Essay, Research Paper: Alphonse "SCARFACE" Capone

Born in New York City, in 1899, by parents Gabriel and Teresa

Capone, Alphonse Capone was blessed with a historical blend of ruthless

gangster in his blood. Al Capone's parents immagrated to the United

States in 1893, from Naples, Italy. Al Capone came from a huge family.

He was the fourth oldest of nine children. At birth, Capone's parents never

would have belived that their son, Alphonse Capone, would grow up to be

a murderous thug without remorse.(2) As a child, Al Capone was very

wise when it came to living on the streets of New York. He had a clever

and somewhat ingenious mind when it came to street smarts. If the act of

plotting a crime was in question, Al Capone was as sharp as they come.

As far as school goes, Capone was a near-illiterate. He came from a

poverty stricken neighborhood in brokoklyn, so education was not a top

priority. When Capone reached the age of eleven, he became a member

of a juvenile gang on his street called "The Bim Booms". While this was

taking place, around the year 1900, about eleven percent of all the foreign

born population in the united states were Italian. Being a part of the first

born U.S. generation, Capone was forced to either deal with a miserable

low wage job with a hopeless future or make an improvement for himself

by commiting first petty, and then serious crime. Al Capone's philosophy

was to the effect that laws only applied to people who had enough money

to abide by them.(2) While in the Bim Booms Gang, Capone was taught

how to defend himself by way of a knife, and if needed, by way of a

revolver. By the time Capone reached sixth grade he had already become

a street brawler. Capone never responded well to authority and for this

very reason his schooling would soon come to an end. While attending

school, Capone was responsible for beating a female teacher by knocking

her to the ground. The principal of the school rushed in and chastised the

young Capone and for this very reason he would never return to school

again.(2)

After giving up on school, Al Capone took up odd jobs such as

working as a pin-setter at a bowling alley, and working behind the counter

at a candy store. Capone was definatley a night owl. He was a pool shark

winning every eightball tournement held in Brooklyn. He also became an

expert knife fighter. Although the Bim Booms Gang was the first gang

Capone ever entered, he was quickly picked up by The Five Pointers.

The Five Pointers was the most powerful gang in New York City. The

gang was headed by Johnny Torrio, and was made up of over 1,500 thugs

who specialized in burglary, extortion, robbery, assault, and murder.

While working as a strong are enforcer under Torrio, Capone learnder all

the lethal tricks that would propel him from rags to riches in no time at all.

Capone was very grateful to Torrio and is quoted as saying: "I looked on

Johnny as my adviser ans father and the party that made it possible for me

to get my start."(1)


In 1925, Capone became boss when Torrio, seriously wounded in an

assassination appempt, surrendered control and retiring 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 mullified, and the suburb of Cicero became a fiefdom of the

Capone mob.


Torrio first set Capone out to do all of his dirty work. "Capone was

sent to beat up loan shark victims behind on their payments, then a pimp,

beating up girls who were holding out on their nightly take."(1) Torrio

finally a job as a bouncer at the Harvard Inn. By this time Capone was

recognized by his gang as being a vicious fighter with both fists and knives.

He also became an excellent marksman with both a revolver and

automatic weapons.


Perhaps the St. Valntine's Day Massacre on Feburuary 14, 1929,

might be reguarded 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 men. The

massacre was generally ascribed to the Capone mob, although Al Capone

himself was in Florida at that time. The investigative jurisdiction of the

Fedral Bureau of Investigation during the 1920's and the early 1930's was

more limited than it is now, and the gang warfare and depredations of the

period were not within the FBI's investigative authority. The Bureau's

investigation of Al Capone arose from his reluctance to appear before a

Fedral Grand Jury on March 12, 1929, in response to a subpoena. On

March 11, his lawyers formally filed for postponement of his apperance,

submitting a physcian's affidavit dated March 5, which attested that

Capone, in Miami, had been suffering from bronchial pneumonia, had been

confined to bed from January 13 to Febuary 23, and that it would be

dangerous to Capone's health to travel to Chicago. His appearance date

before the grand jury was reset for March 20.


One 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 new plane trip to Bimini and

a cruise to Nassau, and that he has been interveiwed at the office of the

Dade Country Solictor, and that he had appeared in good health on each

of those occasions. Capone appeared before the Fedral Grand Jury at

Chicago on March 20, 1929, and completed his testimony on March 27.

As he left the coutroom, he was arrested by Agents for Contempt of Court,

an offense for which the penalty could be one year and a $1,000 fine. He

posted the bond and was released. On May 17, 1929, Al Capone and his

bodygaurd were arrested in Philadelphia for carrying concealed deadly

weapons. Within 16 hours of arrest, they had been sentenced to tearms of

one year each. Capone served his time and was released in nine months

for good behavior on March 17, 1930.


On Febuary 28, 1936, Capone was found guilty in Federal Court on

the Contempt if Court charges and was sentenced to six months in Cook

County Jail. His appeal on that charge was subsuquently dismissed.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Treasurary 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 subject of tax evasion charges.


On June 16, 1931, Al Capone pled guilty to tax evasion and

prohbation charges. He then boasted to the press that he had struck a

deal for a two-and-one-half year sentence, but the preseding 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 trail, 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 a $215,000 plus interest due on back taxes. The six-month

Contempt of Court sentence was to be served concurrently.


While awaiting the results of appeals, Capone was confined to the

Cook County Jail. Upon denial of appeals, he entered the U.S.

Penitentiary at Atlanta, serving his sentence there and at Alcatraz, the

harsh prison in the San Fransisco Bay. 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 syphillis, he had deteriorated greatly during his

confinement. Immediatly 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 Niami, 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, after examination, both concluded Al Capone then had the

mentality of a twelve-year-old child. Capone resided on Palm Island with

his wife and immediate family, in a secluded atmosphere, where semi-

retired gangsters such as Jake "Greasy Thumb" Guzik would bring him

fictional reports of how his rackets were doing, until his death due to a

stroke and pneumonia on January 25, 1947. In 1947, one of his gangsters

was quoted as saying: "Al's brain just exploded"(1)