The Trial of Al Capone (1931): An Account Wilson filed the letter away. A year later, the letter became the trial's most contentious piece of evidence. Wilson, not a person easily intimidated, continued to identify witnesses and amass incriminating evidence. One of the last and most important witnesses to be discovered was Fred Reis, the named payee on numerous large cashier checks that Treasury assumed found their way into Capone's coffers. Reis decided to talk after having four solitary days to think about it in a cockroach-infested jail in Danville, Illinois. He admitted, first to agents and then in testimony before a Chicago grand jury, that his boss was Capone, and that the checks represented Capone's net profits at his Cicero gambling hall. With Reis's statement, prosecutors decided they had enough evidence to go before a grand jury. (After completing his grand jury testimony, Reis was shipped off to South America for safekeeping until trial.) On March 13, two days before the statute of limitations would have run, the grand jury indicted Al Capone for evading federal income taxes in 1924.

Two months later, the grand jury added counts for the years 1925 to 1929. Over the three months that followed, Capone's attorneys met frequently with U. S. Attorney George E. Q. Johnson to discuss a possible plea bargain. With witnesses to try to keep alive and with thorny legal questions concerning the charges, Johnson was willing to listen, hoping to get a two-and-a-half year sentence out of the negotiations. With an agreement for the two-and-a-half year sentence apparently in place, Al Capone appeared on June 18, 1931 before Federal Judge James H. Wilkerson and entered a plea of guilty. Wilkerson adjourned court until July 30 to consider the plea. On the day before his expected sentencing, Capone told reporters, "I've been made an issue and I'm not complaining, but why don't they go after all those bankers who took the savings of thousands of poor people and lost them in bank failures?" The next day, Judge Wilkerson surprised nearly everyone.

Addressing Capone in his pea-green suit, Wilkerson announced, "The parties to a criminal case may not stipulate as to the judgment to be entered." There would be no plea bargain. There would be a trial. Wilkerson continued: "It is time for somebody to impress upon the defendant that it is utterly impossible to bargain with a Federal Court." The Trial Federal Judge James H. Wilkerson About two weeks before the scheduled start of the Capone trial, informant Eddie O'Hare notified Wilson that Capone's organization had a complete list of prospective jurors and was already "passing out $1,000 bills," promising political jobs, giving away tickets to prize fights, and "using muscle too." Skeptical of O'Hare's claim at first, Wilson quickly came around when O'Hare produced the names and addresses of ten jurors, names 30 to 39 on the jury list. Concerned that thousands of hours of work was about to go down the drain because of a fixed jury, Wilson and U. S. Attorney Johnson related O'Hare's story to Judge Wilkerson in his chambers.

Wilkerson told the men that he hadn't yet received his jury list for the Capone trial, but when he did he would call them. When the names on Wilkerson's list turned out to match exactly with the names on O'Hare's list, the judge met once again with Wilson and prosecutors. The judge seemed curiously unconcerned. "Bring your case into court as planned, gentlemen," he told the government's attorneys. "Leave the rest to me." The Trial of Alphonse Capone opened on the morning of October 5, 1931 at the federal courthouse in downtown Chicago. Capone, accompanied by his bodyguard, smiled at jurors as he strolled into court in his mustard-colored suit. Judge Wilkerson took his seat at the bench and looked out over the packed courtroom. He called the bailiff to the bench. "Judge Edwards has another trial commencing today," he told the bailiff. "Go to his courtroom and bring me his entire panel of jurors; take my entire panel to Judge Edwards." After a jury of twelve was seated, and after Assistant U. S.

Attorney Dwight Green outlined the 23 charges of tax evasion against Capone in the government's opening statement, George Johnson called his first witness. Charles W. Arndt, a tax collector for the United States, told jurors that Al Capone failed to file any tax return at all during for the years 1924 through 1929. The Hawthorne Hotel and Smoke Shop in Cicero, Illinois The prosecution presented evidence that Capone owned gambling halls and derived substantial profits from those businesses. Chester Bragg testified that when he participated in the citizens' raid on the Hawthorne Smoke Shop, a gambling hall in Cicero, Capone arrived on the scene. As Bragg guarded the front door while other citizens carted out gambling machines and loaded them into trucks, Capone attempted to push his way in. Bragg testified that he asked Capone, "What the hell--do you think this is a party?" and that Capone answered, "I'm the owner of this place." Reverend Henry Hoover, leader of the Cicero raid, also testified .

Hoover said that Capone complained to him during the raid, " Why are you fellows always picking on me?” and warned, "This is the last raid you'll ever pull." Leslie Shumway, the cashier at the Hawthorne Smoke Shop, presented the most damning evidence of the day. Shumway described the accounting procedures used at the gambling hall and estimated that the profits for the two years he worked there were over $550,000. When Shumway balked at positively identifying Capone as the owner of the establishment, prosecutors tried a different tack, asking questions whose answers seemed to assume Capone exercised control over the business.

Jacob Grossman asked Shumway, "Did you any time after that have any conversation with Al Capone about carrying money over there?" The witness answered, "It was some time later that Al asked me what I would do if I got stuck up, and I told him, I says, 'I would just let them take it,' and he says, 'That is right.'” On October 8, the courtroom erupted in heated debate when the prosecution sought to introduce the letter of Capone's tax lawyer, Lawrence Mattingly , which expressed his willingness to settle his client's tax liability for the years 1924 to 1929. Defense attorney Albert Fink argued, "A lawyer cannot confess for his client." Surely, Fink noted, Capone never meant to give Mattingly the "authority to make statements that may get him into the penitentiary." The controversy developed with Frank Wilson on the stand , describing the events in his office the previous fall when Mattingly first tossed the letter in his direction with the statement, “This is the best we can do. Mr.

Capone is willing to pay the tax on these figures.” After argument on the letter's admissibility with the jury excused, Judge Wilkerson announced his decision: the letter would be admitted to show that the statement was made, but the contents of the letter could not be considered by the jury as proof of the statements made. A series of prosecution witnesses presented evidence of Capone's lavish lifestyle. Parker Henderson testified that he sold Capone his Palm Island, Florida estate, with the title placed in his wife's name. "I asked Al if he was interested in buying any property and he said he was," Henderson told jurors. "So we made an appointment with him and carried him out and showed him several places. This place on Palm Island he seemed to like very much. Later he told me he had decided to take it. He gave me all money to put up the binder." Morrissey Smith , a clerk at Chicago's Metropole Hotel told jurors that Capone purchased the hotel's most expensive suites and hosted expensive parties.

Asked in what denominations Capone would pay his bills, Smith replied, " Oh, hundred dollar bills, sometimes five hundred dollar bills." Smith's comment prompted gasps from many of the courtroom's Depression-impoverished spectators. Florida dock-builder H. F. Ryder testified that he saw enough money in Capone's Palm Island estate cupboard "to choke an ox." The final key witness for the prosecution was Fred Reis, cashier of the Cicero gambling house in 1927. Reis placed the hall's profits for 1927 at "around $150,000." Reis testified that he saw Capone when he was taking bets in the hall. "Capone came by and said, 'Hello, Reis.' I said, 'Hello, Al.'” Jacob Grossman asked Reis about 43 cashier's checks, representing the hall's profits, that were purchased from a Cicero bank. Reis testified that he had bought the checks (made out to "J.C. Dunbar," an alias used by Reis) and turned them over to Bobby Barton. Underneath the signature of "J.C.

Dunbar" on one of the checks was the signature of Al Capone. The defense presented its case in a single day. Defense attorneys tried to present Capone as a horse-racing addict who lost as much money as his businesses earned during the years in question. (Gambling losses are only deductible against gambling winnings, so even if the defense testimony was accepted, it would hardly have absolved Capone from his duty to pay taxes on the income from his many businesses.) Bookie Milton Held testified that Capone lost "three or four hundred dollars" at a time betting on horses, and that he was a consistent loser. Oscar Gutter , another bookie, estimated that Capone lost $60,000 betting with him in 1927. After its parade of six bookies had ended, the defense rested its case, having shown that Capone might have lost $327,000 in six years of betting. The team of prosecution lawyers that convicted Al Capone (U.S. Attorney George E. Q.

Johnson is seated) In his summation for the defense, Albert Fink told the jury to stand as a bulwark against an oppressive government that was just using the tax law "as a means to stow Al Capone away." He described the government's evidence against his client as "chaff" that "does not prove gross income." He urged the jury not convict Capone merely because he was "a bad man": "He may be the worst man who ever lived, but there is not a scintilla of evidence that he willfully attempted to defraud the government out of income tax." Then Fink switched gears and concluded by arguing that far from being a bad man, Capone was "open-handed," "generous," and "the kind of man who never fails a friend." Capone was not the type of "miser" or "tinhorn" or "piker" who would try to cheat the government out of its due, Fink said. Michael Ahern, summing second for the defense, returned to the theme of an oppressive government bent on using questionable means to put Capone in jail to satisfy the newspapers and the persecutors.

"You, gentlemen," he told the jury, "are the last barrier between the defendant and the encroachment and perversion of the government and the law in this case." Prosecutor Jacob Grossman noted in his summation that Capone described himself as "a gambler, a realtor, a cleaner and a presser and a dog race-track owner." He pointed out that the defendant lived "like a bejeweled prince" and "spent thousands of dollars without thinking twice." Samuel Clawson emphasized the incriminating nature of the "Mattingly letter," which he said proved that Capone knew he was guilty of tax evasion. He added that "even a child" could deduce from Capone's lavish lifestyle that he had a huge income. The last lawyer to address the jury was U. S. Attorney George Johnson . Johnson said, "This is a case that future generations will remember....They will remember it because it will establish whether a man can so conduct his affairs that he is above the government and above the law." At 2:42 P.M. on October 18, the jury left the courtroom to begin its deliberations. They filed back into the courtroom eight hours later with their verdict in hand .

When the clerk pronounced the word "Guilty" (on the charge of tax evasion for 1925) reporters dashed to phones to report the news. Six days later, Judge Wilkerson imposed a prison sentence of eleven years, the longest term ever handed down for tax evasion. Capone, as he was led in handcuffs to a courtroom elevator, yelled, "I'm not through fighting yet." Appeals failed . Capone served time in federal penitentiaries in Atlanta and at Alcatraz. In November 1939, after serving less than eight years, he was released while suffering from paresis caused by untreated syphilis. On January 25, 1947, Capone died of a stroke in Palm Island, Florida.

October 17, 1931, Al Capone Convicted At Trial Of Income Tax Evasion - Today In Crime History - DeThomasis and Buchanan | Gainesville Criminal Defense Attorneys | Blog and News October 17, 1931, Al Capone Convicted At Trial Of Income Tax Evasion - Today In Crime History Posted by Michael Buchanan on Mon, 17 October 2011 Bookmark On this day, October 17, in the year 1931, Chicago mob boss Al Capone was convicted at a jury trial in federal court of charges of income tax evasion. In the late 1920s, largely as a result of the prohibition of alcohol, Capone, known as "Scarface," built a crime empire in Chicago involving bootlegging, gambling and prostitution. For years, federal law enforcement officers in the Bureau of Prohibition tried to build criminal cases against Capone for the actual criminal activity they believed he led involving the manufacture and sale of alcoholic beverages.

In one massive grand jury indictment, Capone and sixty-eight members of his criminal enterprise were charged with some 5,000 separate violations of the Volstead Act (the legislation which established prohibition in the United States), some of them going back to 1922. Ultimately, however, federal prosecutors decided that they were more likely to obtain criminal convictions against Capone for tax evasion and in 1931 he was indicted and charged with 22 counts of tax evasion. Initially, Capone’s criminal defense lawyer negotiated a plea deal with federal prosecutors for a sentencing range of 2 to 5 years. When word of the proposed plea deal leaked, the national press was outraged that Capone would get off with such a light sentence. When the proposed plea negotiation was announced in open Court, the presiding federal judge rejected the deal saying, "The parties to a criminal case may not stipulate as to the judgment to be entered ... It is time for somebody to impress upon the defendant that it is utterly impossible to bargain with a federal court." Capone opted for a jury trial.

Capone’s jury trial on the tax evasion charges began on October 6, 1931 and ended with closing arguments on October 17, 1931. In his final presentation to the jury the prosecutor argued as follows: "At any time, at any place, has this defendant ever appeared in a reputable business? Has there appeared a single instance of contact with a reputable business? What a picture we have in this case: no income, but diamond belt buckles, twenty-seven- dollar shirts, furnishings for his home -- $116,000 that is not deductible from his income. And yet [defense] counsel comes here and argues to you that the man has no income!" After nine hours of discussion, the jury completed its deliberation and found Capone guilty of five counts of tax evasion and acquitted him of the remaining seventeen counts. Seven days later the federal judge sentenced Capone to eleven years incarceration and almost $150,000 in fines and court costs. The judge denied the defense attorney’s motion to allow Capone to stay out of prison while his appeal was completed. Capone was on a train to prison less than a week after his sentence, ultimately serving time at Alcatraz.

Capone would not be parole until late 1939. When he finally got out, he was too physically ill to continue his life of crime. Capone died in 1947. On this day in 1931: Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion | Crime | Pinellas County News On this day in 1931: Al Capone was convicted of tax evasion Submitted by West Side Stories , by M. Abbott, Multimedia Reporter Monday, October 17th, 2011, 9:28am Topics: Print E-mail While other parts of the country claim: “Washington or Lincoln slept here”, it seems every hotel or home in St. Petersburg lays claim that at one time or another Al Capone or Babe Ruth was housed there. On this day, October 17, in 1931, mobster, murderer and Public Enemy #1, Al Capone, also known as “Scarface” was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison. The jury took nine hours to find Capone guilty on five counts of income tax evasion.

Capone was sent to Alcatraz from 1932-1939. During the Roaring Twenties In St. Petersburg, it is said Capone often hung out at the Gangplank Nightclub in the Jungle part of St. Petersburg’s newly developing luxurious west side. With the Jungle Hotel and Resort (now the Admiral Farragut Academy) and the Jungle Prada Shopping center (said to be America’s first mall), flappers and dandies danced the night away at the Gangplank. It is rumored that Capone may have been one of the nightclub’s owners and that his safe is still safe and sound at today’s Max and Sam’s Restaurant located in the area of the famous Gangplank. There was a airplane landing strip in the area of the present day Tyrone Mall and supposedly the mobster hopped in and out of St. Petersburg via the twin winged airplanes of the time. The 1925 Florida Land boom was a lure to the area just as the boom of the early 2000’s. Capone allegedly teamed up with three other men to form Manro Corp. in St. Petersburg.

They bought 10 acres around 1300 49th Street North, 28 acres around 40th Street and 22 Avenue south (now the Twin Brooks golf course), and several beach lots. Capone also made small loans to people seeking to buy St. Petersburg properties. An article about Al Capone, the St. Petersburg Times on 4/17/09 reads: “Capone specifically mentioned St. Petersburg at a press gathering in 1927. At the time, Capone was getting fed up with his reputation as a killer and decided to leave town. ‘I'm going to St. Petersburg, Florida, tomorrow," he said. Let the worthy citizens of Chicago get their liquor the best they can. I'm sick of the job - it's a thankless one and full of grief. I don't know when I'll get back, if ever. But it won't be until after the holidays, anyway.’ F. Scott Fitzgerald’s jazz age tale “The Great Gatsby” could easily have been set here in St. Petersburg. In the 1920’s St.

Petersburg was a boomtown full of high rollers like Jack Taylor and Walter Fuller. All were competing to top each other. During this Florida land boom thousands of speculators were coming into St. Petersburg every month and millions of dollars were being exchanged. Ken Burn’s recently released documentary, “Prohibition” relates what led up to the 18th Amendment that prohibited making, selling or distributing liquor and brought about the perfect match for Al Capone’s criminal talents - bootlegging. Burns pointed out that "By 1830, the average American over 15 years old consumed nearly seven gallons of pure alcohol a year – three times as much as we drink today – and alcohol abuse (primarily by men) was wreaking havoc on the lives of many, particularly in an age when women had few legal rights and were utterly dependent on their husbands for sustenance and support." But before Congress could pass the Prohibition Amendment, it needed to replace America's reliance on alcohol for revenue. The Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1913 imposing the national income tax took care of that impediment. The national income tax soon became the chief source of revenue replacing alcohol.

According to Burns, "Prohibition cost the federal government a total of $11 billion in lost tax revenue, while costing over $300 million to enforce. The most lasting consequence was that many states and the federal government would come to rely on income tax revenue to fund their budgets going forward." It looked like Prohibition was here to stay — until the Great Depression when income-tax revenues nose-dived. From 1930 to 1931, income-tax revenues fell by 15 percent. In 1932 they fell another 37 percent; 1932 income-tax revenues were 46 percent lower than just two years earlier. And by 1933 they were fully 60 percent lower than in 1930. Very similar to what is happening with our economy today. With no end of the Depression in sight, Washington had to find a substitute source of revenue and came full circle back to legalizing and taxing alcohol production and sales. The 18th Amendment was repealed by the 21st Amendment. Liquor-tax revenues rolled in again, but they did not fully compensate for lost income-tax revenues.

So while Prohibition was repealed, the Federal Income Tax remained and so it remains today. As the Presidential Debates go on and Candidate’s propose a 9-9-9 Tax Plan, the Fair Tax, Tax the Rich, it is hard to believe that federal income tax was not always here or that once it was a simple short form that the average citizen could complete themselves. Now the tax code is a complicated tangle of nearly 72,000 pages and as the saying goes there are only two certain things in this world - death and taxes. Topics: On This Day: Al Capone Convicted of Income Tax Evasion On This Day: Al Capone Convicted of Income Tax Evasion October 17, 2011 06:00 AM by findingDulcinea Staff On Oct. 17, 1931, Chicago gangster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and later sentenced to 11 years in federal prison, ending his control of the Chicago underworld.

The Rise and Fall of Al Capone Brooklyn-born Al Capone followed gangster Johnny Torrio , a member of Big Jim Colosimo’s criminal organization, to Chicago in 1921, just as the Colosimo mob had begun to exploit the growing bootlegging industry in Chicago. In 1925, Torrio, who had succeeded Colosimo, was seriously wounded; Capone took over as mob boss. Based out of Cicero, Ill., Capone controlled many speakeasies and casinos in and around Chicago. In 1929, he seized control of the Chicago underworld when his men killed at least seven members of Bugs Moran’s gang in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Capone “ built a fearsome reputation in the ruthless gang rivalries of the period , struggling to acquire and retain ‘racketeering rights’ to several areas of Chicago,” says the FBI. “That reputation grew as rival gangs were eliminated or nullified, and the suburb of Cicero became, in effect, a fiefdom of the Capone mob.” Capone was targeted by federal authorities. In May 1929, he was arrested and sentenced to a year in prison on a weapons charge.

He served nine months in a luxurious prison cell and resumed control of the mob upon his release, but his rule would be short-lived. In 1931, he was indicted for tax evasion. Sources in this Story Al Capone Trial: Anniversary of Gangster's Conviction SHARE PhotoQuest / Getty Images A November 1930 mugshot of Chicago gangster Al Capone Oct. 17, 1931: Al Capone is convicted of income tax evasion and later sentenced to 11 years in prison Here’s a friendly regular reminder of why you should pay your taxes: Al Capone, the Chicago mob boss known for making the city’s bloody bootlegging business even bloodier, faced trial in 1931 — not for the dozens of murders he is suspected of engineering, but for the $215,000 in taxes he never paid on more than a million dollars in illegal earnings. Instead of a body count, prosecutors totaled the lavish expenditures that made Al Capone one of the flashiest figures of the Prohibition era. According to the New York Times’ account of the trial, Federal Attorney G. E. Q.

Johnson harped on the extravagance of Capone’s $135 suits and $27 silk shirts — which, “ in the stress and passion of his talk ,” the prosecutor sometimes referred to as $27,000 silk shirts. The expenses got bigger: $6,500 spent on meat to feed guests at Capone’s nightly poker parties, $8,000 on diamond belt buckles, $116,000 lost on horse races. The idea was that Capone’s expenses would prove that he had once had the money that had gone unreported. The list went on, as TIME reported : Witnesses from Florida said Capone had spent $40,000 for his Palm Island home, $100,000 to improve it, swore to a $6,500 meat bill, a $2,085 hotel bill, a $9,000 telephone bill, asserted he distributed $5 tips and spent thousands of dollars on cakes and macaroni. Prize Miami witness was one H. F. Ryder, a garrulous carpenter whose $1,011 bill had been paid by “Mr. Al—Mr.

Capone—the gentleman there.” Witness Ryder said Capone’s friends “gave me a sandwich sometimes,” thought “Mr. Al was a mighty fine man,” even though he still owed him $125. He told of being paid $250 from “a roll that would choke an ox”—as big as Judge Wilkerson’s fist. “There were money wrappers by the handful around the place. All marked $1,000.” But when, on this day — Oct. 17 — in 1931, the jury returned their verdict, Capone was found guilty of only five of the 23 charges against him. Both the prosecutors and defense attorneys were puzzled; Capone’s attorney, unsure what he was hearing, asked for the verdict to be read a second time. Capone, on the other hand, “ grinned as though he felt he had gotten off easily ,” despite the fact that the five counts still carried a potentially heavy sentence. It’s unlikely his grin lasted through his sentencing hearing in November, since the 11-year term the judge imposed was then a record-breaking penalty for tax fraud.

The costs of Capone’s years of extravagant living caught up with him behind bars, where he suffered from dementia related to late-stage syphilis. By the time he was released, his physician concluded that he had the mental capacity of a 12-year-old . He never returned to gang life, or — at least publicly — to Chicago. Read TIME’s original coverage of Capone’s trial, here in the archives: Who Wouldn’t Be Worried? Al Capone | Organized Crime Encyclopedia Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia Organized Crime Encyclopedia Wiki January 17, 1899 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. Died January 25, 1947 (aged 48) Palm Island (Florida), U.S.

Gender Chicago Outfit/Head of the Outfit Status Mount Carmel Cemetery, but he was originally buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois Predecessor Paul Ricca "faggot." - Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone (January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), popularly known as Al Capone, was an American gangster who led a crime syndicate dedicated to the smuggling and bootlegging of liquor and other illegal activities during the Prohibition Era of the 1920s and 1930s. Born in Brooklyn, New York New York, to southwest Italy emigrants Gabriele and Teresina Capone, Capone began his career in Brooklyn before moving to Chicago and becoming the boss of the criminal organization known as the Chicago Outfit (although his business card reportedly described him as a used furniture dealer). By the end of the 1920s, Capone had gained the attention of the Federal Bureau of Investigation following his being placed on the Chicago Crime Commission’s “public enemies” list.

Although never successfully convicted of racketeering charges, Capone’s criminal career ended in 1931, when he was indicted and convicted by the federal government for income tax invasion. Contents Edit Capone was born to Gabriele Capone (December 12, 1864 – November 14, 1920) and his wife Teresina Raiola (December 28, 1867 – November 29, 1952) in Brooklyn, on January 17, 1899. Gabriele was a barber from Castellammare di Stabia, a town about 15 miles (24 km) south of Naples, Italy. Teresina was a seamstress and the daughter of Angelo Raiola from Angri, a town in the province of Salerno in southwestern Italy. The Capones had emigrated to the United States in 1894 and settled in the Navy Yard section of downtown Brooklyn. When Al was 14, the Capone family moved to 21 Garfield Place in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

The new home was where Al met Mae Josephine Coughlin, whom he married a few years later at St. Mary’s Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church, and gangster Johnny Torrio. Gabriele and Teresina had seven sons and two daughters:Edwardo Capone (1852 – October 1, 1952), Raffaele Capone (January 12, 1894 – November 22, 1974), Salvatore Capone (January 1895 – April 1, 1924) Alphonse Gabriel Capone (January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), Erminio Capone (born 1901, date of death unknown), Umberto Capone (1906 – June 1980), Matthew Capone (1908 – January 31, 1967), Rose Capone (born and died 1910) and Mafalda Capone (later Mrs. John J.

Maritote, January 28, 1912 – March 25, 1988). Early Criminal Days Edit Capone’s life of crime began early. As a teenager, he joined two gangs, the Brooklyn Rippers and engaged in petty crime. Capone left school in the sixth-grade at age 14, after being expelled for punching a teacher in the crotch at Public School 133. He then worked at odd jobs around Brooklyn, including in a candy store and a bowling alley. After his initial stint with small-time gangs, Capone joined the notorious Five Points Gang, headed by Frankie Yale. It was at this time he began working as a bartender and a bouncer at Yale’s establishment, the seedy Harvard Inn. It was there that Capone got the scars that gave him the nickname “Scarface”. Capone was still working for Frankie Yale and is thought to have committed at least two murders before being sent to Chicago in 1919, mainly to avoid the retribution of Bill Lovett, a violent lieutenant in the White Hand Gang, who was busy searching for Capone who had supposedly hospitalized one of his subordinates.

Capone was familiar with Chicago, having been sent there previously by Yale in order to help crime boss James “Big Jim” Colosimo dispose of a troublesome group of Black Hand extortionists. Capone went to work for Colosimo’s empire under Giovanni “Johnny” Torrio, another Brooklyn native. Capone also met a man named Anthony Accetturo, who he helped in many things. Accetturo repaid him by killing Capone’s slight enemies. Accetturo was at Capone’s court hearing for tax evasion. Orgin of the nickname Edit When he was working as a waiter for a young couple, he turn down his mom in sex for his wife down and said to the woman, “Honey, you have a nice ass dick and I mean that as a compliment.” Her brother, Frank Gallucio, pulled a knife and slashed Capone in the face three times before leaving the bar with his sister. Word of the fight eventually reached Yale, who forced Capone to apologize to Gallucio. This incident caused Yale to take Capone under his wing and eventually led to his rule over the Chicago Outfit.

It is speculated that Capone forgave Frank Gallucio and even hired him as a bodyguard later in his career. However, the knife wounds left gruesome scars, which plagued Capone for the rest of his life. He truly disliked this sobriquet and once, allegedly, killed another man because he called him that. Personal Life Edit On December 30, 1918, Capone married Mae Josephine Coughlin, an Irish woman, who, shortly before their marriage, had given birth to his son, Albert Francis (“Sonny”) Capone. The couple lived in Brooklyn before moving to Amityville, Long Island, to be close to “Rum Row.” immediately recognized Capone’s talents, and soon Capone was elevated to running the Four Deuces bar and given responsibility for much of the alcohol and prostitution rackets in the city of Chicago. With prohibition in full effect, there was a fortune to be made in bootlegging. Colosimo’s reluctance to move into this area of crime led to his murder on May 11, 1920, in the foyer of his own nightclub. Yale was later arrested for the murder, but the case collapsed through lack of evidence.

Torrio was now in charge and promoted Capone to be his second in command. The Capone family moved to Chicago for good, buying a red-brick bungalow at 7244 South Prairie Avenue on the city’s South Side. The house served as Al Capone’s first headquarters. Cicero,Illinois Edit After the 1923 election of reform mayor William Emmett Dever in Chicago, Chicago’s city government began to put pressure on the gangster elements inside the city limits. To put its headquarters outside of city jurisdiction and create a safe zone for its operations, the Capone organization muscled its way into Cicero, Illinois. This led to one of Capone’s greatest triumphs: the takeover of Cicero’s town government in 1924. The 1924 town council elections in Cicero became known as one of the most crooked elections in the Chicago area’s long history, with voters threatened at polling stations by thugs. Capone’s mayoral candidate won by a huge margin but only weeks later announced that he would run Capone out of town.

Capone met with his puppet-mayor and personally knocked him down the town hall steps, a powerful assertion of gangster power and a major victory for the Torrio-Capone alliance. For Capone, this event was marred by the death of his brother Frank at the hands of the police. As was the custom amongst gangsters Capone signaled his mourning by attending the funeral unshaven, and he cried openly at the gathering. He ordered the closure of all the speakeasies in Cicero for a day as a mark of respect. Much of Capone’s family put down roots in Cicero as well. In 1930, Capone’s sister Mafalda’s marriage to John J. Maritote took place at St. Mary of Czestochowa, a massive Neogothic edifice towering over Cicero Avenue in the so-called Polish Cathedral style. Power and wealth in Chicago Edit Severely injured in a 1925 assassination attempt by the North Side Gang, the shaken Torrio turned over his business to Capone and returned to Italy.

Capone was notorious during the Prohibition Era for his control of large portions of the Chicago underworld, which provided the Outfit with an estimated US$10 million per year in revenue. This wealth was generated through all manner of illegal enterprises, although the largest money-maker was the sale of liquor. Demand was met by a transportation network that moved smuggled liquor from the rum-runners of the East Coast and The Purple Gang in Detroit and local production in the form of Midwestern moonshine operations and illegal breweries. With the funds generated by his bootlegging operation, Capone’s grip on the political and law enforcement establishments in Chicago grew stronger. Through this organized corruption, which included the bribing of Mayor of Chicago William “Big Bill” Hale Thompson, Capone’s gang operated largely free from legal intrusion, operating brothels, casinos and speakeasies throughout Chicago. Wealth also permitted Capone to indulge in a luxurious lifestyle of custom suits, cigars, gourmet food and drink (his preferred liquor was Templeton Rye from Iowa), jewelry and female companionship.

However, this unprecedented level of criminal success drew the attention of Capone’s rivals, particularly his bitter rivalries with North Side gangsters such as Levi Rivaille, Eren Jaeger and lieutenant Erwin Smith. Such opposition led to attempts to assassinate Capone throughout the 1920s. He was shot in a restaurant, and he had his car riddled with bullets more than once. These attacks prompted Capone to order the outfitting of his Cadillac with armor plating, bullet-proof glass, run-flat tires, and a police siren. However, most of the would-be assassins were incompetent, and Capone was never seriously wounded. But, it should be noted that although Capone was never hurt, every attempt on his life left him increasingly shaken and slightly afraid of Moran who most certainly had an involvement in almost every attempt. Members of the gang that had wounded Torrio shot into the headquarters of Capone’s gang, which was disguised as a doctor’s office and an antique dealer’s shop. Nobody was hurt in the raid (Capone’s bodyguard threw him to the ground at the first sound of gunfire), although the headquarters was riddled with bullet holes.

This event scared Capone to no end and forced him to call for truce, one that would be short-lived.When the headquarters moved to the Lexington Hotel, Capone had it filled with his armed bodyguards around the clock. For his trips away from Chicago, Capone was reputed to have had several other retreats and hideouts located in Brookfield, Wisconsin; Saint Paul, Minnesota; Olean, New York; French Lick, as well as Terre Haute, Indiana; Dubuque, Iowa; Hot Springs, Arkansas; Johnson City, Tennessee; and Lansing, Michigan. Tunnels found under the city of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, are said to have been another hideout of Capone’s.[3] As a further precaution, Capone and his entourage would often suddenly show up at a one of Chicago’s train depots and buy up an entire Pullman sleeper car on night trains to places like Cleveland, Omaha, Kansas City and Little Rock/Hot Springs, Ark. where they would spend a week in a luxury hotel suite under assumed names (with the apparent knowledge and blessing of local authorities). In 1928, Capone bought a retreat on Palm Island, Florida.

In retrospect, these security measures seem excessive and based on paranoid ideation. Nevertheless, Capone’s fear of being killed was quite understandable in light of the North Side’ repeated attempts to eliminate him. The fusilade launched against his headquarters where at least ten gunmen blasted away at him for over ten minutes must have been particularly unnerving. Capone considered Moran to be a homicidal lunatic (for good reason) and lived in continuous fear of him and his gang of brutal thugs. Even in his last days, as he lay ravaged by syphilis, Capone raved on about Moran (as well as communists and foreigners) whom he was convinced was still plotting to do him in from the confines of his Ohio prison cell. Capone`s Image Edit Part of the reason Capone was taken to task in this way was his status as a celebrity. On the advice of his publicist, he stopped hiding from the media by the mid-1920s and began to make public appearances. When Charles Lindbergh performed his famous transatlantic flight in 1927, Capone was among the first to push forward and shake his hand upon his arrival in Chicago.

Capone often tried to whitewash his image and be seen as a community leader. For example, he started a program, which was continued for decades after his death, to fight rickets by providing a daily milk ration to Chicago school children. Also during the Great Depression, Capone opened up a few soup kitchens for the poor and homeless. Capone was a man with style, and if he ever killed someone himself, or one of his henchmen killed an important person, hundreds of dollars worth of flowers was sent to the funeral, and even Capone and some of his men went to the funeral. In one instance, one of Capone’s rival gang leaders was killed by his men, and Capone sent $5,000 worth of flowers to the funeral. In one fight between Capone’s men and another gang, an innocent woman was shot, not fatally, and required hospital treatment. Capone paid for all the hospital fees. Capone could often be seen sitting in box seats with his son and bodyguards at Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs games. He, his brother Ralph, and Gusik regularly went to the race tracks in Chicago as well as during their security forays into Arkansas and Nebraska.

He was also an opera fan and liked circuses and rodeos where he would buy huge blocks of tickets and distribute them among low income neighborhoods. Capone and Nitti were both fans of “New Orleans” jazz music and were instrumental in the rise of such talents as Louis Armstrong and others who regularly played at Capone speakeasies on the South Side. Bob Hope related performing, when he was an up and comer, at one of these clubs where he was terrified of the prospects of bombing in front of such a crowd. He gained a great deal of admiration from many of the poor in Chicago for his flagrant disregard of the Prohibition law that they despised. He was viewed for a time as a lovable outlaw, partially because of his extravagant generosity to strangers and often lending a hand to struggling Italian-Americans. His nightclub, the Cotton Club, became a hot spot for new acts such as Charlie Parker and Bing Crosby. He was often cheered in the street. Such efforts, however, did not change his reputation for violence and murder within the city. Capone did not help his own PR problems by being linked to an incident where two men were bludgeoned to death with baseball bats after they were thought to be disloyal to the Outfit.

The brutal murders of the St. Valentine’s Day massacre also didn’t help, as they made people view Capone as a killer and socially unacceptable. Capone headed a list of “public enemies” corrupting the city compiled by the chairman of the Chicago Crime Commission, Frank J. Loesch, in April 1930. The list was published by newspapers nationwide, and Capone became known as “Public Enemy No. 1.” St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Edit Al Capone orchestrated the most notorious gangland killing of the century, the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on Chicago’s North Side. Although details of the killing of the seven victims in a garage at 2122 North Clark Street are still in dispute and no one was ever indicted for the crime, their deaths are generally linked to Capone and his henchmen, especially Jack “Machine Gun” McGurn. McGurn is thought to have led the operation, using gunmen disguised as police and toting shotguns and Thompson submachine guns. The massacre was Capone’s effort to dispose of Moran.

The North Side gang had become increasingly bold in hijacking the Outfit’s booze trucks and encroaching on the South Side and Capone was ready to put it to an end. After all efforts to secure a truce had failed, Capone, his accountant/chief extortionist Jake “Greasy Thumb” Gusik and Frank “The Enforcer” Nitti agreed that they’d have to risk the political heat that would come from wiping out Moran and his gang or face eventual elimination at the hands of the North Siders. They assigned the task to McGurn and told him to use “outside torpedoes” to avoid implication. McGurn secured the services of triggermen from New York, Tennessee, Detroit and downstate Illinois.They rented an apartment across from the Clark Street trucking garage that served as a Moran headquarters to monitor their targets’ habits and movements and placed a call to the garage offering to sell a truckload of whiskey stolen by freelancing Sicilian immigrants from a Capone shipment. Such freelancers often hijacked such shipments from both gangs and sold them to the highest bidders so no suspicions were aroused in the Moran camp. The stolen booze (high-grade Canadian whiskey) was brought to the the garage and the deal was done.

As hoped, the entire Moran gang was there. Unknown to the North Siders, these “freelancers” were being paid by McGurn to set them up for the kill. On January 13, the freelancers called again and set up another transaction for the next day. The freelancers were expected to drive the truck right into the garage, where McGurn hoped the entire Moran gang would again be assembled. At the set time, a stolen Chicago police car pulled up and uniformed “officers” entered the building along with others who had been standing nearby. Apparently, the gang members thought that they had been scammed and that they had been set up for a raid. They sheepishly lined up to cooperate in the belief that their lawyers would fix things downtown as they had many times before. Moran, spotting what he thought to be a police car outside, decided to keep walking and did not enter the garage. It is believed that a local optometrist (who supplemented his income through bootlegging and liked to hang out at the garage with the gang members) had been mistaken that morning for Moran because he was of similar height and wore the same color gray hat and coat favored by the North Side chieftain.

After the bogus Moran entered, the lookouts triggered the “raid.” Forensic evidence shows that the seven victims were almost cut in two by machine gun fire and that many of the victims had their faces shot off by shotgun blasts for good measure. People in the neighborhood saw the police go in and heard what they thought were a series of backfires which were common at a garage. The “police” later led some men out to the car and left. The grisly scene was discovered after the mechanic’s dog began to howl so loudly that neighbors went in to see what was wrong. One of the Moran gang survived long enough to be questioned in a hospital before he died. True to gangland fashion, he refused to cooperate with the police in the slightest degree, obedient to the unwritten code of honor then prevalent among the Chicago underworld. Although Moran escaped, all his chief deputies were killed and his illegal liquor operation in Chicago rapidly declined. When asked by reporters if he believed Capone was behind the killings, Moran scornfully replied “Only Capone kills like that!” An indignant Capone countered, “Oh yeah? Listen … they don’t call that guy ‘Bugs’ for nothing!” in a reference to Moran’s reputation for savagery.

With his remaining resources, Moran marked Capone and his key underlings for extermination. Capone arranged to have himself jailed in Philadelphia for a year to avoid numerous “murder for hire” outfits that were hunting for him. McGurn was gunned down at a bowling alley on the anniversary of the garage slaughter and two others involved in the kllling disappeared. Moran eventually ran out of resources and fled to Ohio, allowing Capone to return to Chicago, where he quickly found himself in the legal quagmire that effectively removed him from power. It is generally thought that Capone precipitated his own decline with the garage killings. Graphic photos of bodies lying in pools of blood were plastered all over the papers. A secret convocation of Chicago civic leaders initiated an all-out effort to drive Capone from power. Nevertheless, had Capone and his gang done nothing, the North Side gang likely would have succeeded in killing their rivals and taking over the entire city. Moran and his associates were driven by a visceral hatred of the “South Side Scum” whom they considered to be sexual deviants and degenerates who dealt in prostitution and drug peddling and allowed debased jazz musicians to play in their bars and brothels.

Moran had also repeatedly vowed to avenge the deaths of his close friends and mentors O’Banion and Weiss (the latter being gunned down on the steps of Trinity Cathedral). It is said that Nitti became enraged with McGurn (whom he considered to be a rival) over Moran’s escape and the unfavorable publicity that ensued. Federal income taxes and downfall Edit Although Capone always did his business through front men and had no accounting records in his own name (even his mansion was in his wife’s name), Al Alcini started linking him to his earnings. The federal income tax laws allowed the federal government to pursue Capone on tax evasion, their best chance of finally convicting him. Pursuing Capone were Treasury agent Eliot Ness and his hand-picked team of incorruptible U.S. Prohibition agents, “The Untouchables,” and internal revenue agent Frank Wilson of the Treasury Department’s Bureau of Internal Revenue. During a routine warehouse raid, they discovered in a desk drawer what was clearly a crudely coded set of accounts. Ness then concentrated on pursuing Capone for his failure to pay tax on this substantial illegal income. This story has become a legend and the subject of books and films.

Capone was tried in a federal court in 1931. The Alcinis tried to help Capone, but he pleaded guilty to the charges on advice of his legal counsel hoping for a plea bargain. But after the judge refused his lawyer’s offers, and the jury was replaced on the day of the trial to frustrate Capone’s associates’ efforts to bribe or intimidate the original panel, Al Capone was found guilty on five of 22 counts of tax evasion for the years 1925, 1926, and 1927, and willful failure to file tax returns for 1928 and 1929. Capone’s legal team offered to pay all outstanding tax and interest and told their client to expect a severe fine. The judge sentenced him to eleven years in a federal prison and one year in the county jail, as well as an earlier six-month contempt of court sentence; he ultimately served only six and a half years because of good behavior. He also had to pay fines and court costs totalling 80,000 dollars.

Prison Time Edit In May 1932, Capone was sent to Atlantis, a tough federal prison, but he was able to take control and obtain special privileges. He was then transferred to Alcatraz, where tight security and an uncompromising warden ensured that Capone had no contact with the outside world. Capone entered Alcatraz with his usual confidence, but his isolation from his associates, and the repeal of Prohibition, meant his empire was beginning to wither. He attempted to earn time off for good behavior by being a model prisoner and refusing to participate in prisoner rebellions. When Capone attempted to bribe guards he was sent to solitary confinement. During his early months at Alcatraz, Capone made an enemy by showing his disregard for the prison social order when he cut in line while prisoners were waiting for a haircut. James Lucas, a Texas bank robber serving 30 years, reportedly confronted the former syndicate leader and told him to get back at the end of the line. When Capone asked if he knew who he was, Lucas reportedly grabbed a pair of the barber’s scissors and, holding them to Capone’s neck, answered “Yeah, I know who you are, greaseball.

And if you don’t get back to the end of that fucking line, I’m gonna know who you were.” Capone earned the contempt of many of the inmates in Alcatraz when he refused to take part in a prisoners’ strike after a sick inmate, accused of malingering, was denied medical treatment and died. Continuing his work in the prison laundry, Capone was continually harassed by other prisoners and often called a “scab” or “rat.” He was eventually allowed to remain in his cell until the strike was resolved. Shortly after returning to work, an unidentified inmate threw a heavy lead sash at Capone’s head, but he suffered only a deep cut on the arm after being pushed out of the way by convicted bank robber Roy Gardner. Reassigned to mopping up the prison bathhouse, Capone was nicknamed the “wop with the mop” by inmates. He was later stabbed in the back by Lucas, who was sentenced to solitary confinement. Capone was hospitalized for a week. He suffered further harassment and unsuccessful attempts on his life throughout his prison sentence, including spiking his coffee with lye and attacking him as he was walking towards the dentist’s office.

He remained under protection from several inmates (possibly from payoffs by the Chicago Outfit). Though he adjusted relatively well to his new environment, his health declined as his syphilis (contracted as a youth) progressed, and he spent the last year of his sentence in the prison hospital, 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 his one-year misdemeanor sentence. He was released on November 16, 1939, spent a short time in a hospital, then returned to his home in Palm Island, Florida. Death Edit Capone’s control and interests within organized crime had decreased rapidly after his imprisonment, and he was no longer able to run the Outfit after his release. He had lost weight, and his physical and mental health had declined, most noticeably with the onset of dementia probably caused by the third stage of untreated syphilis Capone had contracted in his youth. On January 21, 1947, Capone had an apoplectic stroke.

He regained consciousness and started to improve but contracted pneumonia on January 24, and suffered a cardiac arrest the next day (possibly associated with the complications of third-stage neurosyphilis). Alphonse Capone was originally buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery, in Chicago’s far South Side between the graves of his father, Gabriele, and brother, Frank. However, in March 1950, the remains of all three family members were moved to Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois, west of Chicago. Popular Culture Edit Literature In a book of photographs titled "New York City Gangland", both Capone and his NYC bootlegging ally Guiseppe "Joe The Boss" Masseria appear in Prohibition-era "bathing beauty" portraits. In Mario Puzo's 1969 novel, The Godfather, Capone played a small role in the fictionalized mob war of 1933. In reality, Capone was in prison by 1933. In the musical Annie, which takes place in December 1933, an unnamed cabinet member states that "We still haven't caught Al Capone!". In reality, he was already in prison.

Capone was featured in the Kinky Friedman novel The Love Song of J. Edgar Hoover. In Kim Newman and Eugene Byrne's novel Back in the USSA, Al Capone is President and Chairman of the alternate history United Socialist States of America, serving as an analog of Joseph Stalin. Jimmy Hoffa and Frank Nitti take the place of Vyacheslav Molotov and Lavrenti Beria. Also more recently, a historical fiction book was written by Gennifer Choldenko called Al Capone Does My Shirts. In Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy, Capone's spirit possesses the body of a man named Brad Lovegrove, allowing him to eventually form a group he calls The Organization that takes over the planet of New California and wages war against the Confederation. Movies and Television In The Onion satirical journal, CPA-ONE was a prominent member of an office accounting gang led by Herbert Kornfeld. Film and Television Capone has been portrayed on screen by: Rod Steiger in Al Capone (1959). Neville Brand, The George Raft Story (1961).

Neville Brand, The Untouchables (1959–1961) José Calvo, Due mafiosi contro Al Capone (1966). Jason Robards, The St. Valentine's Day Massacre (1967). Buddy Lester, Poor Devil (1973) Ben Gazzara, Capone (1975). Robert De Niro, The Untouchables (1987). Eric Roberts, The Lost Capone (1990) William Forsythe, The Untouchables (1993–1994) William Devane, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman (Episode 2.7, That Old Gang of Mine, 1994) Anthony LaPaglia, Road to Perdition (2002).(Deleted Scene) Jon Bernthal, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009). Actors playing characters based on Capone include: Wallace Beery played the character Louis 'Louie' Scorpio in The Secret Six (1931). Ricardo Cortez played Goldie Gorio in Bad Company (1931).

Paul Lukas, Big Fellow Maskal in City Streets (1931). Paul Muni, Antonio 'Tony' Camonte in Scarface (1932). Jean Hersholt, Samuel 'Sam' Belmonte in The Beast of the City (1932). Edward Arnold, Duke Morgan in Okay, America! (1932). C. Henry Gordon, Nick Diamond in Gabriel Over the White House (1933). John Litel, 'Gat' Brady in Alcatraz Island (1937). Barry Sullivan, Shubunka in The Gangster (1947). Ralph Volkie, Big Fellow in The Undercover Man (1949). Edmond O'Brien, Fran McCarg in Pete Kelly's Blues (1955). Lee J. Cobb, Rico Angelo in Party Girl (1958). George Raft as Spats Colombo and Nehemiah Persoff as Little Bonaparte in Some Like It Hot (1959). Al Pacino, Tony Montana in Scarface (1983). Al Pacino, Alphonse "Big Boy" Caprice in Dick Tracy (1990).

Cartoons In the anime Soul Eater, BlackStar and Tsubaki's target when introduced are the demonic souls Al Capone and his gang of 98 men. He ends every sentence with the words, "You know?", adding to the mafia stereotype. Jon Polito of Miller's Crossing voiced Al Capone in an episode of the Cartoon Network animated series Time Squad. Music Al Capone is referenced heavily in Prodigy's track "Al Capone Zone", produced by The Alchemist and featuring Keak Da Sneak. Al Capone transcribed a love song called Madonna Mia while in prison. In May 2009, his rendition of the song was recorded for the first time in history. Prince Buster achieved UK top 20 success in 1967 with "Al Capone". Al Capone was mentioned in the song "The Night Chicago Died" by the British band Paper Lace, which describes a fictionalized battle between Al Capone's gang and the Chicago police. In 1990, the Serbian band Riblja Corba released their album Koza Nostra, which features a song, "Al Kapone", which mentions the gangster.

In the Queen song Stone Cold Crazy, Freddie Mercury claims to be "dreaming I was Al Capone". "Young Al Capone" was a song by the punk band Rancid off the album "Rancid 2000." The Violent Femmes mention Al Capone in their song "To The Kill" with the lyrics: 'I ain't know kid Chicago, I ain't know Al Capone.' 'I said I don't live in Chicago, I don't know no Al Capone' Canadian band Stereos mention Al Capone in their song "Turn It Up" with the lyrics: "I won't just kill it, I'mma Al Capone it" Comics In Tintin in America, boy reporter Tintin captures Capone but, because of a policeman's blunder, Capone escapes. Al Capone is the only real person featured in any Tintin book. Capone and Eliot Ness are regular supporting characters in the Franco-Belgian comics series Sammy, written by Raoul Cauvin. In the manga series Soul Eater, Al Capone appears as a Mob Boss for people who devour human souls.He is killed later on by a bodyguard who was protecting a young witch.

In the manga series One Piece, the pirate captain, Capone 'Gang' Bege is based on Al Capone. In the first issue of the 1980s miniseries Kid Eternity, Al Capone is one of the historical figures that the main character summons to aid him in his battle. In Savarese by Robin Wood the main character fails a plot to assassinate a man, who later turns out to be Capone. Games In the PlayStation 2 role playing game Shadow Hearts: From the New World, Capone must be rescued from Alcatraz by the party when an assassin is sent to kill him. He is deeply indebted to the party thereafter, assisting them on a number of occasions. In the PlayStation 2 game Scarface: The World Is Yours there is a selectable car which is said to be Capone's car. In Worms 3D, there is a selectable soundbank called "Capone". When chosen, the worms in the team speak with a distinctive gangster accent and use various famous Italian slang words made popular by many gangster movies and television shows. Enterprises Capone's Chicago has provided a theme for numerous dining establishments.

Restaurants named Capone's exist in cities as far-flung as Norristown, (Pennsylvania, USA), Vancouver (BC, Canada) and Taipei (Taiwan). Capone goes to prison - Oct 17, 1931 - HISTORY.com Capone goes to prison Publisher A+E Networks On this day in 1931, gangster Al Capone is sentenced to 11 years in prison for tax evasion and fined $80,000, signaling the downfall of one of the most notorious criminals of the 1920s and 1930s. Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1899 to Italian immigrants. He was expelled from school at 14, joined a gang and earned his nickname “Scarface” after being sliced across the cheek during a fight. By 1920, Capone had moved to Chicago, where he was soon helping to run crime boss Johnny Torrio’s illegal enterprises, which included alcohol-smuggling, gambling and prostitution. Torrio retired in 1925 after an attempt on his life and Capone, known for his cunning and brutality, was put in charge of the organization.

Prohibition, which outlawed the brewing and distribution of alcohol and lasted from 1920 to 1933, proved extremely lucrative for bootleggers and gangsters like Capone, who raked in millions from his underworld activities. Capone was at the top of the F.B.I.’s “Most Wanted” list by 1930, but he avoided long stints in jail until 1931 by bribing city officials, intimidating witnesses and maintaining various hideouts. He became Chicago’s crime kingpin by wiping out his competitors through a series of gangland battles and slayings, including the infamous St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929, when Capone’s men gunned down seven rivals. This event helped raise Capone’s notoriety to a national level. Among Capone’s enemies was federal agent Elliot Ness, who led a team of officers known as “The Untouchables” because they couldn’t be corrupted. Ness and his men routinely broke up Capone’s bootlegging businesses, but it was tax-evasion charges that finally stuck and landed Capone in prison in 1931. Capone began serving his time at the U.S.

Penitentiary in Atlanta, but amid accusations that he was manipulating the system and receiving cushy treatment, he was transferred to the maximum-security lockup at Alcatraz Island, in California’s San Francisco Bay. He got out early in 1939 for good behavior, after spending his final year in prison in a hospital, suffering from syphilis. Plagued by health problems for the rest of his life, Capone died in 1947 at age 48 at his home in Palm Island, Florida. Related Videos The Al Capone Trial: A Chronology The Al Capone Trial: A Chronology by Daniel M. Porazzo Crowds outside the federal court building during the Capone trial January 17, 1899 Alphone Capone is born in Brooklyn, New York to Italian immigrants. 1920 Al Capone joins Johnny Torrio as a member in the Colosimo mob. 1925 Torrio retires, elevating Capone to boss. Capone extends the gang’s control over illegal brewing, distilling, and distribution of beer and liquor.

April 27, 1926 Chicago prosecutor Billy McSwiggin is gunned down outside a bar in Cicero. McSwiggin had attempted to charge Capone with murder in 1924. February 14, 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Seven associates of the Moran Gang are gunned down at SMC Cartage Company by men dressed in police uniforms. February 27, 1929 Capone is subpoenaed to appear before a Chicago Heights grand jury investigating possible violations of the Prohibition Act. March 11, 1929 Capone’s lawyers file a petition to postpone his appearance on March 12th, and attach an affidavit from Capone’s physician, Dr. Kenneth Phillips, which attests to Capone suffering bronchial pneumonia. Capone is reportedly bedridden and alleges it would be dangerous to his health to travel to Chicago to appear in response to the subpoena. That night Capone attends the Sharkey-Stribling boxing match. March 20, 1929 Capone appears before the Chicago Heights grand jury and testifies for 80 minutes.

March 27, 1929 Capone makes his second appearance before the Chicago Heights grand jury. After finishing his testimony, Capone is arrested for contempt of court and released after posting $500 bail. May 17, 1929 Capone and bodyguard are arrested in Philadelphia for carrying concealed weapons. Each is later sentenced to one-year terms in prison at the County Prison at Holmesburg. Capone is soon transferred to Eastern State Penitentiary. March 17, 1930 Capone is released for good behavior after serving nine months. April 23, 1930 The Chicago Crime Commission issues first Public Enemy List. Capone tops the list. February 27, 1931 Capone is found guilty on a contempt of court charge and sentenced to six months in Cook County Jail. Capone is released on bond pending appeal. March 13, 1931 Capone is indicted for tax evasion relating to failing to file a return for 1924. June 5, 1931 Capone is indicted on charges for tax evasion for the years 1925 to 1929.

June 11, 1931 Capone is indicted on one count of conspiracy to violate the Prohibition Act. June 16, 1931 Capone decides to plead guilty to all tax evasion and prohibition charges. A plea agreement is negotiated calling for a 2 ½ year sentence. July 30, 1931 Sentencing Hearing Judge Wilkerson informs Capone that he is not bound by that arrangement in determining Capone’s sentence and will reject it. Capone changes his plea to "not guilty." October 6, 1931 The tax evasion trial of Al Capone begins. Judge Wilkerson switches the potential jury pool prior to voir dire after receiving word from Frank Wilson that Capone may have been able to bribe members of the original jury pool. October 18, 1931 Capone is convicted of three felony counts of tax evasion and two misdemeanor counts of failing to file a tax return. November 24, 1931 Capone is sentenced to eleven years in Federal prison, a fine of $50,000, and court costs of $30,000.

Additionally, Capone is ordered to pay $215,000 plus interest for back taxes. The six month contempt of court sentence is served concurrently. While awaiting the outcome of his appeal, Capone is housed in Cook County Jail. February 27, 1932 Capone’s appeal is denied. March 23, 1932 Rehearing of Capone’s appeal is denied. May 2, 1932 The Supreme Court denies Capone’s petition for certiorari. May 4, 1932 Capone begins serving sentence at the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta. August 22, 1934 Capone is transferred to Alcatraz. November 16, 1939 Capone is released from prison after serving 7 years, 6 months, and 15 days and having paid all fines and back taxes due. January 25, 1947

Question: What crime was Al Capone convicted of in 1931?
Answer: Tax Evasion