Nicholas Civella

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Nicholas Civella (March 19, 1912-March 12, 1983) was a Kansas City mobster involved in union racketeering and tax evasion. He was the brother of mobster Carl "Cork" Civella and the uncle of Anthony "Tony" Thomas Civella. He is the father-in-law of underboss Carl Deluna.

1 Early life
2 Rise to power
3 Downfall
4 In popular culture
5 Further reading
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Early life

Born Guiseppe Nicoli Civella as the son of Italian immigrants in Kansas City, Missouri, Civella began a criminal career during his teenage years while growing up in the Italian neighborhood, "The North Side". Guiseppe's first arrest was at the age of ten, whereupon after he dropped out of school. All before the age of twenty Guiseppe was arrested for auto theft, gambling, robbery and vagrancy.

In 1932, he spent two months in prison for bootlegging. He was married in 1934 to Catherine, who he stayed with for almost fifty years. In the early 1940's Civella became a democratic precinct worker on the North Side and became friends with the then Kansas City-don Charles Binaggio.

[edit] Rise to power

By the 1950s, he dominated criminal activity in the city and, in 1950, he was identified as a figure in the organized crime society during the Kefauver hearings. Although Kansas City remained a satellite of the Chicago Outfit, Civella was in attendance at the Apalachin Conference in 1957 as well as an important contact extorting pension funds from the Teamsters Union and syndicate casino skimming operations in Las Vegas (due to his involvement, he and his brother Carl were later listed in the state's black book by the Nevada Gaming Commission prohibiting him from entering Nevada).

[edit] Downfall

He was called again before a grand jury in 1959 and later convicted of tax evasion, twice. He built relations with the mob families in St. Louis, Denver, Milwaukee, and California. He was convicted of skimming the casinos in the 1970's and put in prison.

In 1980, Civella was convicted with Teamsters President Roy L. Williams and Allen Dorfman of attempted bribery of Nevada senator Howard W. Cannon and indicted the following year in Las Vegas casino skimming and later died in Springfield, Missouri while in federal custody on March 12, 1983.

[edit] In popular culture

Civella is the basis of the character Remo Gaggi in the film Casino.

[edit] Further reading

Pileggi, Nicholas. Casino. 1995.
Neff, James. Mobbed Up: Jackie Presser's High-Wire Life in the Teamsters, the Mafia, and the FBI. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1989.