Nicholas Civella

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Nicholas Civella (March 19, 1912 - March 12, 1983) was a Kansas City, Missouri mobster who became a prominent leader of the Kansas City crime family.

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[edit] Early life

Born Giuseppe Nicoli Civella, the son of Italian immigrants in Kansas City, Civella was the brother of mobster Carl "Cork" Civella. Nicholas Civella began his criminal career as a teenager in the Italian "Northeast" neighborhood of Kansas City, Missouri. Civella's first arrest was at age 10, after which he dropped out of school. Before age 20, Civella had been arrested for auto theft, gambling, robbery, and vagrancy.

In 1932, Civella spent two months in prison for bootlegging. He was married in 1934 to Katherine, his wife for almost fifty years. Civella was the father-in-law of underboss Carl Deluna and the uncle of Anthony "Tony" Thomas Civella. In the early 1940s, Civella became a Democratic Party precinct worker on the North Side of Kansas City and became friends with Kansas City crime boss, Charles Binaggio.

[edit] Rise to power

By the 1950s, Civella dominated criminal activity in Kansas City. In 1950, he was identified as a figure in the organized crime society during the U.S. Senate Kefauver hearings. Although Kansas City remained a satellite of the larger Chicago Outfit criminal organization, Civella attended the ill-fated 1957 Apalachin Meeting of mob bosses in Apalachin, New York. Civella played an important role in extorting pension funds from the Teamsters Union and in the skimming of casino gambling profits in Las Vegas, Nevada. Due to Civella's involvement with organized crime, the Nevada Gaming Commission prohibited him from working in the Nevada gaming industry.

[edit] Downfall

In 1959, Civella was sent a summons before a grand jury and later convicted of tax evasion. During this period, Civella built relations with the Mob families in St. Louis, Denver, Milwaukee, and California. In the 1970s, Civella was convicted of skimming and sent to prison. In 1980, Civella was convicted with Teamsters President Roy L. Williams and Allen M Dorfman of attempted bribery.

On March 12, 1983, Nicholas Civella died of lung cancer in the Federal Medical Facility at Springfield, Missouri while in federal custody.

[edit] Further reading

  • Pileggi, Nicholas, and Shandling, Larry, Casino: Love and Honor in Las Vegas Simon & Schuster (October 12, 1995) ISBN 0684808323
  • Neff, James. Mobbed Up: Jackie Presser's High-Wire Life in the Teamsters, the Mafia, and the FBI. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989 ISBN 087113344X.

[edit] References

  • Kelly, Robert J. Encyclopedia of Organized Crime in the United States. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2000. ISBN 0-313-30653-2

[edit] External links