Two deceased mobsters with Kansas City ties are under consideration to be removed from Nevada’s Black Book that excluded them from casinos.
The Nevada Gaming Commission will consider the matters of William Cammisano Jr. and Peter Ribaste Thursday at the end of its regularly scheduled meeting. The Commission’s practice is to remove people from the list after they’ve passed away. Cammisano died in 2023, Ribaste in 2021.
Cammisano was the son of William “Willie the Rat” Cammisano Sr., a mobster and enforcer for a Kansas City crime family. He was added to the Black Book in 1997. An Associated Press story in 1989 said the younger Cammisano was accused of killing two organized-crime figures, one with explosives and one with gunfire, to preserve his spot with the Kansas City crime family. The story said Cammisano also met with Chicago organized-crime figures concerning the Kansas City family’s share of money from the sale of four Argents casino and its share of illegal activities, such as skimming from Las Vegas casinos.
In January 1997, the Nevada Gaming Control Board placed Cammisano in its Black Book, citing a Las Vegas Sun report at the time that Las Vegas officials became aware of multiple visits to the city by reputed Kansas City mob members.
In January 2023, the Kansas City Star reported Cammisano, who it described as an underboss within Kansas City organized crime, died after a long illness that started with COVID. He was 73.
As for Peter Ribaste, a 1998 article in the Las Vegas Sun detailed Ribaste’s long ties to the Kansas City, alleging that at one point, he took direct orders from Kansas City mob boss Carl Civella and his underboss, Carl DeLuna.
In 1989, Ribaste moved to Las Vegas’ upscale Spanish Trails development, according to the newspaper. “He subsequently got into the car business here, buying into the Carriage Car III dealership on South Decatur, with the help of $100,000 loaned by Horseshoe Club co-owner Ted Binion, part of the reason gaming regulators later revoked Binion’s gaming license. Ribaste’s mob associations continued a year before his inclusion in the Black Book when he was observed in a car in Las Vegas with a “made member” of the Kansas City mob
Ribaste died in the spring 2021, reportedly also from COVID.
