January 7, 2023 — One-time Kansas City Black mob boss Eddie (Whitey) Cox gets an assist in the freeing of K.C. mafia soldier John Mandacina this week. Cox, who is the only Caucasian to ever lead an African-American criminal organization and known as an expert amateur jurist, helped attorneys for Manadcina draft legal briefs that earned him a sentence commutation and sprung him from a life sentence he was serving for a Civella crime family murder that occurred back in 1990.
The 88-year old Cox got himself a compassionate release for medical reasons in the summer of 2021. He pointed Mandacina in the same direction. U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs let Mandacina, 76. out of the Big House Friday because he is battling lung cancer. While Mandacina did 30 years as a guest of the government, Whitey Cox did almost 32 before seeing freedom 18 months ago.
Cox co-founded the Kansas City’s Black Mafia on the city’s eastside in 1968 along with James (Doc) Dearborn and Eugene (Jimmy the Seal) Richardson, overseeing a vast empire of gambling, drugs, loan sharking, extortion and prostitution. Known for his sharp mind, gangland political savvy and innovative crimes, Cox was Dearborn’s main adviser and a diplomat in the area’s crime scene. Dearborn was killed mob-style in 1985, gunned down in a motel by the airport.