Newspaper clippings documenting the history of organized crime in kansas city, from extortion, violence, syndicates, bootlegging, to the 26th year reign of the crime boss nick sabella, skimming casinos in las vegas, and bombing businesses. Whether we like it or not, organized crime is a part of our history. Moreover, it continues to capture our fascination as well as generate interest and new scholarship. Last year, the special Collections Department acquired a piece of our mafia passed when the organized crime files of the Kansas City Star work donated by former reporter mike mcgraw. These contain photos, notes, and reports on local mafia members and provide a glimpse of how reporters investigated the mob during its heyday. A story about the collection was featured in kcpts digital magazine, which included a short interview with retired fbi agent ouseley. They take a closer look at the gangland past. Mr. Ouseley is an authority on the kansas city gangland past. He spent two decades prosecuting organized crime figures. As an Expert Witness on mob activities, he testified in federal court and before u. S. Senate investigations panels. He retired as the supervisor of organized crime squad of the kansas city fbi field division. Hes also the author of two books, open city, true story of the kc crime family, and in our midst. Jonathan has a job many of us in envy. As food editor for kansas city public television, he reports on the best drinking and dining establishments in the metro area. In addition to writing about inns eat andity drink, he reports on local history, including a look at the sandlot baseball in kansas city and its revival. You will find his work at kcpt. Org. Hes also the author of three books. Please join me in welcoming to the kansas city public library, Jonathan Bender and william ousley. [applause] i just want to thank everyone for joining us here. Im delighted he will have the opportunity to hear this story today. I want to tell you a bit about how this collection arrived at the kansas city library. I worked across the desk from mike mcgraw, the Pulitzer Prize winner, who now works with kansas city public television. Getting to sit across from mike, you get to hear great stories, one of which was the providence of his collection in the special collections room. These collection files had their first home on the Kansas City Star building, in whats known as the library, although they have a more affectionate term for it, they also call it the morgue. [laughter] that is where stories go to their final rest. Mike was working on a different story some years back. You have to imagine there are rows of filing cabinets, they are green and tan and white and may stretch the third floor. At one time, it was a bustling room. There were six librarians, whose sole job it was to cut out clippings. They would take different parts of the paper they wanted to keep for historys sake or photos, or reporters notes. They all ended up in this room in this collection of kansas citys history and the Paper History as well. Over the years, unfortunately, the Library Staff with node and Library Staff windowed and it was down to one. Mike found a librarian throwing out files into a 50 gallon drum. He said im making more room mike was horrified and he said can i have those files and she said sure. He brought them into the newsroom, put them away in his own file cabinet, because thats what you do with newly acquired files, you refile them. After that, they went home to his house. They sat in my house for several years before he came here, and he thought they might have a home in the library. The library agreed, and through the work of Jeremy Drouin and joanna marsh, they created this organized crime file collection. The lovely part is we will be able to spend time giving you a peek inside, but we encourage you to take time and delve further in if you have an interest. Again, while it is interesting to get into paper files or photos or hear about history, its a lot better to hear it from someone who was actually there. Im joined by the retired fbi agent William Ouseley, and i would love to hear, if you could, the beginning of the organized crime and how it came to kansas city. Mr. Ouseley the roots of this evil go back to the last part of the 20th century and into the 1900s, or the beginnings. What we had happening here was a change of immigrant flow. The irish before the southern italians and sicilians had dominated kansas city, and now there was a new group. They settled in the north side, in the north end. They created a little italy, a piece of the old country. These were good people. They were godfearing, industrious, and most of all, lawabiding. A small fraction of these people, unfortunately, were the neerdowells, the criminally bent. And those people had, one way or another, a connection with the old family in the old country. In southern italy, the calabria region. These people brought with them a mindset from the old country. It wasnt the mafia transported here. It was their protocols, their way of doing business. It was there protocols, their way of doing business. It would be a form of crime unknown on these shores. I think for many years, unrecognized for its sophistication. They were factionalized. There wasnt one mafia group. They were basically thugs. The main criminal activity was to extort their fellow countrymen. There were bombings, there were murders if you didnt pay. This was called the black hand era. The letters had a black hand demanding money. They had no great power at this time. They had no influence outside the boundaries of little italy. But then 1920 came. Came. 1920 was the beginning of prohibition. The unintended consequence of prohibition was it created organized crime. Not only here, but around the country. It was a product demanded by the masses, and organized crime people gave those people what they wanted. The north enders, one of the things they wanted was to make wine and beer, the bathtub gin, as they called it, they jumped in with both feet. Because of who they were, they dominated the field. But they were fighting each other. That wasnt good for business. So in 1928, the leaders of the most important factions, they got together, and in order for better business, the unified. They consolidated. And we could say that is the beginning of what we call today the kansas city crime family. They took over by force the political apparatus in the north side. You have probably heard of Tom Pendergast. They had hate controlled most of the city by this point. Johnny lazia was put out front as the boss. In the back were the oldtimers, who ran things. They needed a guy who could speak good english. He was a handsome man. He could interface with people. Hand, hee votes in heads up to see Tom Pendergast and forces and alignments. We have an unholy alliance of a powerful political machine controlling most of the politics of the city, most of the city offices. You team that up with a powerful, vicious criminal. That did not bode well for the city. The next thing that came the way of organized crime was in 1929. We had the stock market crash and the depression. Who had all the money . The banks werent lending. No one was helping anyone. The mob had all the money. They used that money to infiltrate the political, social, economic fabric of the city. That whole era of the kansas city jazz, the clubs and the guys coming in, the mob financed all that, along with Tom Pendergast. The next step in the story is in 1931. As a result of a conflict in new york, all of these particular families, families like this Kansas City Group in cleveland, detroit, new york and boston, they all grew up pretty much the same way. They know each other from the old country. There wasnt a National Syndicate of these crime. They formulated a commission of so many bosses who would rule on interfamily problems. This had the semblance of a corporate entity. That was more power for the kansas city crime family. 1932, the Supreme Court of missouri ruled the board of please commissioners had to be elected locally. John lazier, and tom pendegast. They elected the board of Police Commissioners and they took over the city. They opened it up to every kind of vice, evil and doing you could imagine. It was an open city. Jonathan bender the open city . Wlliam ouseley how did that book title, about . Gangsters, they would come to kansas city for the rest and relaxation. They would check in with lazier, and play golf. This was a notorious city. Money floating in. You can imagine it flowed in by the millions. 1933, prohibition is over. The mob is now looking for new vices. Gambling is one they got into. During the 30s, they continue to put and prosper. They dont go away because there is no more bootlegging. These other criminal groups involved in bootlegging fade away. Cosanostra gradually takes over. In kansas city, the group didnt have any resistance or competition. They were the big dog. They got fatter, wealthier, politically stronger. In 1939, pendergast and the new bob boss were indicted and went to jail. Reformers took over. They had been fighting for years. They cleared out city hall, everybody. The mob had to surface or go underground. They didnt have the protection of the police. But they werent going away. They just didnt have a high profile. The guy who become the mob leader, more well known for taking over the pendergast machine. It is interesting to me they refer to him in the papers more as a political guy than a mob leader. His time was coming soon. In the late 1940s, there was a groundswell against this open gambling. The gambling syndicates that were here. Not only cosanostra, but other gambling entities. There were juries, local grand juries. The heat was on. There was pressure. Charlie and his chief lieutenant were murdered on 15th street in the Democratic Political headquarters. That led into a committee that came here in 1950, holding their National View of organized crime that was their mandate. The city, because of its reputation, was the second stop. That takes us to 1950. Jonathan bender that is the chart right behind us. When investigators came to town they looked at that. , i wanted to ask you about the profile notes in this collection, as well as a series of delightful mugshots. There are profile notes as well as a series of delightful mugshots if you can call a mugshots delightful. Izzo is on the lefthand side. Can you talk about his relationship to gizzo . By the way, i have a suit like that. [laughter] when john lazier became the boss, it was an americanization process. He wasnt from sicily. He called those guys mustache petes. They didnt want anybody to know who they were. Dressed it down. Not like these guys. Lazier brought around him younger thugs. Tony was one. Charlie was one. Charlie gargatta was one. Jonathan bender he is on the top right. Wlliam ouseley the last five there was five of them. An interesting point. Tanellacoco lived to be 100. I think he spent more time as a gangster than anybody in the United States. He started young. Horses. Ve made up iron , john lazieranged was murdered in 34. This was the continuity. These guys continued to grow in power. They did the work of the crime family. He talked about this concept earlier organized crime and machine politics working together. There is a letter behind me. It talks about Tom Pendergast, the nephew of young jim. It says pendergast at the time got more than 100 phone calls threatening him and his family. He was very irritated. Gizzo said whos been threaten you. He says im the top man, i give the orders are you i did not anyone to threaten you and it will stop right now. And it did. Wlliam ouseley when it was written, Jim Pendergast was a minor figure. Gizzo was a bigger figure than. E was in the earlier days an old mafia tactic to create a problem and solve it. Thats how it works. They used to be labor consultants. What would happen, trouble was created. He went to the labor consultant, the mob, and they fixed it for you. Whether gizzo was playing a game and had set up always calls, or whether it was actually he was being harassed, tony is the guy who could fix it. He had that stature at that time. He very well could have taken care of it. Jonathan bender there is another set. A note that came to ira mccarty, a political and legislative reporter, talking about meeting two cousins of al capone. You mentioned this idea kansas city being part of the National Landscape area at that time, was kansas city of plays that would have had ties to chicago organized crime nationally . Wlliam ouseley chicago and a kansas city have had always had a very close relationship. It goes back to this era. Gizzo and the thenboss were on a firstname basis. Gizzo traveled around the country. He was well known and showed up in other monsters phone books, seized overtime. It was a very important relationship. Part of it was in the bootlegging era. Part of it was the telegraph lines that brought in race results for the local bookie that was controlled by the capone mob and they gave a franchise to kansas city. That was continued. Jonathan bender 1950. There has been a murder of the two charlies. There is intense scrutiny on kansas city and the first looked into actual organized crime in kansas city. Talk about what was done. Wlliam ouseley that is where the file you may look at played a big part. Much of that documentation, the profiles of all these people, you have to remember there was nobody looking at these people as a criminal entity. If they robbed a bank, they go after them. But they werent looking at them as a crime family. There was a great deal of intelligence. You have organized crime squads, intelligence units, there wasnt a lot of profiling. The files, than some background was needed when some background was needed, the profiles of these people were put together. All of these people were called in, gamblers, mafiosos, politicians. It was quite a show. His findings were devastating. When he left town, nothing much happened. Jonathan bender a big year in 1950. The next year of note is probably in 1957. Can you talk a little bit about that . Wlliam ouseley a committee went all over the country and did a wonderful job exposing these people nobody followed up. No laws came out of it. The situation was status quo. They were doing big and nobody was doing much. There was a recognition of cosanostra. The only Law Enforcement agency that recognized what they were was the bureau of narcotics. They were working abroad and saw the distribution of narcotics. They were getting information about the Sicilian Mafia and how they tied to the United States. It would have been status quo, but in november of 1957, the board of directors of la cosa nostra had to have a meeting, just like apple has a meeting. [laughter] wlliam ouseley they may be making more money than apple, but they are similar. The board of directors set up in a little sleepy town. They alerted state policeman, looking into the background of these people. They didnt like what they saw, all of these outoftown cars. A roadblock was set up. Guys were running into the woods. People, nick sabella and joe ferraro, two representatives from here, attended that meeting, letting you know the stature of the family. With the uncovering of appalachian, a groundswell organized crime. Legislative bodies, the news, Law Enforcement, investigating thingers, the whole became like a story. Hoover, who may be did not recognize organized crime, but nobody else did at that time, taking a lot of heat from that. But the day after the meeting, he formed what he called the top squads. That is where i worked for 20 years, after i got to kansas city. Organized crime. Gradually, the laws started to catch up. Jonathan bender with the series sessions in kansas city. Was nick sabella. Represents the , joe for largo is the old guard. Joe ferraro is the old guard. Talk a bit about that transition. Wlliam ouseley nick was the most unlikely person you would ever imagine to become the boss. He had defied the mob. Twice, they tried to kill him. Twice fled to chicago. How he rehabilitated himself, i dont know. O wasct tony gizz responsible for working with chicago people to give nick a free pass back. Gizzo made him his driver which is the Career Development path and organized crime. Tony had been capones driver. He gained power. He was appointed the new chief glenn gizzo died of natural causes. And then he had to be introduced. The meeting was coming about. Joe, who knew everybody, he came from there, brought nick to the meeting to introduce him hand nick was now the anointed boss. As it was, there was always someone behind him. Hey called joe the bakery they rub at the bakery, that is what he ran. The silent, hidden powerbrokers. Eventually nick broke away from the independent, on his own boss. He held that position for 26 years. Jonathan bender they called them top hoodlum squads . What laws did you have at your disposal . What could you use initially . Wlliam ouseley we had one statute that came out of the hearings that involved interstate transportation in gambling, arson, extortion, several crimes linked to interstate travel. If youve traveled interstate to conduct your gambling business, there was a law. Without the interstate, there was no jurisdiction. These people know what is going on. They were very circumspect in traveling or violating the state line. Couldnt wiretap it, so that was out. The first year was gathering intelligence, learning about informants and who are informants were. There was a lot to learn about these people. There wasnt any previous intelligence base. We were in that mode. Jonathan bender it sounds to me like once electronic surveillance came into the picture, that changed your picture, that changed your methods for how you could we did not need interstate gambling when they passed the igb. We only needed now five people who made 2000. They made that in five minutes. Thats all we needed. Now we could make bookmaking cases. And the loansharking laws came in. That gave us the ability to go after loan sharks. So gradually, laws were catching up but it was a tough battle. People were afraid of the mob. I dont blame them. T was a struggle finally Congress Passed whats called a title iii which made legal electronic eavesdropping. That turned the whole picture around. , evidence from the monsters mouth could not be intimidated, could not be parsed , it was the beginning of the end Jonathan Bender theres a moment in your personal history where a wild chain of events begin outside of a dress shop . William ouseley many people think Law Enforcement is using electronic surveillance, checking on everybody and every neighbor. Procedure torous get authority so you have to build probable cause. Bookmaker whon a was operating a dress shop across from city hall. I guess they didnt see him. I dont know. [laughter] its a very difficult street there. Part or sit in the car because they move you on or what have you. What i did was trying to find out who is coming to the shop, what were the hours, could i see him on the phone . 11tht pranced around street come up and down, and about the building. Whats amazing is you would think somebody eventually would say, what the hell are you doing here . To make this long story short, i was gaining intelligence. One day there was a lull in the guy was away from the shop and i was tired and whe went to this little bitty cafe to get a cup of coffee, but who strikes in struts and but one of the main members of the crime making operation. Stool andwn at the asks the counterman, where is louie from next door . Now i had a connection with the downtown bookmaking central headquarters and i understand who louie is connected with. This was the kind of probable cause we had to build, and from there we built a wiretap case against a satellite bookmaking operation. That took us down to the north end, the social club, that was the headquarters for the book. Jonathan bender even then, your job isnt done. You had done a lot of work, but there was a pay phone in the social club you wanted to get a tap on, which was not easy in those days. William ouseley i told you was a difficult process so heres a good example. When we finally got probable , which isthe trap typical almost everywhere, the have a social club that is their headquarters. That is where they have their illegal dice and card games. They hang out and talk business. This is the mob office. The phone they were using back in 1960 was a pay phone. We put together an affidavit and sent it back to the department of justice. The legal eagle comes back and says, this is a pay phone. We are not going to listen in to everyone. They can only be you can only listen in when the bookmaking manager is on the phone. Nobody else. I told the guy, because i was doing the affidavit, do you understand that this is the mob headquarters . Do you think john doe off the street can walk in and use that pay phone . [laughter] William Ouseley i said you are nuts. It is impossible. I tell you what. He said, its a payphone. That was his answer. I said, you cant use it. Ill tell you what you come out here. I will give you a dime. [laughter] William Ouseley and if you can go in there and make a phone call, i will kiss your rear end on the Federal Building steps. These were the trials and tribulations of organized crime investigation. To finish the story, this was the super bowl week when the chiefs were playing the vikings. All the money coming into the books was on the chiefs. A bookmaking operation cant stand that. You cant have all the money on one side. Youve got nobody to pay them. They need to balance their books. They need to get some of this money thabet somewhere else. They had not been habit of doing that because it was never a big problem. Because of this, every guy in the trap, and they were bringing in other guys who maybe had a connection, got on the phone. We had to turn it off. That one wiretap cleaned out the whole crime family. Jonathan bender one of the voices you heard there for was nick sabella. William ouseley amazingly enough, it was so bad that the boss called in himself. That would have never happened on an ordinary weekend. He wanted to know what was going on. That conversation and there were several of them gave us the impetus to indict and prosecute the boss, which we never expected from a bookmaking case. Just because you went for a cup of coffee. William ouseley that is how it works. Jonathan bender you were part of the fabric in kansas city for over 20 years. At the same time, there was a lot of Development Going on in las vegas. Power and las vegas became developed, the arc of your career was part of that investigation. Nick was a very astute guy. Underrated nationally, he really had great power. Mainly because he had compromised roy williams, the top teamster official in kansas city. He was a director of the central conference of the teamsters union. He was the vice president. He was nicks man. You can imagine having somebody like that and the mob was involved heavily in labor racketeering. Nick was a very important guy around the country. They had to come to him to get things done. This played perfectly into his hands because starting in 1947, the mob had started to ethel trait las vegas infiltrate las vegas. Not infiltrate, because it was legal to open casinos. The first guide to open a casino was a guy named bugsy siegel, who was lanskys guy and lansky was a big shot in the National Syndicate. There was a National Syndicate at that time. Other racketeers sat with the italian racketeers, until there was no one else left with the italian racketeers. Gradually, the mob got into vegas heavily. Nick wanted a piece of that. Nick wanted a piece of that. His first effort was the strongarm effort. He went out and tried to strongarm one of the owners. He ended up on the vegas black book. They put together a black book of people who were not accepted in the casinos. He was one of the founders of the black book. There were 10 guys. He and his brother and another kansas city racketeer, we had three people on the list. Jonathan bender we had three of the 11. William ouseley whatever they were. A notable achievement. [laughter] Jonathan Bender over time, he did find his way and. Five years after the trap, there was a great story about valentines day. William ouseley to lead up to were in the 1970s, there people in the mob here, unusual. Factions started to rival civella. There was a lot of violence with people stocking each other, trying to kill each other. We were involved. And it led us to putting a microphone and a restaurant on independence avenue. We were looking for murder and came up with the conversation that involved their involvement in las vegas. We followed that thread. Got the probable cause. Got the wire tap authority and we opened a massive investigation indicating nicks involvement in several hotels, along with other racketeers. The cities of chicago, cleveland, milwaukee. The midwest families had conspired to own secretly these hotels and to skim money out of the casino count rules. They skimmed money off the top, stolen money. They would carry the money back and split it. Nick was heavily involved in vegas affairs. A lot of it had to do because he had that teamster control and many of the casinos the front man for the casinos were financed by Teamster Pension Fund loans. Nick civella and his buddies were the ones who said you get the loan. You did not make an application. You do not go through that process. You had to be sponsored. When the person seeking money to buy the tropicana or whatever, he had to be sponsored, and he had to kick back money, and he had to give up control of the casino so they could skim that money. We called it the strawman case. It was about 14 months and we had wiretaps all over the place. Chicago did, milwaukee did. Vegas did following our lead. That case not only broke the back of the local mob here, but it was the end of the line for las vegas. Jonathan bender you talked about skimming. Its an interesting concept of how money came from las vegas to kansas city. William ouseley the case was brought down adjusting the enough interestingly enough 50 years after the st. Valentines day massacre in chicago. 50 years later, we went on the streets with 50 or 60 search warrants. All of the main guys here i was scheduled to go to the airport. Our searches were keyed on 80,000 in skim money coming to kansas city. We waited for them up at the airport. You got off the plane. We were waiting by the carousel. He picks up his bags so we grabbed him and put him in a security office. We begin the search. Thinking been a lot of about how did this skim money come . Was it hidden and secret compartments and a suitcase or maybe somebodys shoe . We were surprised because i said to this courier i said, empty your pockets. Pullirst thing he did was 40,000 out of this big pocket and 40,000 out of this pocket and put it on the table. That was the skim money. [laughter] William Ouseley where is the secret suitcase . Come on. [laughter] William Ouseley then when i said to them, i said to him, whose money is that . He said thats casino money. I said it sure is. He didnt put the stolen on it. [laughter] Jonathan Bender this was only going to end one way. The dapper gentleman and sunglasses busy you on the right. William ouseley thats a long time ago. [applause] Jonathan Bender the gentleman. N the middle isnt it civell na can you talk about the end of that era and what happened . William ouseley when we arrested nick as a result of that family case, just a quick story. When we went up to get him, he was on a golf course. There were three of us, waiting around the 18th hole in suits. This ball comes over. A second ball and he was with his wife. He had to chip to the green and he looked up and he saw us. His chip went way over. [laughter] he dropped the club and walked over, and we arrested him. Nick went to jail on this case. We came out and developed another case. He went back to jail. How long was he in jail . William ouseley in the gambling case . He got a threeyear sentence and he did two and change. Then he went back to jail. Meanwhile, his organization is operating. They are under stress because of the conflict. He is running vegas from the jail. The strawman case developed, but nick is in jail at this time. He is not around unfortunately when we indicted the vegas strawman case. He was so sick. He was released on Health Issues and he died in 1983. That was the finality of the strong boss. The strawman prosecutions took out the rest of the hierarchy of the kansas city family. From there, it was downhill. It was sort of the end of my career. I retired about that time. I testified for another year as these cases went on. The mob continued on for a while, but they were no more. They were no more. Jonathan bender you take a man out in the middle of his golf game and not going to the clubhouse and taking into the big house. That takes us to the end of our portion of the presentation. We wanted to make sure we could open this up for questions. You have a question, please come forward and feel free to ask it. We ask you just to ask one question because there are a lot of you here and we would like to get through as many as possible. [applause] can you tell me . This is in relationship to a followup on the commission in 1950. Did hoover oppose that . Did he opposed the results of that . I always wondered why nothing ever happened from that one. William ouseley interestingly enough the person who opposed the Committee Hearings was harry truman. He felt it was going to embarrass the democrats. And it did. He was still president . William ouseley yeah. When the committee was proposed, he opposed it. Facty, no, it wasnt the that anybody individually opposed the committee. It was just the general inertia of the time. People were not ready to take up the reins as they did in appalachia. After appalachia, you had press and everybody wanted to get in the act. Nothing like that happened after the committee. One other thing was the followup when they had their great meeting in 1932 or 1933. This is the one that Lucky Luciano had pulled that together. Have anygovernment knowledge of that . William ouseley there was nobody following these people as i said. You have to understand that this is an era of a criminal organization that was unrecognized for what they were. There wasnt any there were Police Officers probably on the no. There were a lot of them Police Officers around the country at the times. There were bent politicians, but generally speaking the powers to be that we need to did not exist. Jonathan bender we broke our social contract on the first question, but lets limit it to one question going forward. My compliments. This is been coming a lot of years and this is the biggest crowd ive ever seen. We know that the executions of the two charlies were never solved. Us who executed the two charlies . William ouseley gee [laughter] go ahead William Ouseley the same guy who buried hoffa. [laughter] [applause] would change the topic slightly from crime to philosophy. The idea that what a Respectable Society does brings down or brings up the country. Nowadays you have gambling boats and if you want to play the of Missouri State is more than happy to accommodate you, take your money, and help you out. Everything is peaceful. Everyone is getting along and everyone is civilized. There is no one getting killed in the streets. Dophilosophical question is you think society is better off today where things are legal, especially gambling, which is a big chunk of organized crimes most money. . Off wherewe better you can just go to to the boat and grandma Lottery Ticket . Is that a better scenario . William ouseley im very deep philosophically by the way, but if you want to look at it, the first thing is gambling is no good. If you accept that premise, then no gambling is any good. Nothing good comes of gambling, nothing. If we want to take the next step , we are going to have gambling, youre never going to stop the people, love and this is a better system than the mob running it. As a result of the work that we and the Police Department and the prosecutors, gambling today is made very clean because they know how its infiltrated. They make laws when they passed them that are accurate and keep the mob out. Yes, it is better right now. Thank you for coming. Did the mob have anything to do with the technical difficulties at the opening of this presentation . [laughter] Jonathan Bender the technical difficulties at the open. We will give him no comment. [laughter] the other question is again with the second question. [laughter] just one comment. The comment is there has been talk and commentary that J Edgar Hoover was afraid of the mafia and he did not want to go after them because he thought it would put his agents at risk. And he didnt want to challenge them. ,illiam ouseley first of all back in that time, id nothing to do with Law Enforcement. We are talking about the 1950s, leading up to appalachian. I wasnt in the bureau at that time where you might hear rumor. My feeling is, prior to appalachian, hoover was in a group of everyone else who did not fully accept there could be such an entity as cosa nostra. This society, this brotherhood with blood initiation, and a code of conduct, infiltrating everything, it was not accepted. It was not accepted. [indiscernible] William Ouseley that was 1964. Was the result of our organized Crime Program hoovers , organized Crime Program. Anyway, i dont. All i can tell you is when i , i wanted toe fbi get into the organized Crime Program that he established the day after appalachian. You draw the conclusions. I was just curious as to what kind of personal fortune nick civella had by the end of his life. William ouseley thats a good question because i would like to know that myself. [laughter] William Ouseley they were very secretive about their money. They dont buy cds. Stock. Nt have at t no paper trail. They do things like collect diamonds. We took a bunch of diamonds from nicks home. That is where some of the money was going. How and where and what they did to put that money aside was something we didnt solve. Good afternoon. Thank you for coming and giving us your presentation. William ouseley thank you for coming yourself. You youre welcome. Would you please comment on the bombing and the river key area and what happened and how it was resolved . William ouseley all right. Do we have two hours . The short version. William ouseley very briefly, the river key developed because the west 12th street prostitute bars and gogo dancers, which was an organized crime thing, that was closed down because of the marriott. They looked for a place to go. The river key was supposed to be very familyoriented, clean. A guy by the name of Freddie Barnett donna became the unofficial mayor. The mob needed to move these joints somewhere. The key was right over the throughway. They wanted to develop and dominate the river key. Thereby, a struggle, violence, murder. What it boiled down to is the mob trying to take over the river key. Take over from him . Jonathan bender we believe it to microphone questions. We will put this in the sequel. William ouseley let me tell you. Take over from whom . The legitimate businessmen. They wanted xrated movie houses and all that. Freddie and the artisan down the street with his glass shop who was going to go down there . That wouldve been the end of the key. Jonathan bender go ahead. I grew up during this time. My dad was u. S. Attorney so he was dealing with a lot of this, too. Our family got a lot of threats. I wonder if you got any threats on your family and your life as you were investigating . William ouseley not really. Threatening,who is organization didnt use those tactics. They understood. In sicily, they killed police men. They didnt do that in this country. This is an americanized mafia. They understood, whereas over there it wouldnt make a big , splash. If you kill an fbi agent or even a reporter, theres going to be a backlash. They also know that someone would take their place. Street, one ofe these guys might say, im going to get you. But the idea that they were going to put u threaten us . No. Im surprised it here he had all those people. A lot. Getting back to this great collection here in the library, has this inspired you to write a third book . William ouseley unfortunately that collection really is a profile i mean a lot of that is in my book. The first book covers that time. All these characters, the i mittee, all of that profile for you in the beginning, the development of the mob. It is going to take Something Else to get me to write a book. [laughter] and understand that civella them were against drugs and prostitution. Yeah, they were. Theres two stories there. Tonys son was an addict. He ended up killing himself. There was always that oaura of what drugs do. Thatne bright part of theme that they didnt do it is because look what it did. Nick didnt do it because narcotics was dangerous. Anded to long prison terms led to his own people using drugs. Then they become informants. It was just not a good thing. Thirdly kansas city is a very Small Community compared to chicago. Nick knew if his people were doing drugs, he would no longer have any community support. Jonathan bender go first. Was there any highend to pittsburgh, kansas . William ouseley in a way. Some of the people from pittsburp here and were involved in some activities. Thebiggest connection was chicago boss would go down there to hunt doves. That was his favorite place to go. , it washunts doves probably with a machine gun. [laughter] William Ouseley because he was stopped by Law Enforcement. In his truck, he had so many doves that they lost count. He was charged. Thats how he got the nickname. Big palatial the homes around kansas city that still exist along to any of these guys . William ouseley the pendergast mansion is still there. The house tommy lived in is still there. Its off of ward parkway. They lived in those neighborhoods. All of the north end, when they moved up to the north side to philomena akers, those homes are still there. [indiscernible] William Ouseley do i have the address . Im lucky to remember my home address. [laughter] [applause] and im not going to end with a question but i thank you. Thank you all for being here and for the speakers today. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2018] raising the fist in the 19 60 arempics is that some to what we are seeing with the Football Players kneeling during the National Anthem . We have a long history of racism. You could be featured during our next live program. Join the conversation on facebook at facebook. Com cspan history and on twitter at cspan history. Cspan is in lynchburg, virginia to learn more about local history. Next, we go outside the city to appomattox courthouse, known as the site of the end of the civil war. We will learn about appomattoxs lesserknown stories. Im standing in front of perhaps one of the most famous courthouses in the United States , where really nothing of significance happened. Appomattox courthouse. The name is pretty confusing
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