Al Capone
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|---|---|
Al Capone in 1930
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| Born |
Alphonse Gabriel Capone
January 17, 1899
New York City, U.S.
|
| Died | January 25, 1947 (aged 48)
Palm Island, Florida, U.S.
|
| Resting place | Mount Carmel Cemetery Hillside, Illinois, U.S. |
| Other names | Scarface, Big Al, Big Boy, Public Enemy No. 1, Snorky |
| Occupation | Gangster, bootlegger, racketeer, boss of Chicago Outfit |
| Known for | Boss of the Chicago Outfit, and the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre |
| Spouse(s) |
Mae Coughlin (m. 1918)
|
| Children | 1 |
| Relatives | 8 siblings, including James Vincenzo Capone, Ralph Capone and Frank Capone |
| Allegiance | Chicago Outfit |
| Criminal charge | Tax evasion |
| Penalty | 11 years' imprisonment (1931) |
| Signature | |
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Alphonse Gabriel Capone (/kəˈpoʊn/, Italian: [kaˈpoːne]; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-founder and boss of the Chicago Outfit. His seven-year reign as a crime boss ended when he went to prison at the age of 33.
Capone was born in New York City in 1899 to Italian immigrant parents. He joined the Five Points Gang as a teenager, and became a bouncer in organized crime premises such as brothels. In his early twenties he moved to Chicago and became a bodyguard and trusted factotum for Johnny Torrio, head of a criminal syndicate that illegally supplied alcohol—the forerunner of the Outfit—and was politically protected through the Unione Siciliana. A conflict with the North Side Gang was instrumental in Capone's rise and fall. Torrio went into retirement after North Side gunmen almost killed him, handing control to Capone. Capone expanded the bootlegging business through increasingly violent means, but his mutually profitable relationships with mayor William Hale Thompson and the city's police meant he seemed safe from law enforcement.
Capone apparently reveled in attention, such as the cheers from spectators when he appeared at ball games. He made donations to various charities and was viewed by many as "modern-day Robin Hood". However, the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, in which seven gang rivals were murdered in broad daylight, damaged the public images of Chicago and Capone, leading influential citizens to demand government action and newspapers to dub Capone "Public Enemy No. 1".
The federal authorities became intent on jailing Capone, and prosecuted him in 1931 for tax evasion. During a highly publicized case, the judge admitted as evidence Capone's admissions of his income and unpaid taxes, made during prior (and ultimately abortive) negotiations to pay the government taxes he owed. He was convicted and sentenced to 11 years in federal prison. After conviction, he replaced his defense team with experts in tax law, and his grounds for appeal were strengthened by a Supreme Court ruling, but his appeal ultimately failed. Capone showed signs of neurosyphilis early in his sentence, and became increasingly debilitated before being released after almost eight years of incarceration. On January 25, 1947, he died of cardiac arrest after suffering a stroke.
Early life and education
The young Capone with his mother
Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 17, 1899. His parents were Italian immigrants Gabriele Capone (1865–1920) and Teresa Capone (née Raiola; 1867–1952). His father was a barber and his mother was a seamstress, both born in Angri, a small commune outside of Naples in the Province of Salerno.
Gabriele and Teresa had eight other children: Vincenzo Capone, who later changed his name to Richard Hart and became a Prohibition agent in Homer, Nebraska; Raffaele James Capone, also known as Ralph "Bottles" Capone, who took charge of his brother's beverage industry; Salvatore "Frank" Capone,
Ermina Capone, who died at the age of one, Ermino "John" Capone, Albert
Capone, Matthew Capone, and Mafalda Capone. Ralph and Frank worked with
him in his criminal empire. Frank did so until his death on April 1,
1924. Ralph ran the bottling companies (both legal and illegal) early on, and was also the front man for the Chicago Outfit for some time until he was imprisoned for tax evasion in 1932.
The Capone family first immigrated in 1893 from Southern Italy to Fiume (modern-day Rijeka, Croatia), a port city in what was then Austria-Hungary. That year, the family traveled from Fiume by ship to the U.S., where they settled at 95 Navy Street, in the Navy Yard section of downtown Brooklyn.
Gabriele Capone worked at a nearby barber shop at 29 Park Avenue. When
Al was 11, the Capone family moved to 38 Garfield Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
Capone showed promise as a student, but had trouble with the
rules at his strict parochial Catholic school. His schooling ended at
the age of 14, after he was expelled for hitting a female teacher in the
face. He worked at odd jobs around Brooklyn, including a candy store and a bowling alley. During this time, Capone was influenced by gangster Johnny Torrio, whom he came to regard as a mentor.
Career
Capone initially became involved with small-time gangs that included
the Junior Forty Thieves and the Bowery Boys. He then joined the
Brooklyn Rippers, and then the powerful Five Points Gang based in Lower Manhattan. During this time, he was employed and mentored by fellow racketeer Frankie Yale, a bartender in a Coney Island
dance hall and saloon called the Harvard Inn. Capone inadvertently
insulted a woman while working the door at a Brooklyn night club and was
slashed by her brother Frank Gallucio. The wounds led to the nickname
"Scarface" which Capone loathed. When he was photographed, he hid the scarred left side of his face, saying that the injuries were war wounds. He was called "Snorky" by his closest friends, a term for a sharp dresser.
Marriage and family
Capone married Mae Josephine Coughlin
at age 19, on December 30, 1918. She was Irish Catholic and earlier
that month had given birth to their son Albert Francis "Sonny" Capone
(1918–2004). Albert lost most of his hearing in his left ear as a child.
Capone was under the age of 21, and his parents had to consent in
writing to the marriage. By all accounts, the two had a happy marriage despite his criminal lifestyle.
Chicago
In 1919, Capone left New York City for Chicago at the invitation of Johnny Torrio, who was imported by crime boss James "Big Jim" Colosimo as an enforcer. Capone began in Chicago as a bouncer in a brothel, where he contracted syphilis. Timely use of Salvarsan probably could have cured the infection, but he apparently never sought treatment. In 1923, he purchased a small house at 7244 South Prairie Avenue in the Park Manor neighborhood on the city's south side for US$5,500.
In the early years of the decade, his name began appearing in newspaper
sports pages where he was described as a boxing promoter.
Torrio took over Colosimo's crime empire after Colosimo's murder on May
11, 1920, in which Capone was suspected of being involved.
Torrio headed an essentially Italian organized crime group that
was the biggest in the city, with Capone as his right-hand man. He was
wary of being drawn into gang wars and tried to negotiate agreements
over territory between rival crime groups. The smaller North Side Gang led by Dean O'Banion
(also known as Dion O'Banion) was of mixed ethnicity, and it came under
pressure from the Genna brothers who were allied with Torrio. O'Banion
found that Torrio was unhelpful with the encroachment of the Gennas into
the North Side, despite his pretensions to be a settler of disputes.
In a fateful step, Torrio either arranged for or acquiesced to the
murder of O'Banion at his flower shop on November 10, 1924. This placed Hymie Weiss at the head of the gang, backed by Vincent Drucci and Bugs Moran. Weiss had been a close friend of O'Banion, and the North Siders made it a priority to get revenge on his killers.
Al Capone was a frequent visitor to RyeMabee in Monteagle, Tennessee "when he was traveling between Chicago and his Florida estate in Miami."
Boss
Unemployed men outside a soup kitchen opened by Capone in Chicago during the Depression, February 1931
In January 1925, Capone was ambushed, leaving him shaken but unhurt.
Twelve days later, Torrio was returning from a shopping trip when he was
shot several times. After recovering, he effectively resigned and
handed control to Capone, age 26, who became the new boss of an
organization that took in illegal breweries and a transportation network
that reached to Canada, with political and law-enforcement protection.
In turn, he was able to use more violence to increase revenue. An
establishment that refused to purchase liquor from him often got blown
up, and as many as 100 people were killed in such bombings during the
1920s. Rivals saw Capone as responsible for the proliferation of
brothels in the city.
Capone indulged in custom suits, cigars, gourmet food and drink (his preferred liquor was Templeton Rye from Iowa),
and female companionship. He was particularly known for his flamboyant
and costly jewelry. His favorite responses to questions about his
activities were: "I am just a businessman, giving the people what they
want"; and, "All I do is satisfy a public demand." Capone had become a
national celebrity and talking point.
He based himself in Cicero, Illinois after using bribery and widespread intimidation to take over town council elections (such as the 1924 Cicero municipal elections), and this made it difficult for the North Siders to target him. His driver was found tortured and murdered, and there was an attempt on Weiss's life in the Chicago Loop.
On September 20, 1926, the North Side Gang used a ploy outside the
Capone headquarters at the Hawthorne Inn, aimed at drawing him to the
windows. Gunmen in several cars then opened fire with Thompson submachine guns
and shotguns at the windows of the first-floor restaurant. Capone was
unhurt and called for a truce, but the negotiations fell through. Three
weeks later, Weiss was killed outside the former O'Banion flower shop
North Side headquarters. The owner of Hawthorne's restaurant was a
friend of Capone's, and he was kidnapped and killed by Moran and Drucci
in January 1927.
The
entrance of Capone's mansion in Palm Island, Florida, located at 93
Palm Avenue. Capone bought the estate in 1928 and lived there until his
death in 1947.
Capone became increasingly security-minded and desirous of getting away from Chicago. As a precaution, he and his entourage would often show up suddenly at one of Chicago's train depots and buy up an entire Pullman sleeper car on a night train to Cleveland, Omaha, Kansas City, Little Rock, or Hot Springs,
where they would spend a week in luxury hotel suites under assumed
names. In 1928, Capone paid $40,000 to beer magnate August Busch for a
14-room retreat at 93 Palm Avenue on Palm Island, Florida, in Biscayne Bay between Miami and Miami Beach.
He never registered any property under his name. He did not even have a
bank account, but he always used Western Union for cash delivery,
although not more than $1,000. In an effort to clean up his image, Capone donated to charities and sponsored a soup kitchen in Chicago during the Depression.
Political alliances
The protagonists of Chicago's politics had long been associated with
questionable methods, and even newspaper circulation "wars", but the
need for bootleggers to have protection in city hall introduced a far
more serious level of violence and graft. Capone is generally seen as
having an appreciable effect in bringing about the victories of
Republican William Hale Thompson,
especially in the 1927 mayoral race when Thompson campaigned for a wide
open town, at one time hinting that he'd reopen illegal saloons.
Such a proclamation helped his campaign gain the support of Capone, and
he allegedly accepted a contribution of $250,000 from the gangster. In
the 1927 mayoral race, Thompson beat William Emmett Dever by a relatively slim margin. Thompson's powerful Cook County political machine
had drawn on the often-parochial Italian community, but this was in
tension with his highly successful courting of African Americans.
Capone continued to back Thompson. Voting booths were targeted by Capone's bomber James Belcastro in the wards where Thompson's opponents were thought to have support, on the polling day of April 10, 1928, in the so-called Pineapple Primary,
causing the deaths of at least 15 people. Belcastro was accused of the
murder of lawyer Octavius Granady, an African American who challenged
Thompson's candidate for the African American vote, and was chased
through the streets on polling day by cars of gunmen before being shot
dead. Four policemen were among those charged along with Belcastro, but
all charges were dropped after key witnesses recanted their statements.
An indication of the attitude of local law enforcement to Capone's
organization came in 1931 when Belcastro was wounded in a shooting;
police suggested to skeptical journalists that Belcastro was an
independent operator.
The 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre led to public disquiet about Thompson's alliance with Capone and was a factor in Anton J. Cermak winning the mayoral election on April 6, 1931.
Saint Valentine's Day Massacre
Capone was widely assumed to have been responsible for ordering the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre in an attempt to eliminate Bugs Moran, head of the North Side Gang.
Moran was the last survivor of the North Side gunmen; his succession
had come about because his similarly aggressive predecessors Vincent Drucci and Hymie Weiss had been killed in the violence that followed the murder of original leader Dean O'Banion.
To monitor their targets' habits and movements, Capone's men
rented an apartment across from the trucking warehouse and garage at
2122 North Clark Street, which served as Moran's headquarters. On the
morning of Thursday, February 14, 1929, Capone's lookouts signaled gunmen disguised as police officers to initiate a "police raid". The faux
police lined the seven victims along a wall and signaled for
accomplices armed with machine guns and shotguns. Photos of the slain
victims shocked the public and damaged Capone's reputation. Within days,
Capone received a summons to testify before a Chicago grand jury on
charges of federal Prohibition violations, but he claimed to be too
unwell to attend.
Capone was primarily known for ordering other men to do his dirty
work for him. One story, however, has Capone, having discovered that
three of his men—Scalise, Anselmi, and Giunta—were conspiring against
him with a rival gangster, Joe Aiello, reportedly arranging for the
conspirators to dine with him and his bodyguards. After a night of drinking, Capone beat the men with a baseball bat and then ordered his bodyguards to shoot them, a scene that was included in the 1987 film The Untouchables. Deirdre Bair, along with writers and historians such as William Elliot Hazelgrove, have questioned the veracity of the claim.
Bair questioned why "three trained killers could sit quietly and let
this happen", while Hazelgrove stated that Capone would have been "hard
pressed to beat three men to death with a baseball bat" and that he
would have instead let an enforcer perform the murders. However, despite claims that the story was first reported by author Walter Noble Burns in his 1931 book The One-way Ride: The red trail of Chicago gangland from prohibition to Jake Lingle, Capone biographers Max Allan Collins
and A. Brad Schwartz have found versions of the story in press coverage
shortly after the crime. Collins and Schwartz suggest that similarities
among reported versions of the story indicate a basis in truth and that
the Outfit deliberately spread the tale to enhance Capone's fearsome
reputation. George Meyer, an associate of Capone's, also claimed to have witnessed both the planning of the murders and the event itself.
Trials
Capone's cell at the now closed Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, where he spent about nine months starting in May 1929
On March 27, 1929, Capone was arrested by FBI agents as he left a
Chicago courtroom after testifying to a grand jury that was
investigating violations of federal prohibition laws. He was charged
with contempt of court for feigning illness to avoid an earlier
appearance. On May 16, 1929, Capone was arrested in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania for carrying a concealed weapon. On May 17, 1929, Capone
was indicted by a grand jury and a trial was held before Philadelphia
Municipal Court Judge John E Walsh. Following the entering of a guilty
plea by his attorney, Capone was sentenced to a prison term of one year. On August 8, 1929, Capone was transferred to Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary. A week after his release in March 1930, Capone was listed as the number one "Public Enemy" on the unofficial Chicago Crime Commission's widely publicized list.
In April 1930, Capone was arrested on vagrancy
charges when visiting Miami Beach; the governor had ordered sheriffs to
run him out of the state. Capone claimed that Miami police had refused
him food and water and threatened to arrest his family. He was charged
with perjury for making these statements, but was acquitted after a three-day trial in July.
In September, a Chicago judge issued a warrant for Capone's arrest on
charges of vagrancy, and then used the publicity to run against Thompson
in the Republican primary. In February 1931, Capone was tried on the contempt of court charge. In court, Judge James Herbert Wilkerson
intervened to reinforce questioning of Capone's doctor by the
prosecutor. Wilkerson sentenced Capone to six months, but he remained
free while on appeal of the contempt conviction.
Tax evasion
Assistant Attorney General Mabel Walker Willebrandt
recognized that mob figures publicly led lavish lifestyles yet never
filed tax returns, and thus could be convicted of tax evasion without
requiring hard evidence to get testimony about their other crimes. She
tested this approach by prosecuting a South Carolina bootlegger, Manley
Sullivan. In 1927, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Sullivan that the approach was legally sound: illegally earned income was subject to income tax; Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. rejected the argument that the Fifth Amendment protected criminals from reporting illegal income.
The IRS special investigation unit chose Frank J. Wilson
to investigate Capone, with the focus on his spending. The key to
Capone's conviction on tax charges was proving his income, and the most
valuable evidence in that regard originated in his offer to pay tax.
Ralph, his brother and a gangster in his own right, was tried for tax
evasion in 1930. Ralph spent the next three years in prison after being
convicted in a two-week trial over which Wilkerson presided.
Capone ordered his lawyer to regularize his tax position. Crucially,
during the ultimately abortive negotiations that followed, his lawyer
stated the income that Capone was willing to pay tax on for various
years, admitting income of $100,000 for 1928 and 1929, for instance.
Hence, without any investigation, the government had been given a letter
from a lawyer acting for Capone conceding his large taxable income for
certain years. On March 13, 1931, Capone was charged with income tax evasion for 1924, in a secret grand jury.
On June 5, 1931, Capone was indicted by a federal grand jury on 22
counts of income tax evasion from 1925 through 1929; he was released on
$50,000 bail. A week later, Eliot Ness and his team of Untouchables inflicted major financial damage on Capone's operations, and led to his indictment on 5,000 violations of the Volstead Act (Prohibition laws).
On June 16, 1931, at the Chicago Federal Building in the courtroom of Judge James Herbert Wilkerson, Capone plead guilty to income tax evasion and the 5,000 Volstead Act violations as part of a 2 1⁄2-year prison sentence plea bargain. However, on July 30, 1931, Judge Wilkerson refused to honor the plea bargain, and Capone's counsel rescinded the guilty pleas.
On the second day of the trial, Judge Wilkerson overruled objections
that a lawyer could not confess for his client, saying that anyone
making a statement to the government did so at his own risk. Wilkerson
deemed that the 1930 letter to federal authorities could be admitted
into evidence from a lawyer acting for Capone.
Wilkerson later tried Capone only on the income tax evasion charges as
he determined they took precedence over the Volstead Act charges.
Capone's FBI criminal record in 1932, showing most of his criminal charges were discharged/dismissed
Much was later made of other evidence, such as witnesses and ledgers,
but these strongly implied Capone's control rather than stating it.
Capone's lawyers, who had relied on the plea bargain Judge Wilkerson
refused to honor and therefore had mere hours to prepare for the trial,
ran a weak defense focused on claiming that essentially all his income
was lost to gambling.
This would have been irrelevant regardless, since gambling losses can
only be subtracted from gambling winnings, but it was further undercut
by Capone's expenses, which were well beyond what his claimed income
could support; Judge Wilkerson allowed Capone's spending to be presented
at very great length. The government charged Capone with evasion of $215,000 in taxes on a total income of $1,038,654, during the five-year period. Capone was convicted on three counts of income tax evasion on October 17, 1931,
and was sentenced a week later to 11 years in federal prison, fined
$50,000 plus $7,692 for court costs, and was held liable for $215,000
plus interest due on his back taxes. The contempt of court sentence was served concurrently. New lawyers hired to represent Capone were Washington-based tax experts. They filed a writ of habeas corpus
based on a Supreme Court ruling that tax evasion was not fraud, which
apparently meant that Capone had been convicted on charges relating to
years that were actually outside the time limit for prosecution.
However, a judge interpreted the law so that the time that Capone had
spent in Miami was subtracted from the age of the offences, thereby
denying the appeal of both Capone's conviction and sentence.
Imprisonment
Cell 181 in Alcatraz where Capone was imprisoned
Capone was sent to Atlanta U.S. Penitentiary in May 1932, aged 33. Upon his arrival at Atlanta, the 250-pound (110 kg) Capone was officially diagnosed with syphilis and gonorrhoea.
He was also suffering from withdrawal symptoms from cocaine addiction,
the use of which had perforated his nasal septum. Capone was competent
at his prison job of stitching soles on shoes for eight hours a day, but
his letters were barely coherent.
He was seen as a weak personality, and so out of his depth dealing with
bullying fellow inmates that his cellmate, seasoned convict Red Rudensky,
feared that Capone would have a breakdown. Rudensky was formerly a
small-time criminal associated with the Capone gang, and found himself
becoming a protector for Capone.
The conspicuous protection of Rudensky and other prisoners drew
accusations from less friendly inmates, and fueled suspicion that Capone
was receiving special treatment. No solid evidence ever emerged, but it
formed part of the rationale for moving Capone to the recently opened Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary off the coast of San Francisco, in August 1934. On June 23, 1936, Capone was stabbed and superficially wounded by fellow-Alcatraz inmate James C. Lucas.
At Alcatraz, Capone's decline became increasingly evident as neurosyphilis progressively eroded his mental faculties, his formal diagnosis of syphilis of the brain was made in February 1938. He spent the last year of his Alcatraz sentence in the hospital section, confused and disoriented. Capone completed his term in Alcatraz on January 6, 1939, and was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island in California to serve out his sentence for contempt of court. He was paroled on November 16, 1939, after his wife Mae appealed to the court, based on his reduced mental capabilities diagnosed.
Chicago aftermath
The main effect of Capone's conviction was that he ceased to be boss
immediately on his imprisonment, but those involved in the jailing of
Capone portrayed it as considerably undermining the city's organized crime syndicate. Capone's underboss, Frank Nitti
took over as boss of the Outfit after he was released from prison in
March 1932, having also been convicted of tax evasion charges.
Far from being smashed, the Outfit continued without being troubled by
the Chicago police, but at a lower level and without the open violence
that had marked Capone's rule. Organized crime in the city had a lower
profile once Prohibition
was repealed, already wary of attention after seeing Capone's notoriety
bring him down, to the extent that there is a lack of consensus among
writers about who was actually in control and who was a figurehead
"front boss".
Prostitution, labor union racketeering, and gambling became moneymakers
for organized crime in the city without incurring serious
investigation. In the late 1950s, FBI agents discovered an organization
led by Capone's former lieutenants reigning supreme over the Chicago
underworld.
Failing health and death
Due to his failing health, Capone was released from prison on November 16, 1939, and referred to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for the treatment of paresis (caused by late-stage syphilis). Hopkins refused to admit him on his reputation alone, but Union Memorial Hospital
accepted him. Capone was grateful for the compassionate care that he
received and donated two Japanese weeping cherry trees to Union Memorial
Hospital in 1939. A very sickly Capone left Baltimore on March 20,
1940, after a few weeks of inpatient and a few weeks of outpatient care,
for Palm Island, Florida. In 1942, after mass production of penicillin was started in the United States, Capone was one of the first American patients treated by the new drug. Though it was too late for him to reverse the damage in his brain, it did slow down the progression of the disease.
In 1946, his physician and a Baltimore psychiatrist examined him
and concluded that Capone had the mentality of a 12-year-old child. Capone spent the last years of his life at his mansion in Palm Island, Florida, spending time with his wife and grandchildren. On January 21, 1947, Capone had a stroke. He regained consciousness and started to improve, but contracted bronchopneumonia. He suffered a cardiac arrest on January 22, and on January 25, surrounded by his family in his home, Capone died after his heart failed as a result of apoplexy. His body was transported back to Chicago a week later and a private funeral was held. He was originally buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Chicago. In 1950, Capone's remains, along with those of his father, Gabriele, and brother, Salvatore, were moved to Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois.
Capone's death certificate January 25, 1947
