Al Capone

History
Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 17, 1899.[4 ] His parents Gabriele (December 12, 1864 – November 14, 1920) and Teresina Capone (December 28, 1867 – November 29, 1952) were immigrants from Italy. His father Gabriele was a barber from Castellammare di Stabia, a town about 16 mi (26 km) south of Naples, and his mother Teresina was a seamstress and the daughter of Angelo Raiola from Angri, a town in the province of Salerno.[5 ]

Gabriele and Teresina had nine children: Alphonse "Scarface Al" Capone, James Capone (also known as Richard Two-Gun Hart), Raffaele Capone (also known as Ralph "Bottles" Capone, who took charge of his brother's beverage industry), Salvatore "Frank" Capone, John Capone, Albert Capone, Matthew Capone, Rose Capone, and Mafalda Capone (who married John J. Maritote). The Capone family immigrated to the United States in 1893 and settled at 95 Navy Street,[4 ] in the Navy Yard section of downtown Brooklyn. The father Gabriele worked at a nearby barber shop at 29 Park Avenue.[4 ] When Al was 11, the Capone family moved to 38 Garfield Place[4 ] in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Capone showed promise as a student, but had trouble with the rules at his strict parochial Catholic school. He dropped out of school at the age of 14, after being expelled for hitting a woman teacher in the face.[1 ] He worked at odd jobs around Brooklyn, including a candy store and a bowling alley.[6 ] During this time, Capone was influenced by gangster Johnny Torrio, whom he came to regard as a mentor.

After his initial stint with small-time gangs that included the Junior Forty Thieves and the Bowery Boys, Capone joined the Brooklyn Rippers and then the powerful Five Points Gang based in Lower Manhattan. During this time, he was employed and mentored by fellow racketeer Frankie Yale, a bartender in a Coney Island dance hall and saloon called the Harvard Inn. Capone received the scars that gave him the nickname "Scarface" in a fight.[3] After he inadvertently insulted a woman while working the door at a Brooklyn night club, Capone was attacked by her brother Frank Gallucio; his face was slashed three times on the left side. Yale insisted that Capone apologize to Gallucio, and later Capone hired him as a bodyguard.[8] [9] When photographed, Capone hid the scarred left side of his face. He said the injuries were war wounds.[8] [10] According to the 2002 Life article, titled Mobsters and Gangsters: from Al Capone to Tony Soprano, Capone was called "Snorky" by his closest friends.

Capone departed New York for Chicago without his new wife and son, who joined him later. In 1923 he purchased a small house at 7244 South Prairie Avenue in the Park Manor neighborhood on the city's south side for USD $5,500.[12]

Capone was recruited for Chicago by Johnny Torrio, his Five Points Gang mentor. Torrio had gone there to resolve some family problems his cousin's husband was having with the Black Hand. Torrio killed the members of the Black Hand who had given his cousin's husband problems. He saw many business opportunities in Chicago, especially bootlegging following the onset of prohibition. Chicago's location on Lake Michigan gave access to a vast inland territory, and it was well-served by railroads. Torrio took over the crime empire of James "Big Jim" Colosimo after he was murdered. Yale was a suspect but legal proceedings against him were dropped due to a lack of evidence.[13] Capone was suspected in the murders of Colosimo and two other men. He was seeking a safe haven and a better job to provide for his new family.[14]

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 by thugs at polling stations. Capone's mayoral candidate won by a huge margin and weeks later announced that he would run Capone out of town. Capone met with his puppet-mayor and knocked him down the town hall steps.[citation needed]

For Capone, the election victory was marred by the death of his younger brother Frank at the hands of the police. Capone cried at his brother's funeral and ordered the closure of all the speakeasies in Cicero for a day as a mark of respect.

Much of Capone's family settled in Cicero as well. In 1930, Capone's sister Mafalda married John J. Maritote at St. Mary of Czestochowa, a massive Neogothic edifice towering over Cicero Avenue in the Polish Cathedral style.

The Torrio-Capone organization, as well as the Sicilian-American Genna crime family, competed with the North Side Gang of Dean O'Banion. In May 1924, O'Banion discovered that their Sieben Brewery was going to be raided by federal agents and sold his share to Torrio. After the raid, both O'Banion and Torrio were arrested.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-15">[16] Torrio's people murdered O'Banion in revenge on October 10, 1924, provoking a gang war.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-16">[17] <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-17">[18]

In 1925 Torrio was severely injured in an attack by the North Side Gang; he turned over his business to Capone and returned to Italy. During the Prohibition Era, Capone controlled large portions of the Chicago underworld, which provided The Outfit with an estimated US $100 million per year in revenue.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-18">[19] This wealth was generated through numerous illegal vice enterprises, such as gambling and prostitution; the highest revenue was generated by the sale of liquor.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-five_families_book_2-2">[3]

His transportation network moved smuggled liquor from the rum-runners of the East Coast, The Purple Gang in Detroit, who brought liquor in from Canada, and local production which came from Midwestern moonshine operations and illegal breweries. With the revenues gained by his bootlegging operation, Capone increased his grip on the political and law-enforcement establishments in Chicago. He made his headquarters at Chicago's Lexington Hotel; after the St. Valentine's Day Massacre, it was nicknamed "Capone's Castle".

According to one source, while Al Capone was in charge of the Chicago Outfit it has been reported that some members of organization would take the train from Chicago to Wabash County, Illinois and stay at a remote hotel called the Grand Rapids Hotel on the Wabash River next to the Grand Rapids Dam. The hotel was only in existence for nine years but many residents of the area remember seeing men who claimed to be from the Chicago Outfit at the Grand Rapids Hotel. Suspiciously, the Grand Rapids Hotel was burned down by a man with one leg who dropped a blowtorch. It is not currently known if the men who travelled to the Grand Rapids Hotel were smuggling liquor in violation of prohibition or merely vacationing. <sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-19">[20]

The organized corruption included the bribing of Chicago Mayor William "Big Bill" Hale Thompson, and Capone's gang operated largely free from legal intrusion. He operated casinos and speakeasies throughout the city. With his wealth, he indulged in custom suits, cigars, gourmet food and drink (his preferred liquor was Templeton Rye from Iowa<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-20">[21] ), jewelry, and female companionship. He garnered media attention, to which his favorite responses were "I am just a businessman, giving the people what they want," and "All I do is satisfy a public demand."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-five_families_book_2-3">[3] Capone had become a celebrity.

His rivals retaliated for the violence of Capone's enforcement of control. North Side gangsters Hymie Weiss and Bugs Moran wanted to bring him down. More than once, Capone's car was riddled with bullets. On September 20, 1926, the North Side gang shot into Capone's entourage as he was eating lunch in the Hawthorne Hotel restaurant. A motorcade of ten vehicles, using Thompson submachine guns and shotguns riddled the outside of the Hotel and the restaurant on the first floor of the building. Capone's bodyguard, Frankie Rio, threw him to the ground at the first sound of gunfire. Several bystanders were hurt from flying glass and bullet fragments in the raid. Capone paid for the medical care of a young boy and his mother who would have lost her eyesight otherwise. This event prompted Capone to call for a truce, but negotiations fell through. The attacks were believed to have been made at Moran's direction and left Capone shaken.<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space: nowrap;">[citation needed]

Capone had his Cadillac fitted with bullet-proof glass, run-flat tires and a police siren. In 1932, Treasury agents working on prohibition issues seized the car; it was later used as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's limousine.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-21">[22]

Capone placed armed bodyguards around the clock at his headquarters at the Lexington Hotel, at 22nd Street (later renamed Cermak Road) and Michigan Avenue.

It is believed Capone ordered the 1929 Saint Valentine's Day Massacre in the Lincoln Park neighborhood on Chicago's North Side. Details of the killing of the seven victims<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-five_families_book_2-5">[3] in a garage at 2122 North Clark Street (then the SMC Cartage Co.) and the extent of Capone's involvement are widely disputed. No one was ever brought to trial for the crime. The massacre was thought to be the Outfit's effort to strike back at Bugs Moran's North Side gang. They had been increasingly bold in hijacking the Outfit's booze trucks, assassinating two presidents of the Outfit-controlled Unione Siciliane, and made three assassination attempts on Jack McGurn, a top enforcer of Capone.<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space: nowrap;">[citation needed]

To monitor their targets' habits and movements, Capone’s men rented an apartment across from the trucking warehouse that served as a Moran headquarters. On the morning of Thursday February 14, 1929, Capone’s lookouts signaled gunmen disguised as police to start a 'raid'. The faux police lined the seven victims along a wall without a struggle then signaled for accomplices with machine guns. The seven victims were machine-gunned and shot-gunned.<sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space: nowrap;">[citation needed] Photos of the massacre victims shocked the public and damaged Capone's reputation. Federal law enforcement worked to investigate his activities.

In 1929, the Bureau of Prohibition agent Eliot Ness began an investigation of Capone and his business, attempting to get a conviction for Prohibition violations. Frank J. Wilson investigated Capone's income tax violations, which the government decided was more likely material for a conviction. In 1931 Capone was indicted for income tax evasion and various violations of the Volstead Act (Prohibition). His attorneys made a plea deal, but the presiding judge warned he might not follow the sentencing recommendation from the prosecution. Capone withdrew his plea of guilty.

His attempt to bribe and intimidate the potential jurors was discovered by Ness's men. The venire (jury pool) was switched with one from another case, and Capone was stymied. Following a long trial, he was found guilty on some income tax evasion counts (the Volstead Act violations were dropped). The judge gave him an 11-year sentence along with heavy fines, and liens were filed against his various properties. His appeal was denied.

In May 1932, Capone was sent to Atlanta U.S. Penitentiary, but he was able to obtain special privileges. Later, for a short period of time, he was transferred to the Lincoln Heights Jail. He was transferred to Alcatraz on August 11, 1934, which was newly established as a prison on an island off San Francisco.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-22">[23] The warden kept tight security and cut off Capone's contact with colleagues. His isolation and the repeal of Prohibition in December 1933, which reduced a major source of revenue, diminished his power.

(Info from Wikipedia)

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