Al capone biography summary examples

A recent attempt on the part of Moran to kill a close associate of Capone's led Capone to seek revenge. Moran's gang used a garage as a drop-off site for shipments of illegal liquor. Seven members of that gang were at the garage on February 14,when a group ambushed them. The men were dressed as police officers, so Moran's men assumed this was a raid on their bootlegging operation and turned to face the wall with their hands in the air.

The uniformed men were Capone's gang dressed in stolen outfits. They shot the men facing the wall as well as more members of the gang who burst in. Moran's men were gunned down with nearly two hundred bullets. Although Capone was in Florida at the time, he was widely credited with what came to be called the St. Capone was never prosecuted.

President Herbert Hoover —; served —33 responded to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre by cracking down on organized crime, and on Capone in particular. The mob boss was imprisoned for a year, and when released, faced even greater pressure to cut back on his illegal pursuits. The Justice Department set up a squad of special agents headed by Eliot Ness — Ness and his nine men became known as the Untouchables, and they worked around the clock to fight organized crime, especially bootlegging, police corruption, and racketeering.

Ness and his men finally brought Capone down, but not for murder or racketeering. The gangster was sent to prison in for failing to pay his income taxes. During his trial, Capone attempted to bribe the jury into finding him innocent. At the last minute, however, the judge switched jury members, and Capone was convicted on four counts of tax evasion, a charge that landed him in jail for eleven years.

During his imprisonment, Capone lost his influence as a mob boss. He spent his last years in jail ill, as the syphilis a sexually transmitted disease he had contracted as a teen came back in its final form. Capone suffered brain damage and spent his final years living quietly in Florida. He died in at the age of forty-eight. Al "Scarface" Capone was a notorious American gangster of the prohibition era.

His career illustrated the power and influence of organized crime in the United States. Like other young Americans from minority backgrounds, Capone was taught that the main purpose of life was to acquire wealth and that the United States was a land of opportunity. But he also discovered that his family background made it impossible to succeed in school and his ethnicity and working-class status resulted in discrimination, both in the business world and socially.

Embittered by the gap between the American dream and his own reality, Capone began to engage in illegal activities as a means of achieving success in what he saw as an unjust society. Capone was a natural leader. He possessed a shrewd business sense, gained the loyalty of those working for him by showing his appreciation for a job well done, and inspired confidence through his sound judgments, diplomacy, and "the diamond-hard nerves of a gambler.

During a barroom brawl, he received a razor cut on his cheek, which gained him the nickname "Scarface. Inthe same year the U. In Chicago he joined the notorious Five Points Gang and quickly moved up its ranks to become the right-hand man of boss Johnny Torrio. After Torrio fled the country, Capone found himself in control of part of the bootleg operation in the city that had sprung up after prohibition.

Chicago had voted 6 to 1 against passage of the prohibition amendment, and its citizenry—rich and poor, officials included—felt that liquor deprivation had been unfairly imposed. Capone took advantage of the popular willingness to break the law, and openly plied his trade. As he would tell reporter Damon Runyan, "I make money by supplying a public demand.

Capone protected his business interests by waging war on rival gangs. During the legendary St. Valentine's Day massacre inseven members of a rival gang led by George "Bugsy" Moran were gunned down in a Chicago garage. Other business strategies included bribing al capone biography summary examples officials, providing a ready market for the illegal homebrewed liquor produced by poor Italian ghetto residents, and becoming a supply source for the "respectable" customers of city speakeasies.

Interacting in Chicago society in the manner of a well-to-do businessman rather than a shady racketeer, Capone gained a fabulously profitable bootleg monopoly, as well as the admiration of a large segment of the community, including members of the police and city government. Between and he was viewed by many as the de facto ruler of Chicago.

However, the rest of the country and certain elements in the Windy City regarded Capone as a menace. In the late s President Herbert Hoover ordered his Secretary of the Treasury to find a way to jail Capone, who up until now had managed to evade being implicated in any illegal act. Perhaps more significantly than the efforts of the U.

Treasury department, Capone's power had by now begun to wane due to both the coming of the Great Depression and the anticipated repeal of prohibition. Bootlegging was becoming less profitable. Forced to defend himself while being tried for vagrancy in Chicago, Capone contradicted some previous testimony regarding his taxes, and he was successfully prosecuted for tax fraud by the federal government.

In October Capone was sentenced to ten years' hard labor, which he served in a penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia, and on Alcatraz. Because of syphilis Capone's mind and health deteriorated, and his power within the nation's organized crime syndicates ended. Released on parole inhe led a reclusive life at his Florida estate, where he died in John Kobler, Caponeis the most thorough study of Capone's life.

See also Fred D. For information on his life after imprisonment see James A. An excellent contemporary description of Capone's career and perhaps still the best analysis of the era is John Landesco, Organized Crime in Chicago, pt. A reliable historical account is John H. Lyle, The Dry and Lawless Years Capone was born to an Italian immigrant family in Though a promising student, he left school in the sixth grade, and from then it was a life in the streets.

Capone was probably twenty when he killed his first victim. Three years later, he followed Johnny Torrio, his mentor in crime, to Chicago. Together, they built a model criminal organization. Torrio was a modernizer who did for gambling, prostitution, and the Prohibition-era sale of liquor what John D. Rockefeller had for the oil business.

The automobile and telephone—as well as the Thompson submachine gun—were some of the modern tools Torrio employed. Like Torrio and Rockefeller, Sr. Anyone dissatisfied with their share met a bloody end. The seven victims of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre were but one example. Perhaps Capone's true genius lay in his crafting a al capone biography summary examples image.

It's bootleg while it's on the trucks, but when your host at the club, in the locker room or on the Gold Coast hands it to you on a silver platter, it's hospitality" Bergreen, p. Such comments always served Capone well with the public. So did his reputation for generosity: When the Depression struck Chicago with nearly 50 percent unemployment, Capone opened up soup kitchens to feed the needy.

The public did not care that Capone "encouraged" others to pay the cost of his project—Big Al lent a helping hand at a time when government did not. Hollywood gave the story form a year later with Edward G. Robinson as Little Caesar, who was Capone by any other name. The press had already made much of Capone as a kind of street philanthropist.

This wealth proved his undoing, or at least his failure to report it did—he was convicted of income tax evasion in and spent eight years in federal prisons, including Alcatraz. By then, Capone had fashioned a myth for the Depression and beyond. He was the gangster as antihero. Capone died from the ravages of syphilis in Bergreen, Laurence.

Capone: The Man and the Era. Kobler, John. Chicago in the s was a city of vice, corruption, and gangland killings, and synonymous with the evildoings of this era is the name of Al Capone. Capone was born January 17,in Naples, Italy. During his early years in New York he made strong gangland contacts and inhe became a member of the John Torrio gang.

Torrio, originally from New York, relocated his operation to Chicago, with Capone at his side. The passage of the volstead act in 41 Stat. Capone and Torrio were no exception; they operated and organized speakeasies, secret nightclubs that sold the banned liquor. Capone began to gain more power and by the time Torrio retired inCapone's control had extended to gambling, brothels, and politics.

He was responsible for the gangland murders of his rivals and for forcibly controlling election results in certain precincts of Chicago; through these maneuvers, he increased his power and received protection and political favors. Capone was at the peak of his power inwhen he was arrested—ironically—for income tax evasion. The internal revenue service succeeded where other authorities had failed: uncovering concrete evidence against Capone for tax evasion.

In October Capone was tried in a federal court and found guilty. On Thursday, February 14,at in the morning, Moran and his gang were lured by a bootlegger into a garage to buy whiskey. McGurn's men would be waiting for them, dressed in stolen police uniforms; the idea being that they would stage a fake raid. McGurn, like Capone, made sure he was far away and checked into a hotel with his girlfriend.

When McGurn's men thought they saw Moran, they got into their police uniforms and drove over to the garage in a stolen police car. The bootleggers, caught in the act, lined up against the wall. McGurn's men took the bootleggers' guns and opened fire with two machine guns. All the men except Frank Gusenberg were killed outright in cold blood. The plan appeared to go brilliantly except for one major detail: Moran was not among the dead.

Moran had seen the police car and took off, not wanting to be caught up in the raid. Even though Capone was conveniently in Florida, the police and the newspapers knew who had staged the massacre. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre became a national media event immortalizing Capone as the most ruthless, feared, smartest and elegant of gangland bosses.

Even while powerful forces were amassing against him, Capone indulged in one last bloody act of revenge — the killing of two Sicilian colleagues whom he believed had betrayed him. Capone invited his victims to a sumptuous banquet where he brutally pulverized them with a baseball bat. Capone had observed the old tradition of wining and dining traitors before executing them.

Somewhat ironically, it was the pen pushers from the tax office who posed the greatest threat to the gangsters' bootlegging empires. In Maythe Supreme Court ruled that a bootlegger had to pay income tax on his illegal bootlegging business. Capone left for Miami with his wife and son and bought Palm Island estate, a property that he immediately started to renovate expensively.

This gave Elmer Irey his chance to document Capone's income and spending. But Capone was clever. Every transaction he made was on a cash basis. The only exception was the tangible assets of the Palm Island estate, which was evidence of a major source of income. I want that man in jail. Mellon set out to get the necessary evidence both to prove income tax evasion and to amass enough evidence to prosecute Capone successfully for Prohibition violations.

Eliot Nessa dynamic young agent with the U. Prohibition Bureau, was charged with gathering the evidence of Prohibition violations. He assembled a team of daring al capone biography summary examples men and made extensive use of wiretapping technology. While there was doubt that Capone could be successfully prosecuted for Prohibition violations in Chicago, the government was certain it could get Capone on tax evasion.

In MayCapone went to a "gangster" conference in Atlantic City. Afterward, he saw a movie in Philadelphia. When leaving the cinema, he was arrested and imprisoned for carrying a concealed weapon. Capone was soon incarcerated in the Eastern Penitentiary, where he stayed until March 16, He was later released from jail for good behavior but was put on America's "Most Wanted" list, which publicly humiliated a mobster who so desperately wanted to be regarded as a worthy man of the people.

Elmer Irey undertook a cunning plan to use undercover agents posing as hoods to infiltrate Capone's organization. The operation took nerves of steel. Despite an informer ending up with a bullet in his head before he could testify, Elmer managed to amass enough evidence through his detectives, posing as gangsters, to try Capone in front of a jury.

With two vital bookkeepers, Leslie Shumway and Fred Reis, who had once been in Capone's employment, now safely under police protection, it was only a matter of time before Capone's days as Public Enemy No. Agent Ness, angered by Capone for the murder of a friend, managed to enrage Capone by exposing Prohibition violations to ruin his bootlegging industry.

Millions of dollars of brewing equipment was seized or destroyed, thousands of gallons of beer and alcohol had been dumped and the largest breweries were closed. The jury returned an indictment against Capone that was kept secret until the investigation was complete for the years to The Supreme Court had ruled in that income gained on illegal activities was taxable, which gave the government a strong case for prosecuting Capone.

On June 5, the U. Although the government had solid evidence against him, Capone remained confident that he would get off with a minimal sentence and struck a plea bargain in return for a two-and-a-half year sentence. When the judge in the case declared that he would not honor the agreement, Capone quickly withdrew his guilty plea, and the case went to trial.

During the trial Capone used the best weapon in his arsenal: bribery and intimidation. But at the last moment, the judge switched to an entirely new jury. Capone was found guilty and sent to prison for 11 years. Capone spent the first two years of his incarceration in a federal prison in Atlanta. After he was caught bribing guards, however, Capone was sent to the notorious island prison Alcatraz in Isolated there from the outside world, he could no longer wield his still considerable influence.

Moreover, he began suffering from poor health. Capone had contracted syphilis as a young man, and he now suffered from neurosyphilis, causing dementia. After serving six-and-a-half years, Capone was released in to a mental hospital in Baltimore, where he remained for three years. His health rapidly declining, Capone lived out his last days in Miami with his wife.

He died of cardiac arrest on January 25, He was charged with contempt of court for feigning illness to avoid an earlier appearance. Entering a guilty plea by his attorney, Capone was sentenced to a prison term of one year. A week after his release in MarchCapone was listed as "Public Enemy 1" on the unofficial Chicago Crime Commission's widely publicized list.

In AprilCapone was arrested on vagrancy charges when visiting Miami Beach; the governor had ordered sheriffs to run him out of the state. Capone claimed that Miami police had refused him food and water and threatened to arrest his family. He was charged with perjury for making these statements, but was acquitted after a three-day trial in July.

In court, Judge James Herbert Wilkersonintervened to reinforce questioning of Capone's doctor by the prosecutor.

Al capone biography summary examples

Wilkerson sentenced Capone to six months, but he remained free while on appeal of the contempt conviction. In FebruaryCapone's organization was linked to the murder of Julius Rosenheim, who served as a police informant in the Chicago Outfit for 20 years. Assistant Attorney General Mabel Walker Willebrandt is said to have originated the tactic of charging obviously wealthy crime figures with federal tax evasion on the basis of their luxurious lifestyles.

Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Sullivan that the approach was legally sound: illegally earned income was subject to income tax. Ralph, his brother and a gangster in his own right, was tried for tax evasion in Ralph spent the next 18 months in prison after being convicted in a two-week trial over which Wilkerson presided. On March 13,Capone was charged with income tax evasion forin a secret grand jury.

On July 30,Wilkerson refused to honor the plea bargain, and Capone's counsel rescinded the guilty als capone biography summary examples. Much was later made of other evidence, such as witnesses and ledgers, but these strongly implied Capone's control rather than stating it. Capone's lawyers, who had relied on the plea bargain Wilkerson refused to honor, therefore had mere hours to prepare for the trial, ran a weak defense focused on claiming that essentially all his income was lost to gambling.

They filed a writ of habeas corpus based on a Supreme Court ruling that tax evasion was not fraud, which apparently meant that Capone had been convicted on charges relating to years that were actually outside the time limit for prosecution; however, a judge interpreted the law so that the time that Capone had spent in Miami was subtracted from the age of the offences, thereby denying the appeal of both Capone's conviction and sentence.

Capone was sent to Atlanta U. Penitentiary in Mayaged Upon his arrival at Atlanta, Capone was officially diagnosed with syphilis and gonorrhea. He was also experiencing withdrawal symptoms from cocaine addiction, the use of which had perforated his nasal septum. Capone was competent at his prison job of stitching soles on shoes for eight hours a day, but his letters were barely coherent.

He was seen as a weak personality, and so out of his depth dealing with bullying at the hands of fellow inmates that his cellmate, seasoned convict Red Rudenskyfeared that Capone would have a breakdown. Rudensky was formerly a small-time criminal associated with the Capone gang and found himself becoming a protector for Capone. The conspicuous protection by Rudensky and other prisoners drew accusations from less friendly inmates and fueled suspicion that Capone was receiving special treatment.

No solid evidence ever emerged, but it formed part of the rationale for moving Capone to the recently opened Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary off the coast of San Francisco, in August 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.

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 a considerable undermining of the city's organized crime syndicate. Capone's underbossFrank Nittitook over as boss of the Outfit after he was released from prison in Marchhaving also been convicted of tax evasion charges.

Organized crime in the city had a lower profile once Prohibition was repealed, already wary of attention after seeing Capone's notoriety bring him down, to the extent that there is a lack of consensus among writers about who was actually in control and who was a figurehead "front boss". In the late s, FBI agents discovered an organization led by Capone's former lieutenants reigning supreme over the Chicago underworld.

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. Due to his failing health, Capone was released from prison on November 16,[ ] and referred to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore for the treatment of syphilitic paresis. Capone was grateful for the compassionate care that he received and donated two Japanese weeping cherry trees to Union Memorial Hospital in Inhis physician and a Baltimore psychiatrist examined him and concluded that Capone had the mentality of a year-old child.

He regained consciousness and started to improve, but contracted bronchopneumonia. He suffered a cardiac arrest on January 22, and on January 25, surrounded by his family in his home, died after his heart failed as a result of apoplexy. 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.

Particularly, from toshortly after he moved to Chicago, he enjoyed his status as the most notorious mobster in the country. He cultivated a certain image of himself in the media that made him a subject of fascination. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read View source View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects.

Wikimedia Commons Wikiquote Wikidata item. American gangster and businessman — This article is about the gangster. For other uses, see Al Capone disambiguation. For other uses, see Capone disambiguation. BrooklynNew York City, U. Palm Island, FloridaU. Gangster bootlegger racketeer. Mae Coughlin. Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Further information: Saint Valentine's Day Massacre.

Capone's death certificate January 25, Main article: Al Capone in popular culture. Archived from the original on June 18, Retrieved October 2, June 6, Archived from the original on March 27, Retrieved March 27, New York: William Morrow and Company. ISBN Archived from the original on December 9, Retrieved November 19, Al Capone: Chicago's King of Crime.

Five Rivers Chapmanry. Archived from the original on October 15, Retrieved August 27, Da Capo Press. Archived from the original on September 14, Retrieved April 4, The Biography Channel. Archived from the original on July 27, Retrieved November 12, Archived from the original on May 26, Retrieved May 18, Iorizzo Al Capone: A Biography.

Greenwood Publishing Group. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Archived from the original on January 4, Retrieved October 15, Archived from the original on April 30, Al Capone.