William Cammisano

William "Willie the Rat" Cammisano (April 26, 1914-January 26, 1995) was a Kansas City, Missouri, mobster and enforcer for Nicholas Civella's Kansas City crime family.

By 1929, Cammisano had an extensive rap sheet. He been arrested for carrying a concealed weapon, bootlegging, pistol whipping a robbery victim, running an alcohol still, being AWOL from the U.S. Army, disturbing the peace, and gambling. It was said that he had stolen everything from the wheels off a truck to the rings off a woman’s fingers. Cammisano once served a felony sentence at a federal prison in El Reno, Oklahoma. In the 1940s, he opened a tavern and called it the El Reno Bar, stating that had been the name of his favorite prison.

A high ranking member of Civella's organization, Cammisano was called in 1980 to appear before a U.S. Senate Subcommittee investigating organized crime activity in Kansas City. During the investigation, government witness Fred Harvey Bonadonna described how Cammisano's used strong arm tactics in the River Quay neighborhood redevelopment project to turn the area into a red light district with brothels and other vice. Bonadonna stated that Cammisano murdered his father, a business associate of Cammisano's, for refusing to obtain liquor licenses for mob establishments in River Quay: "Willie [Cammisano] told my father that he would kill me. My father (David) said he'd have to kill him first."

During the Senate investigation, Cammisano was serving a five year prison sentence for extortion in Springfield, Missouri. Cammisano refused to cooperate with the committee; he was cited for Contempt of Congress on May 14, 1981 and received added prison time.

With Civella's conviction in 1983, Cammisano became the new leader of the Kansas City organization . Due to the unfavorable publicity of recent criminal trials, the Chicago Outfit officially disowned Kansas City as an affiliate. This gave Cammisano the opportunity to establish new operations in California, Florida and Washington D.C without Outfit approval or interference. This expansion reinvigorated the Kansas city organization.

On January 26, 1995, William Cammisano died of multipleorgan failure related to lung disease.

Further reading

*Capeci, Jerry. "The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Mafia". Indianapolis: Alpha Books, 2002. ISBN 0-02-864225-2

External links

* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9401E2DF1438F936A25756C0A967948260 New York Times: Gangster Faces New Jail Term]
* [http://www.nevadaobserver.com/Chronological%20History%20of%20La%20Cosa%20Nostra%20(1988).htm Chronological of La Cosa Nostra in the United States: January 1920-August 1987] by the United States Department of Justice Criminal Division's Organized Crime Intelligence and Analysis Unit.
* [http://crimemagazine.com/kcfamily.htm The History of the Kansas City Family] by Allan May
* [http://www.geocities.com/OrganizedCrimeSyndicates/kansascity.html Organized Crime Syndicates - Kansas City LCN Family]
* [http://www.geocities.com/mafia_genius2004/kansascity14.html Life after Nick Civella]
* [http://www.americanmafia.com/Cities/Kansas_City.html American Mafia: Kansas City] by Jay C. Ambler