The Undoing of Boss Tom
Prosecutor Maurice M. Milligan had a burning hatred of Pendergast because the boss had supported Truman rather than Milligan’s brother Tuck in the 1934 Senate race. The prosecutor led the attack on the Pendergast machine by conducting a two-year election-fraud investigation. When completed, 259 of 278 defendants were convicted.
Despite the continuing investigations and trials, Pendergast’s slate of candidates again won election in 1938. Gov. Stark was urged to cleanse Kansas City of its wide open gambling and as he began to campaign for the U. S. Senate he found this to be the opportune time to strike at Pendergast. Stark felt he could gain support by his attacks on the Pendergast stronghold – the Kansas City Police Department. His boldest move was to put through legislation to return the department to state control. Stark believed that the prostitution, gambling, and illegal liquor activity in the city were protected by the Pendergast-controlled police department. After the Missouri General Assembly approved Stark’s legislation in July 1939, the newspapers began to fill with tales of corruption in the police department. While many officers refused to deny that corruption was taking place, they justified their participation because it granted them continued employment. In the aftermath of the departmental changeover, 50 percent of the police force was dismissed.
In Stark’s pursuit of Pendergast, he and Milligan traveled to Washington D.C. to confer with Elmer L. Irey, the chief of the intelligence unit of the U.S. Treasury Department. The Treasury man soon began an investigation into the O’Malley insurance compromise. Truman, at Pendergast’s urging, tried to replace Milligan when he came up for reappointment. The FDR administration frowned on this move and sensing a change in Missouri politics began to throw its support behind Stark and his anti-Pendergast campaign. By early 1939, five federal agencies were involved in the investigation of Pendergast.
The investigators confirmed the $750,000 payoff scam Pendergast had been paid by the insurance interests. The once unassailable Pendergast, the most powerful man in the history of Missouri politics, was indicted. Agents of the Internal Revenue Service also discovered that Pendergast had failed to pay income taxes from 1927 to 1937, and had doctored the books at eight companies where he held a major interest. A second indictment followed. Placed under such intense scrutiny, Pendergast’s health began to fail. He suffered a heart attack and over the next several years had surgery three times for abdominal problems.
In May 1939, Milligan presented his case against Pendergast in court. Due to the overwhelming evidence against him, Pendergast pleaded guilty to two charges of income tax evasion. He was fined $10,000 and sentenced to 15 months in federal prison on the first charge. On the second charge, he received three years, but was let off with five years probation. He was released from prison in 1940, but his career was over.
In addition to Pendergast, the others sent to prison as a result of Milligan’s investigations were Emmett O’Malley, Matthew Murray, Otto Higgins, the director of the police department, and Charles Carollo who oversaw the gambling interests in Kansas City.
Pendergast’s demise also signaled the end of the machine. Even Gov. Stark suffered as few voters respected him for betraying the man who had put him in office. Harry Truman, by stint of his own personal integrity, survived although his association with Pendergast would come under numerous attacks from his political foes. As Vice President Truman, he would cause a national uproar by attending Pendergast’s funeral in Kansas City in January 1945. Three years later, in one of the great political ironies of all time, Truman, the protégé of one of the most corrupt public figures in U.S. history, narrowly defeated crime fighter Thomas E. Dewey for President in 1948.
Johnny Lazia
One of the Italian criminals who rose to prominence during the Pendergast years was Johnny Lazia. He followed in the footsteps of Joe Damico and Mike Ross in supplying the Italian vote in the North End.
Lazia was born in Kansas City’s "Little Italy" section in 1897. When he was 18, he was convicted of armed robbery and sent to the state penitentiary in Jefferson City. After promising to enlist in the Army and use his "violent energy" to fight the Germans, a fairly common practice at the time, he was granted parole after less than two years in prison. Lazia forgot his promise about joining the Army though and went right back to his life of crime.
Mike Ross, an Irishman, had been running "Little Italy" for the Pendergast interests. Around 1927, he moved out of the North End, but attempted to run it as an absentee boss. Lazia had no interest in answering to an Irish boss living outside the neighborhood. During a special election day in May 1928, Lazia made his move. He kidnapped several of Ross’s lieutenants, including Frank Benanti, Anthony Bivona, and Joe Gallucci. A week after the election, the lieutenants agreed to join Lazia, and Ross gave up his North End leadership.
Although not happy with the North End coupe, Pendergast accepted Lazia’s political support and in turn had the police department turn a blind eye to Lazia’s bootlegging and gambling activities. Lazia cut the police in for a slice of the profits. During his rise to power in the 1920s, Lazia’s gang included Anthony Gizzo, Charley Gargotta, Charles Carollo, Sam Scola, and Gus Fascone. Each was a capable gunman and was responsible for helping to oversee the profitable gambling and bootlegging that occurred in the North End. On election day they were also in charge of getting out the Democratic vote.
Because of Pendergast and Lazia’s control of the Kansas City Police Department, the city gained a notorious reputation for being a "safe haven" for criminals. In Jeffrey S. King’s The Life and Death of Pretty Boy Floyd, the author states, "Lazia insisted that he be told what criminals were in the area, what their plans were, and how long they intended to stay. Any crooks from out of town who did not pay him off would be arrested or forced to leave the city. Any money on them would be appropriated."
Robert Unger, in his recent book, "Union Station Massacre," explains:
"Lazia had to fight everyday to preserve the place he’d carved for himself … Lazia’s big threat was always from outsiders who saw the sweet deal home rule and bossism had brought to Kansas City and wanted to muscle in… by gentle persuasion and ruthless action, Lazia kept them all out. Nothing criminal of any consequence happened in Kansas City without the knowledge and consent of Johnny Lazia."
Beginning in the spring of 1933, Lazia’s undisputed control in overseeing these activities received severe challenges. The first incident occurred on May 27 with the kidnapping of Mary McElroy, the daughter of City Manager Henry F. McElroy, a Pendergast lieutenant. The attractive 25-year-old Mary, who was described as slightly disturbed, was in the middle of a bubble bath when she was hustled out of her father’s home by four amateur kidnappers. A ransom of $30,000 was negotiated and paid and Mary was home in just under 30 hours.
The kidnappers were captured within days and justice was swift: the leader of the group was sentenced to death. Because Mary begged that his life be spared, her father requested life imprisonment for the man, which was granted. Mary later wrote in a suicide note, "My four kidnappers are probably the only people on earth who do not consider me an utter fool."
The kidnapping was a blow to Lazia’s pride and he felt it undermined his importance to the Pendergast interests. Things would get worse. On June 17, 1933, one of the most celebrated crimes in U.S. history – the crime that J. Edgar Hoover used to launch the Federal Bureau of Investigation – was committed in the parking lot in front of Kansas City's Union Station. There, in the bustle of early-morning rush hour, four law enforcement officers were shot to death as they were attempting to transport bank robber Frank "Jelly" Nash to the penitentiary in Leavenworth. In the hail of machinegun fire, Nash was also murdered. Although for years Hoover advanced the notion that he believed the shooters were Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd and Adam Richetti, recent research has proved otherwise. In fact recent forensic studies indicate that Nash and several of the officers may have been killed by "friendly fire." Robert Unger’s book delves deeply into this subject.
Verne Miller, who was positively identified as one of the participants in the shootout, was reputed to have met with Lazia before and after the shooting to arrange safe passage out of town. Miller would later be murdered and his body dumped outside Detroit.
By mid-summer, the newly-formed FBI was suspicious of Lazia’s connections to the killings. With one of its own federal agents dead, the FBI was desperate to pin the Union Station Massacre on someone. In addition to this headache, a small gang headed by Joe Lusco was trying to create a niche for itself with the local Democratic Party, and another local hood, Ferris Anthon, began to intrude on Lazia’s operations.
Anthon was dealt with first, but it would be costly for Lazia. In the early hours of Aug. 12, 1933, Lazia gunmen cut down Anthon as he was entering his home at the Cavalier Apartments in Kansas City. Ironically, the apartment building was being used by the FBI to safe keep Agent Joe Lackey, one of the wounded survivors of the Union Station shooting. Lackey’s first thoughts were that the gunfire was a warning for him to keep his mouth shut.
Driving nearby at the time of the shooting was Sheriff Tom Bash. The sheriff and a deputy were on their way home from an ice cream social with Mrs. Bash and a 14-year-old neighbor girl. Bash slammed on the brakes, grabbed a riot gun and he and the deputy jumped out and blasted away at the getaway car. Killed instantly were Sam Scola and Gus Fascone. Charley Gargotta jumped from the car and emptied his revolver at Bash, missing every shot. Throwing down the gun, he pleaded, "Don’t shoot me – Don’t shoot me!" A fourth gunman escaped.
Two of Lazia’s lieutenants were dead and another was in jail. To make matters worse, another lieutenant, James "Jimmy Needles" LaCapra, known as a bomb expert, was now at odds with Lazia over his stingy control of the gambling rackets in the city. When two of LaCapra’s associates disappeared – one spirited away from a hospital by the Lazia / Pendergast controlled police force – Jimmy Needles responded by tossing a bomb at Lazia’s North Side Democratic Club, demolishing the front of the building.
To add to Lazia’s woes, he was convicted of income tax evasion in early 1934. Lazia was fined $5,000 and sentenced to a year in prison, which he immediately appealed.
Lazia’s problems came to a brutal end in the early morning hours of July 10, 1934. The night before, Lazia and his wife Marie were returning from Lake Lotawana, located southeast of the city. Charles Carollo was driving and serving as a bodyguard for Lazia. Carollo drove into the driveway of the Park Central Hotel, where the Lazia’s made their home, at about 3 a.m. When Lazia got out of the car, two gunmen, hiding in the bushes, opened fire with a machinegun and a shotgun. Carollo sped off with Lazia’s wife to safety as the gunmen continued to blast away at Lazia on the ground. Lazia was taken to St. Joseph’s Hospital where he died 12 hours later.
Police ballistics experts stated that the machine gun used to kill Lazia was also used in the Union Station Massacre. The authorities quickly arrested Joe Lusco and 27 others, but Lazia’s killers were never identified. Lazia’s gang pinned Lazia’s murder on LaCapra and tried to kill him the following month outside Wichita, Kan. LaCapra, terrified and fearing for his life, went to a local police station and told a fantastic tale that tied Lazia, Floyd, and Richetti to Verne Miller and the Union Station Massacre. However, associates of Lazia always maintained that LaCapra’s statement to police was the "ramblings of a desperate man out to cut a deal."
LaCapra was still in fear for his life in January 1935 and was advised by FBI agents to leave for South America where he had family. LaCapra refused and instead went to New York where his bullet riddled body was found by police on a highway 10 miles west of Poughkeepsie.
The DiGiovanni / Balestrere Gang
While Pendergast and Lazia were in control of the politicians, the prostitution, and the gambling going on in the city, there were other Mafia factions at work in Kansas City.
The DiGiovanni brothers, Peter and Joseph, were born in Sicily during the 1880s. Joseph, the younger, arrived in Kansas City in 1912 and immediately became involved in Black Hand extortion. In 1915, police arrested Joseph and more than a dozen other men for their participation in a Black Hand ring that was extorting money from Italian families and businessmen in the North End. A diligent Italian detective, Louis Olivero, had worked with the terrified victims of the gang and was able to gather enough information to make the arrests. Shortly after the arrests were made Olivero was murdered and the victims he had cultivated as witnesses refused to testify against the gang.
During World War I the DiGiovanni gang was involved with James Balestrere in a black-market sugar operation. When the war ended, they found themselves with an abundance of expensive sugar. According to investigators, Joseph conspired to get rid of it by torching the warehouse where the sugar was stored. His amateurish attempt in this arson left his face and hands terribly scarred. For years he would maintain that he was injured in a gas explosion. He would also maintain the nickname "Scarface."
When Prohibition went into effect, the gang found themselves right back in the sugar business again. This time it was the corn-sugar trade and they made a handsome profit selling it to alky cookers who quickly turned it into alcohol. The DiGiovanni brothers and their partner Balestrere were considered, along with Frank "Chee Chee" DeMayo, to be the top bootleggers in Kansas City.
In Ed Reid’s classic tale, Mafia, he discusses how the DiGiovanni gang and Balestrere operated during the 1920s:
"It was Scarface DiGiovanni who dictated whether or not an individual bootlegger could go into business in Kansas City, and he even laid down the law about "ice" or graft payments to local police. Balestrere was apparently less powerful in this early period, though he functioned as the Mafia judge, settling disputes of all kinds among Italians. They seldom went to court in those early days of the sharpest terror. Instead they went to Balestrere and his kangaroo court. He summoned witnesses, held informal hearings and his judgment was widely feared and respected. Scarface appeared to be head man of the Mafia in Missouri, with Balestrere tops in Kansas City."
In addition to arrests for extortion and bootlegging, Joseph DiGiovanni was charged with kidnapping and narcotics, but never convicted. In 1929, a kidnapping charge included the rape of a young lady. During the 1930s, he helped organize a profitable narcotics ring. It was broken in 1942 when seven men were convicted, including Joseph DeLuca, one of the DiGiovanni’s chief lieutenants.
At the trial one of the government’s witnesses was Carl Caramussa, a former member of the gang. In 1919, Caramussa’s 11-year-old brother was murdered by Paul Catanzaro, who was grabbed by a group of bystanders and nearly beaten to death. Catanzaro avoided conviction for the killing after witnesses were scared off. He later found work with the DiGiovanni family. When Carl Caramussa testified in 1942, Catanzaro sat in the courtroom and gave him the "Mafia death sign," until police threw him out. Caramussa changed his name and went into hiding after the trial. However, gunmen caught up with him in Chicago in June 1945 and murdered him.
During the same trial, Joseph DeLuca’s girlfriend was arrested and charged with jury tampering. She was convicted after Thomas Buffa, another defendant, testified against her. Buffa, who at one time had ties to organized crime in St. Louis, was murdered in Lodi, Calif., in 1946.
Joseph DiGiovanni and his older brother Peter, nicknamed "Sugarhouse Pete," were partners in the Midwest Distributing Company, one of the largest wholesale liquor firms in the city. The concern possessed the exclusive franchise rights for all Seagram’s liquor products for Jackson County, which includes Kansas City. On Dec. 21, 1943, 12 men involved with the company were arrested in an interstate black-market liquor ring. Among those arrested was Charles Binaggio, a gang member on the rise. The charges included violation of federal liquor laws and failing to keep proper records.
The case was dismissed in January 1944 after a U.S. attorney decided that Alcohol Tax Unit agents did not have sufficient evidence; a claim that baffled the agents. Later, several of the defendants traveled to New York City to testify against Jacob Fried, who was involved in the company that was supplying the illegal whiskey. He was convicted.
During the Kefauver hearings held in Kansas City in 1950, Joseph DiGiovanni was called to testify and denied that he had ever heard of the Mafia. After a few more unacceptable answers, Kefauver recommended to the committee that he be indicted for perjury. Like many of the witnesses who were charged with contempt of Congress, he avoided indictment.
James Balestrere was a kind of shadowy figure in the Kansas City underworld. Born in Sicily in 1891, he immigrated to Milwaukee in 1903 where it was said that he joined "several hundred members" of his family. Of Balestrere, author Ed Reid states, "In the probe of rackets in Kansas City by federal agents and grand juries from 1936 to 1940, agents of the government named him as the most powerful and influential man of Sicilian origin west of Chicago."
During Prohibition Balestrere was involved in bootlegging and owned a speakeasy that was said to be losing money. He remedied that by having an arsonist burn it to the ground. Although he was befriended by politicians (from both parties), law enforcement officers, city officials, and gangsters, investigations of Balestrere failed to reveal any illegal activities.
The "Crime Committee Report" published after the Kefauver hearings were complete stated, "The two men believed to be the leaders of the Kansas City Mafia," were James Balestrere and Joseph DiGiovanni. Kefauver wrote of Balestrere, "He played dumb and represented himself to us a poor old jobless fellow who lived on a little income from a piece of business property and on a few dollars given him by his children."
Balestrere told the committee that he needed a job after Prohibition ended – he had gone out of the business of selling sugar to bootleggers – so he approached Tom Pendergast. Balestrere testified that Pendergast gave him a cut of a keno gambling game where he walked in once a month and picked up a check for $1,000. In addition, Balestrere told the committee that Charles Binaggio had offered him a piece of a gambling operation called the Green Hills. Balestrere, the godfather of Binaggio’s only child, replied, "I am not much in the gambling business. I don’t know much about it." One month later he said Binaggio gave him $5,000 he claimed was won.
