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Retired Intelligence Detective Gary Jenkins brings you the best in mob history with his unique perception of the mafia. Gary gives an overview of the La Cosa Nostra in Dallas, Texas.
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Transcript
GARY JENKINS 00:00
Well welcome all you Wiretappers out there back here in studio Gangland Wire. As you can see, I don’t know why I say that each time. I’m going to look at the Dallas family now. Dallas. It was part of the Midwest families of those Dallas was they weren’t really connected to Kansas City or Chicago. They were more connected if anybody to Carlos Marcello down in New Orleans, you know southern people. There’s a little bit of action down in Houston and a regular family in Dallas, the first man who be like The Godfather, shall we say the first one from Sicily was a Carlo Paraino to Carlo Paranio came to the United States from Sicily in 1901, with his brother Joseph who will work with him and become his underboss. As he formed a family. They first settled in Shreveport, Louisiana, which is real close to Dallas. I don’t know if you know how close that is, but it’s real close. He began the Dallas faction in 1921, with Joseph as his underboss he will be described as mob historians look back as the original head of the mafia in Texas. Carlo Piraino was born in Corleone, Sicily in 1876. At the same hometown as one of the early New York bosses Giuseppe Morello. He married Carlo Pariano married an 18 year old Italian girl in 1903. They had a son, Angelo and 1904. By the time Carlo and his brother Joseph moved to Dallas. It was probably 1905 Six after Angela was born. The April 1910 census says that the family lived temporarily at 7744 Main Street in Dallas. That household had Carlo and Clemencia, which would be the young 18 year old girl from Sicily that he married his son Angelo, and his brother Joseph Piraino, when his bride Lina Carlo ran a real estate business out of his house and Joseph worked as a grocery salesman, supposedly, Joseph wouldn’t really settled in Texas, he moved back to Louisiana for a while. And then by 1914 or 15, he and his family came back to Dallas. Prohibition takes off and of course, they start getting into that and bootlegging and running speakeasies and, and organizing all that all the way up to the Midwest, everybody did throughout the whole United States. You know, that’s the mother’s milk for the mafia throughout the whole United States. So the National Crime Syndicate as we began to know what to buy the 80s and 90s was formed out of prohibition, Carlo dies of natural causes in 1930. And Joseph takes over the family and becomes a boss. He owned a lot of bars and gambling operations, of course, and some labor rackets in construction business and which has begun in Dallas over the years has underboss was Joseph Civello. Joseph Civello was born in 1902. And he was a native born he was born in West West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. And Baton Rouge is even closer to New Orleans and really almost part of New Orleans. So definitely connections back to the New Orleans family. His father was a farm laborer and came to the United States around 1900 and had a whole bunch of brothers and sisters and Joseph Civello. His father, turnips Abello, took the whole family from West Baton Rouge in 1923 to Dallas, Texas, and they opened a grocery store and Joseph Sebadoh Mary’s in 1929, he married a woman named Mary and moved into a relative’s house in Dallas at 90 No to Moser Avenue, not even Dallas people know where that is. Go by there and see what that that’s still there even. He worked in his father’s grocery store. Joseph Civello moved on up and he is really the the underboss by this point in time is convicted of probation violations in 1926. There’s a little time in jail, other liquor charges during Prohibition, as I said, the whole Dallas family. The Piraino family was involved with prohibition one time he was part of a series of raids that got 22 bootleggers around the city. Now see in the south and Dallas. They’re gonna be a little crackdown a little more on bootleggers and make a lot more rest than they would in Chicago or Kansas City’s further north yet. Joseph Civello was arrested one time with a man named Joe DeCarlo, who was really important bootlegger in Dallas area and he had been refusing to sin tribute payments to Carlo Piraino to the Piraino family. And Joseph Civello was the guy who was supposed to administer the mob the mafia discipline or he’s gonna go out and crack the whip and collect the money just a couple of days after Joseph Civello and Joe DeCarlo were arrested together. They were meeting inside a drugstore at the intersection of St. Paul and Bryan Street. It was called The St. Paul drugstore Civello just had to be carrying a loaded sawed off shotgun at the time and men were standing close to each other in the shotgun went off. I mean, it just happened to go off DeCarlo the man who was refusing to pay tribute was shot in the stomach. Sibella just stayed there to seen cops arrive and he says, Hey, he said I had this gun but it just went off by accident and DeCarlo in a dine statement confirms the story. Yeah, that shot gun went off by accident. He wasn’t trying to hurt me. So Bella was arrested and charged with murder. He went to trial actually went to a grand jury and gave his statement and they got the Carlos dyne statement and the Grand Jury released him and, and ended up not returning to true bill or indicting Joseph Civello Sibella will assume control after Toronto’s die off in 1956. Joseph Sibella to let you know that this was a real family and part of the National Crime Syndicate. He was at the Appalachian meeting in 1957. And that was the time when law enforcement people would say he controlled any narcotics activity, all gambling, any prostitution, and a lot of nightclubs and most of all of Texas. After the Appalachian meeting, the FBI started keeping a closer look at Sivan cervello 1960 Joseph Civello was indicted for conspiracy and perjury offenses. A was sentenced along with 19 other mob leaders that were at the Appalachian convention to five years in the penitentiary. US Court of Appeals as we all know now returned those convictions of the minute Apple ache and pain because they hadn’t really proven that there was a conspiracy that was designed to accomplish some unlawful act on this conspiracy. Just because they’re meeting together. You can’t have a storyteller say why they were meeting together and what this conspiracy was going to be and then an overt act to in furtherance of that conspiracy. You’re not gonna get a conviction. Joseph Civello dies in 1970. Again, he’s he’s like the recognize mafia boss of Texas. He was succeeded by probably a guy named Campisi. There was another guy, Joseph little Joey Unani, who was made was in the organization. Then there was Joseph Campisi. Unani was a naturalized immigrant from Calabria, Italy, and supposedly a relative a New York mobster named Rocco Pellegrino, if he was a boss, he wasn’t a boss very long because he died of heart attack three years after cervello did. Joseph Campese a was a successful businessman and a Dallas native Campisi it always denied he had any rule in organized crime completely a tangle of law enforcement over the years and the FBI good didn’t really find any really solid evidence and and actually what they’ll decide and officially published is that after Joseph Civello died, the Dallas family just died clear out Campisi I believe he had a restaurant all up into modern times and Italian restaurant was a successful restaurant tour. So that’s kind of quick down and dirty review of the Texas and Dallas crime families everybody would say over the years that they were really closely connected to Carlos Marcello was probably Billy they were but since the boss was at Apple Lakin is like next. Avella was at Apple Lake and Nick’s Abella from Kansas City leads me to believe in my opinion he was his own discrete family and there was a family that just died out after he died. Don’t forget I liked ride motorcycles and watch out for motorcycles are out there and your car if you have a problem with PTSD or you have a friend or relative does go to the VA website and get that hotline number and like and subscribe. Give me a review. I don’t like asking for that stuff. Anyhow, you know what I mean? Thanks a lot guys. I really appreciate all your guys support your comments on YouTube your your reviews, your buy me a cup of coffee, all that stuff. You know it all goes to make this thing go thanks a lot.