Reputed Former Mob Leader 'Tony Ripe' Civella Dead

Friends of ours: Anthony "Tony Ripe" Civella, Nick Civella, Carl "Cork" Civella, Joseph Auippa

Anthony Civella, said by federal investigators to have headed organized crime in Kansas City in the late 1980s and 1990s, is dead at 75.

Passantino Brothers Funeral Home said Thursday that it was handling arrangements and that rites for Civella were pending, but that it did not have information on when he died or on his survivors. There was no phone listing for a Civella in the Kansas City area, and the city's vital statistics office said it had not yet received a death certificate for him.

Civella once told a judge he had undergone seven heart bypass operations. Civella, whose nickname was "Tony Ripe," was the nephew of Nick Civella, the reputed leader of the Kansas City mob at a time when it allegedly worked with other organized crime families in Chicago, Milwaukee and Cleveland in schemes to skim money from Las Vegas casinos.

After Nick Civella's death in 1983, leadership was said to have passed to his brother, Carl "Cork" Civella, father of Anthony. Nick Civella died while under indictment as one of 12 people accused in a skimming case involving the Tropicana Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas.

Subsequently, his brother Carl was among those charged in another Las Vegas skimming case involving the Argent Corp., which owned the Stardust and Fremont casinos. Carl Civella was one of five who pleaded guilty in that case. Five other defendants, including Joseph Aiuppa, described by the government as head of the Chicago mob, were convicted at a trial in Kansas City.

That trial included testimony from Roy Lee Williams, former president of the Teamsters Union, who said Nick Civella paid him $1,500 a month from late 1974 to mid-1981. He said the money was in return for his vote as a trustee of the union's Central States Pension Fund for a $62.75 million loan that enabled Argent Corp. to buy the two casinos.

Anthony Civella was convicted of bookmaking in the 1970s and served 3 1/2 years in prison. He had business interests that included automobile sales, restaurants, insurance and property ownership.

After his father and other reputed Kansas City mobsters went to prison, Civella was reported to have moved up to the leadership. In 1991, he and two associates were convicted on eight counts of fraud related to the resale of prescription drugs. They were accused of having brought more than $1 million worth of drugs at deep discounts, claiming they were intended for nursing homes, then re-selling them to wholesalers on the West Coast.

After his release from prison in 1996, Civella was barred from entering casinos in Missouri and Nevada. Gaming commissions cited his convictions, which included driving a vehicle without the owner's consent in 1964, conspiring to run interstate gambling in 1975 and running a sports bookmaking operation and continuing criminal business in 1984.

In his 1984 plea, Civella signed a statement acknowledging that prosecutors could prove his role in other crimes, including casino skimming, stealing from charity bingo games and setting up front companies to hide his ownership. He also acknowledged prosecutors could prove he conspired to commit murders and other violence to punish underlings, silence government witnesses and eliminate competing mob factions.

"His death reflects a passing of an era in Kansas City's colorful history," said David Helfrey, a St. Louis attorney who headed the Justice Department's Organized Crime Strike Force at Kansas City during the casino skimming trials.

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Chicago Water Department Worker Charged With Lying To Feds

A Chicago city worker fired for being AWOL from his water department job was charged Tuesday with lying to federal agents in the government's two-year investigation of Chicago's corruption-plagued Hired Truck Program. Frank Cannatello, 30, of Chicago became the forty-third person charged in the investigation that recently has branched out to include alleged city hiring fraud by Mayor Richard M. Daley's former patronage chief and other political operatives.

The Hired Truck Program, which cost taxpayers $38 million at its peak two years ago, was designed to save money by allowing the city to outsource its hauling work to private truckers. Prosecutors say the program has been awash in payoff money and fraud. Some of the companies that got sizable payouts through the program are tied to the mob.

Cannatello was charged with one count of lying to federal agents Dec. 14 when he said he had nothing to do with FRC Trucking Co., which made $187,000 in Hired Truck payments in three years. Ownership of the now dissolved company was listed to a female relative. Prosecutors said Cannatello helped to organize and operate the company. A message seeking comment was left Tuesday at the office of Cannatello's lawyer, Richard Jalovec.

Among other things, prosecutors said Cannatello asked another city worker, Randy Aderman, to help FRC get city hauling work and Aderman did so through the water department. Aderman already has been charged in the investigation along with former city Clerk James Laski. Aderman appeared for arraignment before U.S. District Judge Charles R. Norgle Sr. on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty. Norgle set a status hearing in the case for March 13.

Cannatello's cousin, John Canatello, 60, of suburban Palos Park and Marco Island, Fla., was sentenced Jan. 19 to 27 months in federal prison, fined $14,000 and ordered to forfeit $100,000 for taking part in a payoff scheme to get Hired Truck business for another trucking company.

Frank Cannatello was among nine employees fired by the city water department on orders from Daley last June after it was discovered that they had been electronically logged in at their jobs at the city's Jardine Filtration Plant when in fact they were elsewhere. Officials said a two-month review of security tapes showed the employees had used each other's identification cards to make it appear that they were working when they were not.

Another former water department employee fired last June and now indicted along with Laski and Aderman is John Briatta, who is the brother-in-law of Cook County Commissioner John Daley -- the mayor's brother. Briatta, who is to be arraigned before Norgle on Thursday, is charged with accepting payoffs from Aderman in exchange for Hired Truck Program assignments.

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No Mafia Princess: 'Sopranos' Star Falco Likes to Shake Things Up

Friends of ours: Soprano Crime Family

In the intense "Freedomland," in which a missing boy, prejudice and the police collide, Edie Falco is practically unrecognizable. Her Carmela of "The Sopranos" is gone. In the film, Falco plays Karen Collucci, a missing-child advocate who helps Julianne Moore's anguished mother. "I looked different because that's what was decided upon," she said about her black wig and absence of makeup. "I had very little to say about it, but I was happy for it."

Falco has much to be happy about these days. Last year's battle with cancer found this private person resigned to living a public life. "There is really nothing that has happened to me that hasn't happened to a lot of other people," she said during a one-on-one interview. "So it's not like it's so earth-shattering. There's nothing in my life that I'm ashamed of, and there's nothing in my life that I care all that much about people knowing about because it's just a life, just another life."

Having adopted a baby boy, now nearly 14 months old, Falco is happily surprised at how well at age 42 she has adapted to motherhood. "I never actually thought that I would be a mom, and then it became sort of a thing in the last number of years. I just knew that it was time," she said. "I didn't know what I'd be like. I think that we all have an innate ability to raise children; you don't have to read all the books and listen to all the advice. Under the best circumstances, it's pretty natural."

As for her final months as Carmela Soprano, Falco said, "We're all in denial, first of all. But we've got a long way to go before we're down to the last few. We've been filming the last year, and we have another year to go."

Even her mother can't pry any plot revelations out of her. But Falco admits it is amazing that a show as phenomenally popular as "Sopranos" can keep its secrets until airtime. "I can't say I know why we've been so lucky - omerta," Falco said then laughed, referring to the mafia code of silence - or death. "For the most part, we've been able to keep stuff secret, and I think that's been part of the fun of watching the show, that very much like real life a lot of this stuff is very surprising."

Karen in "Freedomland" is a small role, but it is a chance to let people forget about Carmela - at least temporarily. "You know, there's a lot of good and bad stuff that comes with notoriety," Falco said. "Perhaps a lot of people would want to stick to roles like that knowing that they have had success. But that is entirely uninteresting to me. I'm in this business for my own reasons, and most of them are pretty selfish. I happen to really enjoy getting to be a lot of different people."

A late bloomer, Falco has had a bounty with "Sopranos." She's won three SAG Awards, two Golden Globes and three Emmys, starred on Broadway in hit revivals of " 'night, Mother" and "Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune," and won praise in John Sayles' "Sunshine State."

"I love everything about acting. I hate to be that person, but I really do love it so much. The fame is very hard because I wasn't cut out for it," she said. "It wasn't part of my game plan. What I miss most of all is wandering anonymously through the city."

Thanks to Stephen Schaefer

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New York, Ready For Another Gotti Trial?

Friends of ours: Junior Gotti

The son of late mob boss John Gotti returned to court Tuesday for retrial on racketeering charges that include a violent plot to kidnap Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa. A jury last fall acquitted John A. "Junior" Gotti of securities fraud but deadlocked on more serious racketeering counts, leading to the retrial.

Jury selection started Tuesday with the judge announcing that 71 prospective jurors among 250 who filled out questionnaires were disqualified. Others were to be questioned the rest of the week to determine whether they might qualify. Opening statements were scheduled to begin next week.

Gotti seemed almost in the clear last fall when U.S. District Judge Shira Scheindlin considered if the mistrial should be an acquittal because the jury failed to find Gotti had committed at least two related acts of racketeering. Instead, she ordered a retrial on charges that he ordered a botched 1992 plot to abduct Sliwa. Gotti has been under house arrest on $7 million bond since September.

Prosecutors say Gotti, 41, wanted to retaliate against Sliwa for his on-air rants against Gotti's father. Sliwa was shot but recovered and resumed his radio work. He also testified at the trial. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld Scheindlin's ruling. Lawyers have said one juror stood in the way of Gotti's conviction in the case.

A conviction could put Gotti in prison for up to 30 years. He turned down a plea deal that would have meant serving seven years of a 10-year sentence. In an interview in the New York Post, Gotti said his wife is expecting their sixth child and told him if he took the plea deal: "'If you do it, we're through. We need you in this house."'

Gotti, whose father was sentenced to life in prison in 1992 and died there 10 years later, told the Post he was confident he would be vindicated. "We're not going for a mistrial this time," he said. "We're going for an acquittal."

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