Al Capone
Alphonse Gabriel Capone
- Sobriquet: Scarface
American
| Y/M/D | Description | Association | Composition | Place | Locale | Food | Event |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Y/M/D | Description | Association | Composition | Place | Locale | Food | Event |
| 1899/01/17 | Alphonse Gabriel Capone is born at 95 Navy Street (lost) in Brooklyn, New York the son of Italian immigrants Gabriele Capone and Teresa Capone from Angri, Italy. | Born | |||||
| 1907/00/00 | The Capone family, now 8 members, moves from their Navy Street tenement to an apartment at 38 Garfield Place in Brooklyn. They will shift later to No 38 and finally settle at No 21. | Home | Capone Family Apartments | New York City | |||
| 1918/12/04 | Mae Coughlin gives birth to a son, Albert Francis Capone, in Brooklyn, New York. The boy's father is Alphonse Gabriel Capone. | Father | St Mary Star of the Sea Church | New York City | |||
| 1918/12/30 | Mary Josephine Coughlin, daughter of Bridget Gorman and Michael Coughlin, marries Alphonse Capone, at the St Mary Star of the Sea Church in Brooklyn, New York. | Groom | St Mary Star of the Sea Church | New York City | |||
| 1919/00/00 | Al Capone leaves home, heading for Chicago. | Life | Capone Family Apartments | New York City | |||
| 1920/00/00 | Johnny Torrio recruits Al Capone to join "Big Jim" Colosimo's criminal gang in Chicago. Al Capone contracts syphilis during his first job with the gang, a bouncer in one of Colosimo's bordellos in Chicago. Capone is too ashamed to get medical attention. | Criminal | |||||
| 1928/07/00 | Al Capone uses various suites as living space, office and command center, the 'Room of Doom', from 1928 to 1933, in the Lexington Hotel at 2135 S Michigan Ave. Built in 1892, it was razed in 1995. | Crime | Near South Side, Chicago | ||||
| 1929/05/00 | Al Capone is convicted for possessing a gun in Philadelphia and is incarcerated at Eastern State Penitentiary. | Convict | Eastern State Penitentiary | Philadelphia, PA | |||
| 1930/03/00 | Alphonse Capone is released from Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. | Life | Eastern State Penitentiary | Philadelphia, PA | |||
| 1931/10/13 | Alphonse Capone is indicted on 22 counts of federal income tax evasion. Capone owes is $215,000 in income tax, which is expected to be doubled by penalties, fines and taxation on other income. | Criminal | |||||
| 1931/10/24 | Federal Judge James H Wilkerson sentences Alphonse Capone to an 11-year prison term for income tax evasion. Vicious and angry, Capone is held in the County Jail until Monday, to provide time for his attorneys to file a writ with the Court of Appeals. | Criminal | Downfall of Alphonse Capone | ||||
| 1931/10/24 | Al Capone signs in at Cook County Jail: weight as 255lbs, height 5ft 11ins, descent as Italian, religion Catholic, education 8th grade. Capone is held in Division I (lost) which once housed the state's original electric chair. | Convict | Cook County Jail Complex | Chicago | Downfall of Alphonse Capone | ||
| 1932/05/03 | Under heavy guard, Capone is escorted to a special Pullman car on the Dixie Flyer in Chicago. "What do I think about it all? Well, I'm on my way to do eleven years ... I'm not sore at anybody but I hope Chicago will be better off..." - AC | Convict | Dearborn Station | Chicago | Al Capone's Trip to Alcatraz | ||
| 1932/05/03 | Three hoboes are found hiding on the engine when the Dixie Flyer stops two miles south of Watseka for coal and water. The hoboes, having no machine guns or other murderous weapons, convince the detectives they were not planning to free Capone. | Criminal | Watseka Union Depot | Watseka | Al Capone's Trip to Alcatraz | ||
| 1932/05/03 | Al Capone is shackled to a auto thief named Vito Morici in Drawing Room A, Pullman car 48, on The Dixie Flyer. In the night, Capone puts on his "glove silk blue pajamas" and climbs into an upper berth with Morici. | Criminal | Al Capone's Trip to Alcatraz | ||||
| 1932/05/04 | On his arrival to US Penitentiary, Atlanta, Al Capone is diagnosed as neurosyphilitic on the basis of an Argyll-Robertson pupil. | Convict | United States Penitentiary, Atlanta | Atlanta, GA | Al Capone's Trip to Alcatraz | ||
| 1932/10/24 | The Federal Government files liens against Capone's $40,000 Winter home (Razed 2023) at 93 Palm Ave in Miami Beach, Fla, and three safety deposit boxes in a Chicago bank. His wife, Mrs Mae Capone, is named in the liens with him. | Criminal | Al Capone's Trip to Alcatraz | ||||
| 1934/08/00 | L and N Steam locomotive No 152 pulls Al Capone's train from Mobile to New Orleans on his way to Alcatraz Prison | Convict | L and N Steam Locomotive No 152 | New Haven | Al Capone's Trip to Alcatraz | ||
| 1934/08/22 | Alphonse Capone arrives at Alcatraz, cell No 433. His mental and physical health are declining due to syphilis. | Inmate | Alcatraz | San Francisco | Al Capone's Trip to Alcatraz | ||
| 1938/02/00 | Alcatraz prisoner 85, Alphonse Capone is recognized paretic, a late stage of syphilis. He probably developed general paresis at least 6 months earlier. | Health | Alcatraz | San Francisco | |||
| 1939/01/06 | Released from Alcatraz, Al Capone is transferred to Terminal Island Prison in San Pedro, California. | Parolee | Alcatraz | San Francisco | |||
| 1939/11/00 | At the time I first saw Mr Capone ... his mental condition was characterized by ... physical and mental over-activity, various grandiose ideas, a marked tendency towards confabulation and mental deterioration (with a Benet-Simon age of 7 years), - J Moore | Health | Medical Arts Building | Baltimore, MD | |||
| 1940/03/30 | Al Capone completes treatment for mental illness caused by neurosyphilis. "At the time he left Baltimore... he had improved in a number of respects and particularly his Binet-Simon age had increased from 7 years to 14 years 6 months." - Dr Joseph Moore | Health | Medical Arts Building | Baltimore, MD | |||
| 1947/01/22 | Al Capone suffers a cardiac arrest. | Health | |||||
| 1947/01/25 | Al Capone's dies from bronchopneumonia due to a stroke at the age of 48 surrounded by family at his mansion (lost) on Palm Island in Miami Beach, Florida. | Died | Miami Beach, Fl | Florida | |||
| 1947/02/04 | Al Capone is buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Chicago, Illinois. His remains will be later moved to Mount Carmel Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois. | In memoriam |
History
Born of an immigrant family in Brooklyn, New York in 1899, Al Capone quit school after the sixth grade and associated with a notorious street gang, becoming accepted as a member. Johnny Torrio was the street gang leader and among the other members was Lucky Luciano, who would later attain his own notoriety.
About 1920, at Torrio's invitation, Capone joined Torrio in Chicago where he had become an influential lieutenant in the Colosimo mob. The rackets spawned by enactment of the Prohibition Amendment, illegal brewing, distilling and distribution of beer and liquor, were viewed as growth industries. Torrio, abetted by Al Capone, intended to take full advantage of opportunities. The mob also developed interests in legitimate businesses in the cleaning and dyeing field and cultivated influence with receptive public officials, labor unions, and employees' associations.
Torrio soon succeeded to full leadership of the gang with the violent demise of Big Jim Colosimo, and Capone gained experience and expertise as his strong right arm.
In 1925, Capone became boss when Torrio, seriously wounded in an assassination attempt, surrendered control and retired to Brooklyn. Capone had built a fearsome reputation in the ruthless gang rivalries of the period, struggling to acquire and retain racketeering rights to several areas of Chicago. That reputation grew as rival gangs were eliminated or nullified, and the suburb of Cicero became, in effect, a fiefdom of the Capone mob.
The St. Valentine's Day Massacre on February 14, 1929, might be regarded as the culminating violence of the Chicago gang era, as seven members or associates of the Bugs Moran mob were machine-gunned against a garage wall by rivals posing as police. The massacre was generally ascribed to the Capone mob, although Al himself was in Florida.
The investigative jurisdiction of the Bureau of Investigation during the 1920s and early 1930s was more limited than it is now, and the gang warfare and depredations of the period were not within the Bureau's investigative authority.
The Bureau's investigation of Al Capone arose from his reluctance to appear before a federal grand jury on March 12, 1929 in response to a subpoena. On March 11, his lawyers formally filed for postponement of his appearance, submitting a physician's affidavit dated March 5, which attested that Capone had been suffering from bronchial pneumonia in Miami, had been confined to bed from January 13 to February 23, and that it would be dangerous to Capone's health to travel to Chicago. His appearance date before the grand jury was re-set for March 20.
On request of the U.S. Attorney's Office, Bureau of Investigation agents obtained statements to the effect that Capone had attended race tracks in the Miami area, that he had made a plane trip to Bimini and a cruise to Nassau, that he had been interviewed at the office of the Dade County Solicitor, and that he had appeared in good health on each of those occasions.
Capone appeared before the federal grand jury in Chicago on March 20, 1929 and completed his testimony on March 27. As he left the courtroom, he was arrested by agents for contempt of court, an offense for which the penalty could be one year in prison and a $1,000 fine. He posted $5,000 bond and was released.
On May 17, 1929, Al Capone and his bodyguard were arrested in Philadelphia for carrying concealed deadly weapons. Within 16 hours they had been sentenced to terms of one year each. Capone served his time and was released in nine months for good behavior on March 17, 1930.
On February 28, 1931, Capone was found guilty in federal court on the contempt of court charge and was sentenced to six months in Cook County Jail. His appeal on that charge was subsequently dismissed.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasury Department had been developing evidence on tax evasion charges-in addition to Al Capone, his brother Ralph Bottles Capone, Jake Greasy Thumb Guzik, Frank Nitti, and other mobsters were subjects of tax evasion charges.
On June 16, 1931, Al Capone pled guilty to tax evasion and prohibition charges. He then boasted to the press that he had struck a deal for a two-and-a-half year sentence, but the presiding judge informed him he, the judge, was not bound by any deal. Capone then changed his plea to not guilty.
On October 18, 1931, Capone was convicted after trial and on November 24, was sentenced to eleven years in federal prison, fined $50,000 and charged $7,692 for court costs, in addition to $215,000 plus interest due on back taxes. The six-month contempt of court sentence was to be served concurrently.
While awaiting the results of appeals, Capone was confined to the Cook County Jail. Upon denial of appeals, he entered the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta, serving his sentence there and at Alcatraz. On November 16, 1939, Al Capone was released after having served seven years, six months and fifteen days, and having paid all fines and back taxes.
Suffering from paresis derived from syphilis, he had deteriorated greatly during his confinement. Immediately on release he entered a Baltimore hospital for brain treatment and then went on to his Florida home, an estate on Palm Island in Biscayne Bay near Miami, which he had purchased in 1928.
Following his release, he never publicly returned to Chicago. He had become mentally incapable of returning to gangland politics. In 1946, his physician and a Baltimore psychiatrist, after examination, both concluded Capone then had the mentality of a 12-year-old child. Capone resided on Palm Island with his wife and immediate family, in a secluded atmosphere, until his death due to a stroke and pneumonia on January 25, 1947. - FBI
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