cause he knows he goes over there. Cause Carl Spero has since taken up with Antoinette Lang, Franka, who was Cork’s old girlfriend.
[30:16]Small town here small town folks he said you know he said we got to be cautious nick counsels him to be cautious there’s cops everywhere he almost got caught one time we never could figure out what that was cork agrees and he speculates the difference some different guys that might be able to get next to carl spiro names off some guys one of them was like an ex-cop that i do i remember him early on he didn’t last very long there’s an informant that surfaced court tells Nick, I got guys out looking for him. And then they go back to Carl Spero and Carl’s living out in the country. And Cork says, you know, one of our guys, Willie Cammisano Jr., he’s a big hunter and he’s a good shot. He said, get a telescope rifle and shoot Spiro at his home, which is out in the country. And so they’re talking about, you know, sneaking up on the house. And Nick says, oh, you know, none of our guys, they can’t run across country like that. And so, but Cork is the guy that’s going to be out putting this together. St. Valentine’s Day, 1979, we raid all Cork and Nick and Tuffy’s houses and take down the casino case. There’s a couple more attempts to kill Carl Spiro during this time. And the third one finally is successful in 1984.
[31:37]
The Legacy of Cork Civella
[31:32]Cork is convicted of racketeering in a casino case and he is, he will die in prison. Cork was a bully. I had a source, a guy I know that’s been in that life, around that life, his whole life, and grew up over in Little Italy. And he told me a story about Cork. He said in the 1960s, he was at a mob joint, Melcher, Mel’s Pompeii Room out on Main. He was at Mel’s Pompeii Room. He had a date. Cork comes in, sits down at the table without any invitation. He starts flirting with a girl like the guy wasn’t even there. The guys he’s kind of a little guy of course cork ain’t the biggest guy in the world as far as you know fisticuffs and cork says hey hold up man she’s with me cork gave him a look and he said don’t you know who i am guy said yeah i know but get the fuck out of here and cork just laughed and kind of went to the bar cork was an impulsive blowhard no doubt about it but he was totally trusted by his brother and he was feared and respected on the streets if you’re gonna do business on the streets you know you had some respect and some fear of next about our cork Civella he always listened to his older brother nick though always listened to him as he would calm him down and he never went against him he always took him into consideration if he had to make a decision.
[32:52]So that’s kind of the long, he got a 10 to 30 year sentence in 1984 and he dies down in Texas in the federal prison down there. He had a kid, he’s had one child, Anthony or Tony Ripe, who will go on to be the boss after Nick dies and Cork goes to prison and Tony Ripe gets back out. Tony Ripe has a bunch of kids. A lot of people in town will say they know Nick Civella’s grandson. Well, it’s not. It’s his grandnephew. Nick Civella did not have children. Cork had one child, Anthony. He married Tuffy Luna’s sister, and then he had several children, and none of them really followed the family plan in the mob.
[33:37]So, guys, that’s the story of Carl Cork Civella. I hope all you guys have been asking about Kansas City stories. Well, there’s another one. I’ll make you happy, and I’ve got more. I just have to get back to them. There’s so many stories, you know, and so many stories in so little time, I guess.
[33:53]Just talked to a guy on the phone this morning talking about Joe Petrosino, but he wants to talk about the very first mob movie about the Black Hand in 1910, I believe, which was inspired by a case that Joe Petrosino worked on the Black Hand and the influence of the Mafia in movies over the years. So I thought that would be an interesting topic. So I look forward to that. Don’t forget, I like to ride motorcycles. motorcycles watch out for motorcycles when you’re out there if you have a problem ptsd and you’ve been in the service go to the va website get that hotline number if you have a problem drugs or alcohol go see anthony rugiano he’s a gambino man and uh now in uh in that witness protection he’s out here living on his own i don’t know what the story is with that i had him on my show once but i don’t think i asked him anyway he seemed to be operating okay and he’s a drug and alcohol called counselor he has a hotline i believe on his website or his youtube channel don’t forget to like and subscribe don’t forget to tell your friends about the show and maybe share it on your social media you know more people we get the better i like it and you know i got some books and and a movie at least i got one book i’m working on another one uh i got a couple movies.
[35:10]Uh out there that are for rent for like a buck 99 gangland wire brothers against brothers the sabella spiro war and my book about the skimming from las vegas and don’t forget if you get the kindle version i have the actual wiretaps link to the book you can listen to so i guess that’s all i got to sell other than myself and and i really appreciate all the comments you make on my youtube and my gangland wire podcast page and i’ve gotten to know a lot of you through that And I really like doing this, and let’s just keep doing it for as long as we can. Thanks, guys.