Alphonse
Capone, aka. Al, Scarface
Born in Brooklyn,
New York, in 1899, of an immigrant family, Al Capone
quit school after the sixth grade and associated
with a notorious street gang, becoming accepted
as a member. Johnny Torrio was the street gang
leader and among the other members was Lucky Luciano,
who would later attain his own notoriety.
About
1920, at Torrio's invitation, Capone joined Torrio
in Chicago where he had become an influential lieutenant
in the Colosimo mob. The rackets spawned by enactment
of the Prohibition Amendment, illegal brewing, distilling
and distribution of beer and liquor, were viewed
as "growth industries." Torrio, abetted
by Al Capone, intended to take full advantage of
opportunities. The mobs also developed interests
in legitimate businesses, in the cleaning and dyeing
field, and cultivated influence with receptive public
officials, labor unions and employees' associations.
Torrio
soon succeeded to full leadership of the gang with
the violent demise of Big Jim Colosimo, and Capone
gained experience and expertise as his strong right
arm.
In
1925, Capone became boss when Torrio, seriously wounded
in an assassination attempt, surrendered control
and retired to Brooklyn. Capone had built a fearsome
reputation in the ruthless gang rivalries of the
period, struggling to acquire and retain "racketeering
rights" to several areas of Chicago. That reputation
grew as rival gangs were eliminated or nullified,
and the suburb of Cicero became, in effect, a fiefdom
of the Capone mob.
Perhaps
the St. Valentine's Day Massacre on February 14,
1929, might be regarded as the culminating violence
of the Chicago gang era, as seven members or associates
of the "Bugs" Moran mob were machine-gunned
against a garage wall by rivals posing as police.
The massacre was generally ascribed to the Capone
mob, although Al himself was then in Florida.
The
investigative jurisdiction of the Bureau of Investigation
during the 1920s and early 1930s was more limited
than it is now, and the gang warfare and depredations
of the period were not within the Bureau's investigative
authority.
The
Bureau's investigation of Al Capone arose from his
reluctance to appear before a Federal Grand Jury
on March 12, 1929, in response to a subpoena. On
March 11, his lawyers formally filed for postponement
of his appearance, submitting a physician's affidavit
dated March 5, which attested that Capone, in Miami,
had been suffering from bronchial pneumonia, had
been confined to bed from January 13 to February
23, and that it would be dangerous to Capone's health
to travel to Chicago. His appearance date before
the grand jury was re-set for March 20.
On
request of the U.S. Attorney's Office, Bureau of
Investigation Agents obtained statements to the effect
that Capone had attended race tracks in the Miami
area, that he had made a plane trip to Bimini and
a cruise to Nassau, and that he had been interviewed
at the office of the Dade County Solicitor, and that
he had appeared in good health on each of those occasions.
Capone
appeared before the Federal Grand Jury at Chicago
on March 20, 1929, and completed his testimony on
March 27. As he left the courtroom, he was arrested
by Agents for Contempt of Court, an offense for which
the penalty could be one year and a $1,000 fine.
He posted $5,000 bond and was released.
On
May 17, 1929, Al Capone and his bodyguard were arrested
in Philadelphia for carrying concealed deadly weapons.
Within 16 hours they had been sentenced to terms
of one year each. Capone served his time and was
released in nine months for good behavior on March
17, 1930.
On
February 28, 1936, Capone was found guilty in Federal
Court on the Contempt of Court charge and was sentenced
to six months in Cook County Jail. His appeal on
that charge was subsequently dismissed.
Meanwhile,
the U.S. Treasury Department had been developing
evidence on tax evasion charges - in addition to
Al Capone, his brother Ralph "Bottles" Capone,
Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik, Frank Nitti
and other mobsters were subjects of tax evasion charges.
On
June 16, 1931, Al Capone pled guilty to tax evasion
and prohibition charges. He then boasted to the press
that he had struck a deal for a two-and-one-half
year sentence, but the presiding judge informed him
he, the judge, was not bound by any deal. Capone
then changed his plea to not guilty.
On
October 18, 1931, Capone was convicted after trial,
and on November 24, was sentenced to eleven years
in Federal prison, fined $50,000 and charged $7,692
for court costs, in addition to $215,000 plus interest
due on back taxes. The six-month Contempt of Court
sentence was to be served concurrently.
While
awaiting the results of appeals, Capone was confined
to the Cook County Jail. Upon denial of appeals,
he entered the U.S. Penitentiary at Atlanta, serving
his sentence there and at Alcatraz.
On
November 16, 1939, Al Capone was released after having
served seven years, six months and fifteen days,
and having paid all fines and back taxes.
Suffering
from paresis derived from syphilis, he had deteriorated
greatly during his confinement. Immediately on release
he entered a Baltimore hospital for brain treatment,
and then went on to his Florida home, an estate on
Palm Island in Biscayne Bay near Miami, which he
had purchased in 1928.
Following
his release, he never publicly returned to Chicago.
He had become mentally incapable of returning to
gangland politics. In 1946, his physician and a Baltimore
psychiatrist, after examination, both concluded Al
Capone then had the mentality of a 12-year-old child.
Capone resided on Palm Island with his wife and immediate
family, in a secluded atmosphere, until his death
due to a stroke and pneumonia on January 25, 1947.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
REGARDING AL CAPONE
1. "Farewell,
Mr. Gangster!" Herbert Corey, D. Appleton-Century
Company, Inc., New York, New York, 1936
2. "The
FBI Story," Don Whitehead, Random House, New
York, New York, 1956
3. "Organized
Crime In America," Gus Tyler, University of
Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1962
4. "The
Dillinger Days," John Toland, Random House,
New York, New York, 1963
5. "The
Devil's Emissaries," Myron J. Quimby, A. S.
Barnes and Company, New York, New York, 1969
6. "Capone," John
Kobler, G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, New York,
1971
7. "Mafia,
USA," Nicholas Gage, Dell Publishing Company,
Inc., New York, New York, 1972
8. "The
Mobs And The Mafia," Hank Messick and Burt Goldblatt,
Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, New York, 1972
9. "Bloodletters
and Badmen," Jay Robert Nash, M. Evans and Company,
Inc., New York, New York, 1973
10. "G-Men:
Hoover's FBI in American Popular Culture," Richard
Gid Powers, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale,
Illinois, 1983
