His parents were Italian immigrants Gabriele Capone (1865–1920) and Teresa Capone (née Raiola; 1867–1952).
Capone's family had immigrated to the United States in 1893 by ship, first going through Fiume (modern-day Rijeka, Croatia), a port city in what was then Austria-Hungary.
Alphonse Gabriel Capone (; 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.
On January 25, 1947, he died of cardiac arrest after suffering a stroke. ==Early life== Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 17, 1899.
From 1916 to 1918, he played semi-professional baseball.
From 1916 to 1918, he played semi-professional baseball.
Following this, Capone was influenced by gangster Johnny Torrio, whom he came to regard as a mentor. Capone married Mae Josephine Coughlin at age 19, on December 30, 1918.
He was called "Snorky" by his closest friends, a term for a sharp dresser. ===Move to 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.
Torrio took over Colosimo's crime empire after the latter'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.
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.
In 1923, he purchased a small house at 7244 South Prairie Avenue in the Park Manor neighborhood in the city's south side for .
According to the Chicago Daily Tribune, hijacker Joe Howard was killed on May 7, 1923 after he tried to interfere with the Capone-Torrio bootleg beer business.
Frank did so until his death on April 1, 1924.
In a fateful step, Torrio arranged the murder of O'Banion at his flower shop on November 10, 1924.
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.
On March 13, 1931, Capone was charged with income tax evasion for 1924, in a secret grand jury.
When Capone was asked if he knew Rocco Perri, billed as Canada's "King of the Bootleggers", he replied: "Why, I don't even know which street Canada is on." Other sources, however, claim that Capone had certainly visited Canada, where he maintained some hideaways, but the Royal Canadian Mounted Police states that there is no "evidence that he ever set foot on Canadian soil." ===Boss=== In January 1925, Capone was ambushed, leaving him shaken but unhurt.
He did not even have a bank account, but he always used Western Union for cash delivery, although not more than $1,000. ===Feud with Aiello=== In November 1925, Antonio Lombardo was named head of the Unione Siciliana, a Sicilian-American benevolent society that had been corrupted by gangsters.
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.
Particularly, from 1925 to 1929, shortly after Capone relocated to Chicago, he enjoyed status as the most notorious mobster in the country.
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.
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. A 1929 report by The New York Times connected Capone to the 1926 murder of Assistant State Attorney William H.
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.
Aiello plotted to eliminate both Lombardo and Capone, and starting in the spring of 1927, made several attempts to assassinate Capone.
More than 200 bullets were fired into the Aiello Brothers Bakery on May 28, 1927, wounding Joe's brother Antonio.
During the summer and autumn of 1927 a number of hitmen Aiello hired to kill Capone were themselves slain.
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.
In the 1927 mayoral race, Thompson beat William Emmett Dever by a relatively slim margin.
In 1927, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v.
In 1928, Capone paid $40,000 to beer magnate August Anheuser Busch Sr.
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. Another politician, Joe Esposito, became a political rival of Capone, and on March 21, 1928, Esposito was killed in a drive-by shooting in front of his house.
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.
McSwiggin, the 1928 murders of chief investigator Ben Newmark and former mentor Frankie Yale. ===Saint Valentine's Day Massacre=== Capone was widely assumed to have been responsible for ordering the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, despite being at his Florida home at the time of the massacre.
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.
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. A 1929 report by The New York Times connected Capone to the 1926 murder of Assistant State Attorney William H.
McSwiggin, the 1928 murders of chief investigator Ben Newmark and former mentor Frankie Yale. ===Saint Valentine's Day Massacre=== Capone was widely assumed to have been responsible for ordering the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre, despite being at his Florida home at the time of the massacre.
On the morning of Thursday, February 14, 1929, Capone's lookouts signaled four gunmen disguised as police officers to initiate a "police raid".
In May 1929, one of Capone's bodyguards, Frank Rio, uncovered a plot by three of his men, Albert Anselmi, John Scalise and Joseph Giunta persuaded by Aiello, to depose Capone and take over the Chicago Outfit.
On March 19, 1929, Strong, joined by Frank Loesch of the Chicago Crime Commission, and Laird Bell, made their case to the President.
To support Federal efforts, Strong secretly used his newspaper's resources to gather and share intelligence on the Capone outfit. ===Trials=== 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.
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.
On August 8, 1929, Capone was transferred to Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary.
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.
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.
Particularly, from 1925 to 1929, shortly after Capone relocated to Chicago, he enjoyed status as the most notorious mobster in the country.
George Meyer, an associate of Capone's, also claimed to have witnessed both the planning of the murders and the event itself. In 1930, upon learning of Aiello's continued plotting against him, Capone resolved to finally eliminate him.
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.
Ralph, his brother and a gangster in his own right, was tried for tax evasion in 1930.
Wilkerson deemed that the 1930 letter to federal authorities could be admitted into evidence from a lawyer acting for Capone.
He was convicted of five counts in 1931.
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. A 1929 report by The New York Times connected Capone to the 1926 murder of Assistant State Attorney William H.
Cermak winning the mayoral election on April 6, 1931. ===Feud with Aiello ends=== Capone was primarily known for ordering other men to do his dirty work for him.
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.
In February 1931, Capone was tried on the contempt of court charge.
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 Wilkerson, Capone pleaded guilty to income tax evasion and the 5,000 Volstead Act violations as part of a -year prison sentence plea bargain.
However, on July 30, 1931, Wilkerson refused to honor the plea bargain, and Capone's counsel rescinded the guilty pleas.
Capone was convicted on five 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.
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. Capone showed promise as a student but had trouble with the rules at his strict parochial Catholic school.
Penitentiary in May 1932, aged 33.
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.
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. Due to his good behavior Capone was permitted to play banjo in the Alcatraz prison band, the Rock Islanders, which gave regular Sunday concerts for other inmates. 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.
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. ==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.
In the late 1950s, FBI agents discovered an organization led by Capone's former lieutenants reigning supreme over the Chicago underworld. Some historians have speculated that Capone ordered the 1939 murder of Edward J.
O'Hare a week before his release, for helping federal prosecutors convict Capone of tax evasion, though there are other theories for O'Hare's death. ==Failing health and death== Due to his failing health, Capone was released from prison on November 16, 1939, and referred to the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for the treatment of paresis (caused by late-stage syphilis).
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 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.
Alphonse Gabriel Capone (; 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.
On January 25, 1947, he died of cardiac arrest after suffering a stroke. ==Early life== Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 17, 1899.
On January 21, 1947, Capone had a stroke.
In the late 1950s, FBI agents discovered an organization led by Capone's former lieutenants reigning supreme over the Chicago underworld. Some historians have speculated that Capone ordered the 1939 murder of Edward J.
In 1950, Capone's remains, along with those of his father, Gabriele, and brother, Salvatore, were moved to Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois. ==In popular culture== Capone is one of the most notorious American gangsters of the 20th century and has been the major subject of numerous articles, books, and films.
In Hoover's 1952 Memoir, the former President reported that Strong argued "Chicago was in the hands of the gangsters, that the police and magistrates were completely under their control, …that the Federal government was the only force by which the city’s ability to govern itself could be restored.
Capone later 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.
New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1992.
Southern Illinois University Press; 1st edition (November 24, 1993).
New York: Da Capo Press, 2003.
Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co., 2004.
Recap Publishing LLC, 2010.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2011.
Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2016.
New York: William Morrow, 2018.
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