The week before last, I wrote about my interview with the late Kansas City mob boss Nick Civella, when Civella showed up at a 1980 World Series game in seats that a state senator had given to a friend, never intending for them to go to Civella.
Today, I’ll tell you about my only other interview with a mobster, the late Carl Spero, who, along with his three brothers tried, in the 1970s, battled Civella and his associates for control of local underworld activities.
Big mistake.
On the night of May 16, 1978, three heavily armed, masked men burst into the Virginian Tavern, 1315 Admiral Boulevard, where the three living Spero brothers –one had been killed gangland style in 1973 — spent a lot of time. (If a bar is still there, I don’t think it’s called the Virginian.)
With a fusillade of bullets, the intruders killed Mike Spero and wounded Joe Spero, both of whom had been sitting in a booth. Carl Spero, who was sitting at the bar, bolted for a side door when the shooting started and was struck in the back by a shotgun blast as he reached the sidewalk.
Paralyzed from the waist down, Carl was taken to Truman Medical Center, where he spent the next few weeks.
That’s where I came into the picture…
I was covering Jackson County politics and government at the time, and one night a couple of weeks after the shooting, I was chatting with Skip Sleyster (now deceased), a rough-around-the-edges but very successful commercial property owner. Sleyster also had a Democratic political club, and that’s why he was at the function that night.
Skip and I got to talking about the Spero shooting, and, Skip said he was friends with Spero and had been in touch with him. Taking me completely by surprise, Skip said, “Do you want to interview him?”
I replied, Well hell, yes!”
Skip said Spero was recovering nicely at Truman. He then glanced at his watch and said, “He watches Ironside every night at this time.”
Ironside was a popular TV drama starring Raymond Burr, who, ironically, played the role of a paraplegic chief of detectives. The show ran from 1967 to 1975 and was in reruns in 1978.
Skip set up the interview for the following Monday night, June 5.
Nervously, I went to Spero’s room — a police officer stood outside — and he welcomed me in a strong voice. He was eager to talk.
Carl Spero
Sitting up in his bed, he answered questions for an hour. During that time, about six other visitors came in, and he took a few telephone calls. But for the most part he was focused on our conversation.
Among other things, he denied that he and his brothers had been trying to take control of local underworld activities. He said:
“I’ve denied that part from the get-go — the part about organized crime per se.”
(That was the first time I had heard the term “get-go,” and I’ve used it liberally ever since.)
He said he had no idea who the assailants were, and when I pressed him, saying it must have him wondering, a half-smile came over his face and he said, “It arouses your curiosity.”
After the interview, I raced back to The Star, which is just a few blocks north of the hospital, and started banging away on my IBM Selectric typewriter.
I remember that the copy editor on the story — the person who wrote the headline and put the final edit on it — was a lanky British fellow whose first name was Peter. He had just a few questions for me; otherwise the story sailed through the editing process.
The next morning the story was stripped across the front page of The Kansas City Times, then the morning edition of The Star. It “jumped” inside, where the rest of the story took up almost half a page.
As you can imagine, it was an exhilarating experience, from the moment Skip mentioned the possibility of an interview, and it was one of my most memorable stories. Oddly, however, just as with the Civella story, I didn’t save the clipping itself. And, as with the Civella story, I had to go to the Downtown Kansas City Public Library and locate it on microfilm.
**
Now, here’s the rest of the Spero story.
At one point in the interview, I asked Carl if he expected a subsequent attempt on his life. No, he replied, “unless somebody’s got a cannon.”
I feel sure I laughed at that comment, but it turned out to be prescient, if only slightly off target.
I greatly underestimated the determination of the Civella group. They had no intention of letting Spero off the hook with paraplegia; they fully intended to finish him off.
DeLuna
Six months after the Virginian incident, the FBI wiretapped a conversation that showed just how serious the Civella group was about killing Spero. The principals in that conversation, which took place in a Northland home, were Nick Civella; his brother Carl “Cork” Civella; Carl “Tuffy” DeLuna, who allegedly planned and participated in the tavern shoot-up; and two Las Vegas casino executives.
Nick Civella had called the conference to discuss changes in casino operations (he had a hidden interest in at least one) and to plot the demise of Carl Spero.
According to a transcript of the conversation, Nick and Cork talked of ways to get to Spero, who lived in a remote part of Clay County, with a lot that was free of trees or other landscaping.
Nick: “Them guys (some of his henchmen) been out to that house. That house is exposed for a mile. You get a car out there on that road. You start, do you say crawl and walk. The guys ain’t in that kind of shape.”
Cork: “Willie’s telling me (apparently referring to a fearsome mobster named Willie “The Rat” Cammisano) he would go out there and sit and crawl and hit him from a fuckin’ mile away. I don’t see no sense in why the guy can’t even try.”
Nick: “He’d be moving. He’s a moving target.”
Cork: “What’s the difference, fuckin’ deer’s moving.”
Nick: “Oh, no, no, Cork. Deers are standing when they get hit.”
Nick then brought the Spero conversation to a chilling close by saying to Cork:
“Let me tell you something. We’ve got the best fuckin’ bloodhounds in the United States and always did have.”
The bloodhounds got Joe Spero first. In June 1980, a bomb exploded at a Clay County storage shed, hurling him 50 yards through the wall of the shed. He died instantly.
According to The Kansas City Star: “Authorities thought Spero, 48, accidentally set off the bomb. A decade later, an FBI agent quoted an informant as saying the dynamite had been booby-trapped on orders of the Civella organization.”
In January 1984, the bloodhounds closed in on the last remaining Spero. One morning when Carl entered the office of a Northeast area used car lot owned by his cousin, a nail-bomb exploded. Carl, who had escaped with serious injuries at 38, was dead at 44.
That was just mop-up business, however, because by then Nick Civella was gone — having died a year earlier, shortly after being released from prison — and the mob was on the way to becoming a shadow of what it used to be.
JimmyCsays: At the juncture of journalism and daily life in KC 
Two great “mobster” stories. I read them both and would love to read more. Surely you have a few more!!!
The cupboard is now bare.
Good posts. Happy New Year!
Joe
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Thanks, Joe. Happy New Year to you, Mary and Jack.
(Readers: Joe, a KC native, is turf writer for The New York Times.)
Here’s an anecdote sent to me in an email by a man I know well. He wishes to remain anonymous.
“After college I worked out of Jefferson City for the state Liquor Control. One week we were in KC and that afternoon had nothing to do. We decided to hang out with one of the local agents and went down to a bar in the River Quay. We drank a pitcher (agents always got free drinks from bars) and the owner asked to talk with the agent in private. As we left the agent explained that the owner wanted an escort to his car each night after closing. Agents didn’t carry guns so no way he would do this. The owner was Fred Bonadonna and we realized we had been sitting in an empty bar in the middle of the afternoon with a man whom the mob wanted dead. Anyway, Bonadonna went into witness protection shortly after that and my short stint as a government employee ended.”
Fascinating.
This being New Year’s Eve, I sure have the feeling that a lot of guys who have been involved in mob activities down through the years have literally gone out with a bang. I wonder if anyone’s ever run the numbers: deaths via a gun vs. deaths via a bomb. At any rate, you’ve got a good story here, Jim.
Thanks, Rick.
Fitz,
I admire the way you were able to get that interview with Spero by going to the kind of meeting that was routine for government reporters, chit-chatting with a source and obviously having been able to build enough trust that the source would lead you to such a good catch. The best newspapers have “good-cop, bad-cop” reporters. Mark Morris once explained to me how well KC City Hall was covered by you and Kevin Murphy because your styles were so different – you the insider who knew every person at City Hall and knew how to get the big wigs to talk to you and the rattlesnake Murphy who wasn’t afraid to go after sacred cows like Emanuel Cleaver. Happy New Year!
So true, Mike, about the power of going about the routine trappings of a job. Of course, I loved hanging out with the pols — and the wannabe pols, like Skip.
…Yes, those years that Kevin and I double-teamed ’em at City Hall were outstanding. Truth be known, I envied Kevin because he went for the jugular and was fearless about pursuing the truth. Six months after Cleaver was first elected in March 1991, Kevin exposed him as a liar, a cheat and gutless. Cleaver had taken his family to Walt Disney World on a vacation, at taxpayer expense, and tried to pass it off as a business trip. When Kevin blew out the story — got it by simply checking city travel records and charges — Cleaver blamed his secretary, saying something like she charged it to the city when it should have been on his dime.
I remember clearly how skittish the editors were about that story, with Cleaver having just become the first black mayor in KC history and just getting his administration underway. The editors were walking around, hands on their chins and brows furrowed. Lots of impromptu meetings took place. They ended up toning down the story significantly so that it sounded more like an apologetic explanation for a screw-up than an outright “gotcha” piece. It ran, as I recall, in the bottom left corner of the morning paper, instead of stripped across the top, where it should have been.
I was with Kevin that night as the editors were equivocating, and we were both extremely frustrated and angry. We argued to keep the story forceful but there wasn’t a lot we could do, assuming we wanted to keep our jobs, which we did. I remember one editor saying, “It sounds like Cleaver is a pathological liar.” But even that assessment wasn’t enough to prevent the story from being watered down and downplayed.
Thereafter, Cleaver came to be known as “the Teflon mayor,” not only because he was slippery, but he always managed to get the benefit of the doubt, partly because of his first-black-mayor status.
I’ve always wondered how Cleaver’s career would have gone if we had played that story properly and if the editorial page editors had come down hard on him and had continued to remind people over the years of his larceny…We gave him the break of a lifetime.
…even more fascinating!
Fitz,
The assessment by Mark Morris that I referred to above came the night before the Cleaver-Goes-to-Disneyworld story ran. I’m pretty sure it was in 1992. I was working the Saturday night scanner shift and Morris was the editor. He was looking at the story on the computer screen (I’m assuming the story was ready to be put to press). As we read the story, Mark explained the differences between the styles of you and Murphy and how it made for solid coverage of City Hall. I thought that story ran on A1 above the fold but maybe I’m wrong. What I do remember is that the story did have legs. Ethics Commission looked at it. Cleaver never forgave Kevin. And although he went on to get re-elected mayor and pretty much a permanent spot in Congress, it will always be part of his legacy.
I tremble when I challenge your memory of time and place, Mike, but, indeed, you’re only human, and it was 1991 — September, I’m pretty sure. It is emblazoned in my mind that Cleaver fucked up so badly just six months into his first term. (He was elected in March 1991 and took office April 1, I believe.)
I went to The Star’s electronic library and found a June 20, 1992, story by Kevin Murphy that alluded to the “family vacation to Florida last year.”
…Note how delicately the subject is addressed: “After questions were raised…” Ha! Should have said, “After the mayor used public funds to finance a personal, family trip…” but long before that the editors had formatted how we would allude to the larceny.
…Note, too, how mayoral aides blame themselves and secretaries for the problems, but then Cleaver, magnanimously, beats his breast and allows how, as mayor, he is ultimately responsible…Disgusting, I tell you, a sorry chapter in Kansas City Star history.
…The June 20 story is about a mayoral aide named Kevin Smith resigning. The story also includes references to Luther Washington, then Cleaver’s chief of staff.
“After questions were raised about Cleaver’s family vacation to Florida last year, Smith and Washington conducted an extensive review of more than 30 trips the mayor took since being elected.
“The review of travel records, done in February, revealed lapses in accountability, delays in payments and use of a City Hall credit card for personal trips.
“In February, Washington and Smith blamed themselves and office secretaries for many of the problems. Cleaver attributed them to administrative error, but he said he ultimately was responsible as mayor.”
I’m glad that I said I was “pretty sure” rather than “absolutely sure”.
1315 Admiral Boulevard is now an empty lot.
As for Cleaver’s treatment at The Star, that favoritism and editorial cowardice never let up. In his first run for Congress you had a squeaky clean liberal in Jamie Metzl who worked hard to run for that seat and Cleaver at the height of his scandals, the inappropriate small business loans, the car wash problems, his wife’s 6 figure salary from the school district for “strategic planning”, and on and on and yet The Star’s gutless (being kind) editorial board unbelievably endorsed him over Metzl.
To this day, Cleaver is still a bald faced liar. One example from recent history came during a walk Cleaver and other black Congressmen made through the ranks of a Tea Party protest. He claimed that racial epithets had been shouted at him and that he had been spit on. Rewards totaling $115,000 were offered for proof of Cleaver’s claims but in spite of the fact that the event was filmed by dozens of people, including two of Cleaver’s staffers, no one was able to claim the reward.
Rev is an engaging fellow, and I enjoy talking with him, but he’s a chronic embellisher. I remember doing a profile of him the first time he ran for mayor, and he told me that as a boy, he picked cotton in the cotton fields of Texas, his home state. When I asked one of his sisters about that, she frowned and said something like, “Emanuel didn’t pick any cotton.” When I told Cleaver what his sister had said, he replied, “I picked my share of cotton.” As I recall, I put that in the story.
…Jamie Metzl is a good guy and was a pretty good candidate, but he was unprepared to go against a seasoned politician who carried the mantle of “the Teflon mayor.” I’m sure Jamie and his family were appalled at some of the claims Cleaver made, and I know they were extremely disappointed at the outcome, but the handwriting was on the wall from the outset.
Jamie’s father, Kurt, was our kids’ pediatrician. (He’s in his 70s and still practices at Carondolet.) So, I heard a lot about that race, particularly the family’s disbelief at The Star’s endorsement of Cleaver. It was one disappointment after another for them, but I told Kurt from the beginning that it was going to be a very difficult race for his son to win.
We have one like that in Kansas now. Milton Wolf’s political personna was created out of whole cloth in 2013 to run for the Senate primary. Like Cleaver, he lies even when he doesn’t have to (or as you’ve kindly labeled it, an “embellisher”). Thankfully, we were able to derail him for the time being. A pox on the Cleavers and Wolfs of the world.