The True Story Of Al Capone

Al Capone rose to power with a deadly combination of raw brutality and brains. He wanted the public to love him but those who crossed him knew better. Scarface Al Capone was a very very evil man. For the big fellow, killing was just part of his business plan. The plan was to become the CEO of organized crime. If he had decided to go legit he could have become the head of General Motors. Stupid he was not. But as king of bootleggers during prohibition, Scarface Al became more of a Celebrity than any corporate executive. He became the most famous Gangster in the world. Al Capone was a first generation American born on on January 17th, 1899. His parents had many dreams when they left Naples Italy. They moved to Brooklyn and found hardship. They first lived in the tenements of the crime filled Navy Yard. Life was rough for the Capone's as they struggled to escape the waterfront. They finally moved, when Al was ten, to a better neighborhood. He had a perfectly fine Mother and father.

Al Capone rose to power with a deadly combination of raw brutality and brains. He wanted the public to love him but those who crossed him knew better. Scarface Al Capone was a very very evil man. For the big fellow, killing was just part of his business plan. The plan was to become the CEO of organized crime. If he had decided to go legit he could have become the head of General Motors. Stupid he was not. But as king of bootleggers during prohibition, Scarface Al became more of a Celebrity than any corporate executive. He became the most famous Gangster in the world. Al Capone was a first generation American born on on January 17th, 1899. His parents had many dreams when they left Naples Italy. They moved to Brooklyn and found hardship. They first lived in the tenements of the crime filled Navy Yard. Life was rough for the Capone's as they struggled to escape the waterfront. They finally moved, when Al was ten, to a better neighborhood. He had a perfectly fine Mother and father.

His Mother was devoutly religious to the end of her life and his Father was a perfectly respectable barber. There was no reason to believe that the children would grow up to be perfectly respectable but they all grew up to be criminals. Al's criminal path began early. He joined one of the toughest local Gangs, stole things, and when necessary used his fists. Young Al had flair. He was a cut above the punks who roamed the neighborhood with him. Once when he saw an elderly widows washboard being stolen he organized a gang to retrieve it and beat up the kid who had stole it. He then led a celebratory parade afterwards portraying himself as the hero. So even at a very young age the Al Capone began his Robin Hood legend of a career. Capone learned more on the streets than he ever did in school. He dropped out of school after the six grade after smacking a teacher and in turn getting a thrashing from the principle. What h learned out on the street was how to shoot.

First with a pool cue and then with a gun. Capone caused trouble with his buddies but he also helped support his family. Al tried the straight life, working in a munitions factory, as a pinsetter in a bowling alley, and as cloth cutter in a book binding factory. He also as a sideline became a bouncer at Coney Island in a bar known as the Harvard Inn. It was kind of a joke because the owner of the bar was a Gangster named Frankie Yale. That's where Al got his first of Gangster life in New York. It was also where a small time hoodlum named Frank DeLuchio shielded his little sister from Lena from Capone's advances and marked 18 year old Al for life. Capone came over to the table where and said, loud enough so that the people at the table swiveled their heads around, "Honey you've got a beautiful ass and I mean that as a complement honestly". Defending his sister's honor, DeLuchio pulled out a knife and slashed out the left side of Capone's face, giving rise to the nickname he hated, Scarface.

Capone was ashamed of the scars. Sometimes he would use powder to hide them and preferred to be photographed from the right side. He would always say that the scars were the result of a war injury. In these formative years are when Capone caught the eyes of a sharp mobster 17 years his senior named Johnny Torreo. He would become Capone's role model. Torreo moved to Chicago to run things for big Jim Collisemo. Big Jim ran a string of gambling dens and whorehouses. Collisemo's nightclub, just south of downtown, was where the action was. Gangsters and politicians crowded the joint. Big Jim's empire swelled and Torreo he needed a Lieutenant with brains as well a brawn so he recruited Capone. With the imminent passage of Prohibition he would be a huge asset to Torreo. They both knew that people weren't going to stop drinking and this opened up a brand new business for him. Al Capone had just become a Father and husband in that order.

He married an Irish girl, May Cofflin, who was two years older than him. Al, May, and there baby came to Chicago in 1919. The city would never be the same again. In the roaring twenties, Chicago was synonymous with corruption. Wild nightlife, rampant crime, and flowing booze were the words of the day. When Prohibition became the law in 1920, it was a special invitation for 20 year old Al Capone to scheme, move in, take over, and kill anyone who got in his way. Within a few years, Capone would be running a criminal organization the likes of which Chicago had never seen before, or since for that matter. But first he had some things to learn from his Boss, Johnny Torreo. Torreo was Capone's mentor. It was all about coming up through the ranks and having the Boss say "This is someone who might succeed me one day, I'm going to bring him along". He started out in one of the houses of Prostitution either as a bartender or as a bouncer.

He also worked as a hawk for the house at times, standing outside the house saying "Hey Buddy, I've got some nice girls inside". The hot spot where Capone worked was Collisemo's Nightclub, the watering hole for Chicago's high rollers. With Prohibition Torreo saw dollar signs. Bootlegging was his answered prayer but his Boss thought he was rich enough and didn't need a new racket. Without Big Jim, Torreo couldn't expand. Thus, exit Big Jim. It is rumored that Capone arranged the hit. It is also thought Al hired his former New York Boss, Frankie Yale to do the killing. Neither Capone nor Yale was ever charged and the crime went unsolved. Big Jim was rubbed out in May of 1920 in the Lobby of his own club. The style of this hit was to become the hallmark of his murders, well planned and executed, with witnesses who had sudden amnesia. Now Torreo and Capone could take over and cash in on the lucrative bootlegging racket. Capone had the right instincts but he still needed some polish.

Torreo took the rough edges off Capone and even sent him to night school to improve his accent and he did in fact up eliminate his Brooklyn accent. Capone rose quickly through the ranks of the underworld. He never wanted to be thought of as a criminal but rather as a gentleman with a passion for the opera and the finer things that money could buy. He was a very snappy dresser for those days and yellow and green were his fashion statements with a milky white Borcalino Fedora. He wore a huge 11 1/2 carat pinkie ring that cost $50,000. He wore Italian glove silk underwear. His style earned him a nickname he liked.. "Snorky" meaning sharp dresser. Al was flamboyant. His 5'10 1/2", 175 lb frame commanded attention and he and his Gang swept into nightclubs. He would come in with four or five guys and sit at a table and then the girls would come over and make a big fuss over them and the guys would give the girls money as he was very liberal with his money.

Kay Krackkow, a former Collisemo's dancer said Al was a very nice man and in her opinion he never did anything wrong it was his people who did it. Many people only believed in Capone's good nature and didn't see evil, only generosity. Like the time he spilled a drink on a showgirls new dress. He paid $25 to have the dress taken care of. He always tipped the dancers with a $5 bill. Capone's family thought he was terrific too. When his Father died in 1920, Al, the dutiful son, brought his Family to Chicago. Together the Capone's lived in a 15 room house on the south side of Chicago. He brought his Brothers into the rackets and supported his sister. To the day she died his younger sister defended him, writing in a letter "I know nothing about his activities outside the family and I do not recall any conversations about business matters". But outside the family he was a different guy. He was regularly unfaithful to his wife. He hung around prostitutes and sampled the wares.

He would get drunk and stay away from home for long periods of time. When he wasn't out drinking, gambling or whoring, Capone studied his Boss Torreo. He learned how Chicago was divided up and how to bring Gangland together to fill the cities thirst for alcohol. In 1922, under Torreo's design, local mobsters made a peace agreement so that everyone would get a cut of the action. That was Capone's long suit and modus operandi says John Binder, President of the Merry Gangsters Literary Society, and he learned it from Torreo. This strategy turned bootlegging into big business. Supply was controlled from brewers to backyard stills. Saloon owners, if they were smart bought Capone's beer. Laurence Bergreen, Author of "Capone, The man and the myth" says if the owners didn't buy the beer from Capone they would get a little visit from one of Capone's men who would encourage them to do so in no uncertain terms. They would do that once.

If you still refused they would bomb your place and then offer you the money to repair it. Since no one else would offer you the money, if a bar owner wanted to stay in business he had no choice but to accept and once he did he was in business with the Capone organization. It is the government's estimate that they took in $120,000,000 a year in sales from liquor, prostitution and gambling. So they were the equivalent of a medium sized corporation and was run like one. Each member of the organization had a specific function from beer truck repair to brewer construction to brewer management. Capone was a brilliant businessman and organizer. He couldn't invest money in the conventional sense because that would supply the government with a paper trail of his organization so it was an all cash business. Capone also guaranteed protection from the law by bribing cops and politicians. It is estimated that 50% of the Chicago police force worked for Al Capone.

1922 was the year that Capone finally got officially noticed by the Chicago press. In the early hours of August 30th he was arrested after a night of boozing. Capone's temper erupted after the car he was driving slammed into a taxi badly injuring the driver. He pulled a gun and threatened the taxi driver while wearing a fake Sheriff's badge. When the real police showed up he was arrested. He taunted the officer boasting that he would fix this thing, easy. True to his word he did. The charges were dropped. His legend was growing after word of the charges being dropped got around which happened pretty fast. Now just 23 years old, Al became Torreo's partner and they both were on top of the crime world. When the public's thirst stepped up so did greed. In 1923 the Gangland the peace negotiated shattered. Chicago's notorious beer wars began and grabbed headlines nationwide. Blood flowed and bombs exploded from September through December.

For Capone's enemies it ended in death. Violence was just a way of life for G angsters, a currency for them and what they used to get their way. During the entire Prohibition era 700 people were killed in Chicago during bootlegging or Prohibition related crimes. Torreo and Capone won the first round of the gang wars. Confident that order was restored, Torreo went on a four month cruise leaving Capone in charge, giving him license to become the most powerful man in the city. 1924 ushered in a new era for Al Capone. In Chicago, corruption took a detour when a law and order man was elected Mayor. Despite his personal distaste for Prohibition, he enforced it. So Al set his sights for opportunity for growth in the suburbs starting with Cicero. Matthew Luzi, a crime researcher, says it made him a much stronger criminal leader. By expanding into the suburbs he was able to seal up Chicago, lock, stock, and barrel for his self. Cicero was made to order for Capone's Gang.

In the working class bedroom community of 60,000, bribery worked like a charm. With his suburban headquarters at the Hawthorne Hotel, Capone cut deals with local officials to operate beer and gambling joints. To keep his power base, Capone rigged the Cicero election. His men shot, beat up, or held voters hostage who were opposed to mob rule. On election day, April 1st 1924, the Capone sponsored ticket was victorious but Al suffered one major defeat. His 30 year old Brother Frank was killed in a shootout with Chicago police. The death of Frank Capone had a profound effect on Al and turned him from a low key criminal to a much more desperate and violent hoodlum. It made him feel that his own life could be cut short at any time. A week after Frank's death Capone opened Cicero's first betting parlor, The Hawthorne Smoke shop. Capone always said he had bad luck with horses but now it didn't matter because he got a healthy cut of race track profits, especially when the races were fixed.

To his friends he doled out hot tips like candy. Tony Berardi, a former News Photographer, says one day Al and his bodyguards were walking around the race track when said to Tony "Hey kid, how you doing? You see number six, well he's going to win". One of Al's men came over and slipped a $5 ticket in Tony's pocket. The horse won at 60 to 1 and Tony collected $300+. Capone and his boss Johnny Torreo now had their hands in the till of 160 gambling joints and 23 saloons just in Cicero. Not everyone however was so impressed, A crusading 21 year old Newspaper Editor named Robert St. Johns was disgusted. In his paper he exposed town leaders on the mob payroll and detailed a Capone Brothel run by Capone's Older Brother Ralph. That made Robert St. Johns an enemy of Capone's and as he was going to his office one morning he glanced up and saw a big black touring car roaring toward the intersection. The car screeched to a halt and four men jumped out and headed for him.

He says he recognized Ralph Capone immediately. He was halfway across the intersection and he dropped to the ground and the four men gave him a real working over using blackjacks and billy clubs. He says that the most interesting weapon they used was a cake of soap in a knitted woolen sock. This was one of the Capone's Gang favorite murder weapons because if the person was hit in the base of the skull it would kill them. This time, however, it didn't work and St. Johns survived and was hospitalized. When he got out of the hospital and went to pay his bill he was told that his bill was paid that morning by a man with a slight scar on his left cheek. To add insult to injury, Capone had bought controlling interest in the newspaper. Capone's takeover of the next suburb was easier. In Chicago Heights he helped local mobsters win their gang war. In return Capone made a financial killing with his interstate bootlegging network.

At one time it was reported that Chicago Heights was worth $36,000,000 and by having Chicago Heights behind him, his network would virtually double in size. Capone joined forces with the Chicago Heights mob. In a town where corruption ruled, The Big Fellow was royalty. There were times when he would ride around in an open car and people would come up to him and shake his hand and he would treat people like they were family. Because of that people had a lot of respect for him. That respect paid off. While Capone's Boss Johnny Torreo was away on his cruise, Al expanded operation's, formed new allies, and reaped the profits. When Torreo came back and saw what Al had done in his absence, if there was ever any doubt in his mind that Al would succeed him that ended it. There was also no doubt about Al Capone's explosive temper or loyalty. On May 8th, when Al's accountant "Greasy Thumb" Jack Gusic whined that he had been kicked around by a local bootlegger, Al took aim.

He unloaded a six shooter into the culprit's head at point blank range in front of three witnesses. No one forgot it but no one would say they remembered it. Al went into hiding but later turned himself into the police saying he was out of town the day of the murder. Once again he beat the rap. There was no way anyone could get Al Capone on any of the substantive charges. You couldn't get a jury because they knew what would happen to them if they voted guilty. Capone knew this and went about his business eliminating any one who refused to cooperate. Their preferred method of murder was to get the victim in a car and take them to a secluded location, kill them, and dump the body. That way there were no witnesses or innocent bystanders to get in the way of things. Capone's biggest problem that had to be taken care of was North Side Gangster and well known florist Dean O'Bannion. O'Bannion had plenty of power and money but wanted more.

He made a fatal mistake when he tried to swindle Al and his Boss Torreo on a brewery deal. On the morning of May 19th, Torreo got arrested in a Prohibition raid O'Bannion knew about. Torreo was his way to the slammer but not before he would get revenge. Once again New York trigger man Frankie Yale got the nod. Yale would do the job with two local hit men. They decided to kill O'Bannion on November 10th while O'Bannion was preparing flowers for another Gangster funeral. When the three hit men walked into the flower shop, O'Bannion reached out to shake Yale's hand. Yale held on as the others pumped O'Bannion full of lead. It was the end of O'Bannion and the beginning of a bloody Gang war. In January 1925, two of O'Bannion's men, George "Bugs" Moran and Hymie Wiess tried to avenge O'Bannion's death and went gunning for Capone and Torreo. They missed Al but managed to ambush Torreo. Torreo recovered and was sent to prison on the Prohibition charge.

In March, while serving time, he announced his retirement. To no ones surprise he passed leadership of the mob was passed to Capone. He was 26 years old. The youthful mob boss was front page news. He liked being in the limelight. He would often call up the newspaper reporting his alleged involvement in one murder or another and tell the reporter that he had nothing to do with the murder and to get off his back. But the truth was Capone had everything to do with Chicago's increasing gang violence. Al was now a target. He shielded himself in the new high security plush Metropolitan Hotel. Secret tunnels helped Al and his men make quick getaways and he never went anywhere alone. Capone had more security than president Calvin Coolidge. He rode around in a $20,000 customized Cadillac Limousine that was akin to a tank. It was seven tons, armour plated with bullet proof glass. The back window could be yanked out when gunman had to fire at their enemies and Al had his share.

They kept encroaching on each others territory. It wasn't supposed to happen but it did. Capone was going to have to eliminate his enemies one by one. All he had to do now was give the orders. He did and he never looked back. 1925 echoed with gunshots. Violence was escalating with no end in sight. Al Capone and his enemies were fighting with a new weapon, the Tommy gun. It immediately changed the name of the game because they were much more violent than pistols. When you combined a machine gun with a moving car, you had a lethal instrument, the likes of which had never been seen before. The drive by shooting was born. The violence was much more spectacular in Chicago than anywhere else in the country, like New York. Capone, however brought violence to New York. He went the in December to take his son to a Doctor. Then he gave his buddy a Christmas present. He slaughtered three of Yale's enemies. Capone and his men were arrested but, as usual, all the witnesses were silent and the charges were dropped.

Al came back to Chicago to 1926 and the continuing Gang war. The stakes were getting higher when on April 27th Al led a five car assault on a rival Gang. Outside a Cicero bar, Capone and his men opened up on the rivals. The tally was three wounded and three dead including a 25 year old Assistant State's Attorney. Bill McSwigan had stayed close to his childhood buddies who were Capone's enemies. There was an outcry over the murder of a public official. Capone vanished. He went to Lansing Michigan where he hid out in this little cottage with his mistress for the summer until the heat was off. He later he began negotiations with the Illinois State authorities and delivered himself into their custody. Despite a major investigation, a coroners inquest and six Grand juries, Capone was never indited. Once again he got off proclaiming his innocence. Capone appeared untouchable. One day he went to a courthouse, a jail, and a police station asking if anyone wanted to arrest him and nobody did.

Of course he had reporter with him so he could say to the people of Chicago that he was not a wanted man. Not everyone stayed out of Capone's way. Trigger happy Bugs Moran and Hymie Wiess traded shots with Capone all during the summer of 1926 but none hit their mark. The most spectacular attempt of all came in late September. Capone was having lunch at the Hawthorne Restaurant when a 10 car caravan filled with Weiss' men came around the corner and open fired with Tommy guns. Capone leaped up and started to run. His body guard knocked Capone to the floor when the rest of the cars came around and shot up the entire block. Finally a gunman got out and stood in the doorway and sprayed the whole place. 5000 bullets blasted the coffee shop in just under ten minutes and it was destroyed but amazingly no one was killed. Capone paid hospital bills for the one person who was injured, then he turned his attention to getting to getting rid of Wiess.

Capone ordered his men to rent rooms that overlooked the Wiess headquarters. When they spotted Wiess crossing the street they opened fire. One more problem eliminated. Soon after Bug's Moran became leader of the North Side gang. Capone sent him condolences about Wiess denyng any involvement with his assassination. In late October Capone made a peace agreement with Moran and other Gang leaders. Al Later said "there is plenty of business for everybody, why kill each other over it". At age 27 Capone's power in the underworld was growing but he craved recognition as an upstanding businessman, after all he employed over 400 people and controlled a multimillion dollar operation. He wasn't out running around with a machine gun in his hand. You would find him in his office surrounded by junior executives with phones jangling and three people waiting to get a little bit of his time to get an executive decision. That was his working day and that's the kind of criminal he was.

In other words, he was a modern criminal. 1927 started as a good year for Al by all measures. The US Attorney's office would estimate that his organization took in more than $35,000,000 that year all from unlawful enterprises. One of his allies, Big Bill Thompson, was voted back into office as Mayor of Chicago giving control of the city, in effect, to Capone. When things were going his way, Al tried to relax. He took his son to baseball games, he boxed, he liked to have a good time. Capone said he was under appreciated in his role as public servant and that he needed a getaway. So he bought one. In January 1928 Capone paid $40,000 in cash for a 14 room mansion on Palm Island Florida, near Miami. He invested another $100,000 in improvements to make it a paradise. Still this wouldn't shelter Capone from problems starting to brew in his own organization. Al learned that his favorite New York hit man was stealing his east coast booze shipments. Loyalty was paramount to Capone and he felt betrayed.

Yale had killed often for Capone but now the tables were turned. On July 1st, 1928 Yale was the victim, chased and shot down in New York by Al's gunman. Capone still had one significant rival, Bugs Moran. Moran's game was hijacking the mob's whiskey. Capone was fed up with Moran's antics and at the end of December he went to Florida to mastermind what would become his most infamous crime, The Saint Valentines Day Massacre. It was one of the most fascinating and yet most complicated crimes in the history of crime. On the morning of February 14th 1929, Moran was late getting to his warehouse. His men were there waiting for a shipment of whiskey. Strangers walked in, two dressed as cops and two others in plain clothes. Moran's men, thinking it was a raid, put their hands up and turned and faced the wall. The men were instantly mowed down by bursts of machine gun fire. An Inquest was assembled to investigate.

Moran and others pointed the finger at Capone but Al had an airtight alibi as he was in Florida in a meeting with the District Attorney at the time of the shooting. Once again with no one willing to testify, the case was closed without a single arrest. No one knows for sure who did it. One theory is that they since thought the last person to go in the warehouse that night looked a lot like, and was wearing the same clothes as, Moran was in fact Moran but it was not. The city and the country was sickened by this killing but the bloodshed wasn't over. The Saint Valentines Day Massacre was the most graphic show of violence yet. Now there was no escape for Capone. He was to become the target of criminals and lawmen alike. Public dismay with the Saint Valentines Day Massacre had barely subsided when Al Capone made his next move to clean house. In May, 1929 Al's informants told him hit men John Sqlouise and Albert Ansomnia and another gunman were conspiring to murder him.

Capone invited them to a Roadhouse in Indiana. He gained their confidence and threw a banquet for them. After drinking and eating at the end of the night the tables turned and he accused them of treachery and then he and his body guards beat them to death with baseball bats before shooting them. Tony Berardi, former news photographer, remembers photographing the three bodies that were found in the brushes in Hammond Indiana and says their heads were smashed. The police took the bodies and took them to a mortuary and they were covered up and photographed with only a little bit of their heads showing. It was such a hideous crime that even other Gangsters began distancing themselves from Capone at that time. Suddenly trouble was everywhere for Capone. Public sentiment against him was growing. His life was in danger. Their was a $50,000 contract out on him. Al figured the only place he would be safe was in a jail away from Chicago so he set it up.

As he was leaving a movie theater in Philadelphia, Capone and his body guards were arrested for carrying concealed weapons. The scheme went haywire when the Judge threw the book at them, giving them each a year in jail. Al tried everything to get out early from bribery to giving money to local charities at Christmas. It didn't work. So Al used his phone privileges to run his gang from jail. The news he got from home was bad. Capone and his organization were now the target of the Federal government. President Hoover wanted to see Big Al behind bars for a long time. He kept asking his Aids "Have you got that fella Capone yet?". Although they couldn't get Al for any of the numerous murders he had either committed or had ordered they could do something about his tax evasion and they were working on just that. While he was in jail in Philadelphia, Ralph Capone was gotten and sent away, Jack Gosic was sent away, and Frank Nettie, who was Capone's number two, was sent away, all on income tax evasion.

When Capone left jail in March 1930, new problems awaited him. He had been named Public Enemy #1 by the Chicago Crime commission. But he wanted people to think of him as a good guy. The country was entering the depression so Al Capone responded by opening Chicago's first soup kitchen feeding 3000 hungry people a day. Capone's generosity made him somewhat of a folk hero in the media. But in June Al lost one of his major pipelines to the press. Jake Lingal, who covered crime and politics for the Chicago Tribune, and was on Al's payroll was gunned down by one of Al's rivals. Capone avenged Lingal's death and began to deal with his newest enemy, the Federal government. Pop culture has led the American public to believe that a group of Prohibition Agents shut down Capone. The untouchables, led by Elliot Ness, did little more than stage a couple of raids for the press in reality. The IRA's tax men, who had already put away a couple of Capone's top Lieutenants, were the real heroes but it wasn't easy.

Legally, Al didn't own a thing. He had put his house in Florida in his wife's name, the house in Chicago was in his Mother's name, and he didn't keep ledgers but some of his bookkeepers kept ledgers. Eventually the IRS discovered the ledgers, was able to decipher the ledgers, was able to track some of the codes in the ledgers to his old bookkeepers, and then track them back to Capone himself. It took five years to bring all the evidence together. On June 5th 1931, the man known as Alphonse Capone was indicted on 22 counts of income tax evasion dating from 1925 to 1929. The prosecution, led by United States Attorney George E.Q. Johnson said that Capone owed Uncle Sam just under $215,000. Capone did everything in his power to control the outcome of this case. He hired five hoodlums to go to New York to kill the Prosecuting Attorney. The plan failed however. They were spotted in New York and when the Secret Service stopped them and Capone decided to send them home.

Capone tried to plea bargain but the Judge wouldn't have any of it. Then Capone opened his wallet to buy off the Jury. When the Judge found out about it he switched Juries minutes before the trial was set to begin on October 7th. There was no real defense for Capone. With so many hardworking Americans paying taxes on small salaries and so many out of work, there wasn't much sympathy for Big Al the big spender. The Jury was out nine hours and there were 22 ballots and Al Capone was found guilty of income tax evasion. Capone was sentenced to 11 years behind bars the stiffest penalty of any tax case to date. As he left court he looked at Photographers and said "Get an eyeful boys you won't be seeing me for a long time". Capone appealed the verdict but lost. He was transferred from the Cook county jail to the Federal prison in Atlanta. In August 1934 he was sent to the rock, Alcatraz. At Alcatraz Capone kept to himself. His old ways didn't work there.

In 1936 a fellow prisoner tried to kill him, stabbing Capone in the back with a pair of scissors. In 1938 Al was officially diagnosed as suffering with the degenerative effects of syphilis picked up from one of his prostitute girlfriends. His mind was going and he needed medical treatment and in 1939 he was transferred to the federal correctional center outside Los Angeles. In November he was released from prison and sent to Union Memorial Hospital in Baltimore. Al returned to Florida in March 1940. The syphilis ate away at Capone for the rest of his life. At age 48 on January 25th 1947, Alfonse Capone died of cardiac arrest. He was taken to Chicago for burial. It was 11 below zero the day of the burial. It was a huge funeral because an edict had been put out by Anthony J. Acardo, a former bodyguard of Capone's and now the Boss of the Mob, that all crime syndicate Gangsters would show up at the funeral and pay their respects to Al Capone.

Capone's run as a mob kingpin was over but his fingerprint on crime and his reputation on Chicago lives on. His legacy was that all organized crime in the future would follow his basic pattern with a few improvements. There is still some sort of alliance between Gangsters and public officials even to this day. The point has been made many times in various speeches that had Al Capone taken all of his talent, energy and bravado and directed it down a legitimate avenues he would have become a very successful businessman. The city has never gained it's reputation back as a result of Capone's influence because whenever Chicago is mentioned the name Capone almost immediately comes to mind. And his legacy lives on...