Al Capone

Alphonse Gabriel Capone most commonly known as Al Capone, Scarface or Public enemy Nº1 was born January 17 of 1899 to an immigrant family in Brooklyn, New York.Capone is most known for his position as a mafia boss during the prohibition era of the roaring twenties, his fearsome reputation among organized gangs, and his numerous run-ins with the law.

"i have built my organization upon fear"

Quotes

Valentine's

Family

Death

+ info

"Public service is my motto"

Early Life

Gang Years

Charges and Conviction

Al Capone

INFOGRAphic

FBI records: The Vault: Al Capone, the FBI website, the federal bureau of investigation, web. Stories: Solving Scarface, How the Law Finally Caught Up With Al Capone, the FBI website, the federal bureau of investigation, March 28, 2005, web. History: Al Capone, the FBI website, the federal bureau of investigation, web. Al Capone: American Gangster, Britannica, July 20, 1998, web. FBI records: The Vault: St Valentine's Day Massacre Part 1 of 2, the FBI website, the federal bureau of investigation, web. FBI records: The Vault: St Valentine's Day Massacre Part 2 of 2, the FBI website, the federal bureau of investigation, web. Christopher P. Thale, St Valentine's Day Massacre, The Encyclopedia of Chicago, web. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, History, The History Chanel, November 13 2009, web.

Quotes Al Capone has many memorable quotes that give us insight into the mind of the legendary Chicago mobster and help us understand the reasoning behind many of his actions. Some quotes contradict each other yet some, like the ones I will cite here, portray a consistent thought or moral conviction. " A smile can get you far, but a smile and a gun can get you further" - Al Capone "You can do more with a kind word and a gun than just a kind word" - Al Capone

Valentine's Day Massacre The Saint Valentine's day massacre occurred on the 14th of February 1929, when seven "Bugs" gang members, five of which were members of the Irish North Side Gang led by George "Bugs" Moran, were murdered. The victims were put against the wall of the Warehouse at Dickens and Clark in Lincoln Park, Chicago, and shot by four unidentified attackers, two of which dressed as policemen, with two shotguns and two Thompson submachine guns. This Incident is known as the height of gang violence during the prohibition era and caused a feud between the Irish North Side Gang and the "alleged" culprits of the attack, The Italian South Side Gang led by Al Capone.

Family Al Capone met his future wife Mary "Mae" Coughlin in the outskirts of the Park Slope Neighborhood of Brooklyn, He married her at the age of 19 on December 30, 1918, mere weeks after their son, Albert Francis, was born. Mae lived most of her life out of the public eye, though we know she remained committed to Al Capone's life and legacy after his death from instances like her suing The Untouchables Tv show in 1964 for its similarities with her husband's life. She died a few years later in Florida at 89 years old on April 16, 1968. Albert Francis Capone, also known as Sonny or Capone Jr. was born on December 4, 1918. Sonny has no criminal track record unlike his father and after his death worked as an apprentice printer, tire distributor, and restaurant owner in Florida. The only dangerous behaviour he exhibited was a threat to kill Edward Kennedy in 1966. Unlike his mother, Sonny removed all ties with Capone and his legacy after his death, legally changing his name to Albert Francis Brown in 1966. Capone's son died on July 8, 2004, at the age of 85. As for Capone's siblings, only six remained alive after his death, his older brothers, Ralph "Bottles" who died in 1974 in Winsconsin and James Vincenzo "Two-Gun" who died in Nebraska in 1952, both of which had left their criminal lives after Al's death. Capone's younger siblings, Matthew deceased in 1967, Umberto who died in 1980, his youngest brother Erminio who passed away in 1985, and finally his sister Mafalda who died in 1988, were never heavily involved with their older brothers criminal empire and so led fairly normal lives.

Early Life Al Capone was born, the fourth out of nine children, to an Italian immigrant family in Brooklyn, New York the 17th of January, 1899. His parents, Gabriel and Teresina Capone immigrated from Naples to New York in 1893. After dropping out of the sixth grade at the age of fourteen for striking a teacher, Al Capone took on various odd jobs all the while he served in several "Kid Gangs" like the South Brooklyn Rippers. He later joined the James Street Boys gang, run by his lifelong mentor Johnny Torrio. At sixteen years old Al Capone joined the Five point Gang, run by Torrio's associate Frankie Yale. Al Capone committed numerous crimes before the age of twenty-one, one of which resulted in the scar that he would later be named for. The scrape happened at Frankie Yale's Harvard Inn where Frank Galluccio slashed Al Capone's face after he had made a series of crude comments towards Galluccio's sister.

Gang Years The Incident that situated Capone in the Chicago region involved Al Capone brutally assaulting a low-level member of their rival gang, the White Hand Gang. After the gang leaders promised retribution Capone was sent to Chicago to work for Torrio under the Chicago Crime Boss, Big Jim Colosimo, in 1919. Al Capone and Frankie Yale are both suspected of having assassinated Big Jim Colosimo on May 11, 1920, to make way for Torrio to take over the Colosimo Gang. During his time with the Colosimo mob in Chicago, the prohibition began as a consequence gangs started illegally brewing and distilling liquors and beers distributing them among the Chicago population for a hefty price. Although the mob did also own legitimate businesses in the cleaning and dyeing fields as cover stories for their illegal activities. The competition between gangs to supply the alcohol demand led to a string of gang violence, murders and assassinations, with their subsequent retribution attacks, Al Capone is known to have been a part of. In 1925 Al Capone took over as gang leader and Chicago crime czar after an assassination attempt on Torrio by Georges "Bugs" Moran left him gravely wounded and he retired to Italy. In his first years as Boss Capone utilized his fearsome reputation to seize control of the suburb of Cicero, where he ran numerous gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging rackets, gaining territory by eliminating or nullifying rival gangs, most often by violent means.

Charges and Conviction Al Capone was first arrested on the 27th of March 1929 for contempt of court, Capone posted a $5,000 bail and was subsequently released. two months after this incident on the 17th of May Al Capone and his bodyguard were arrested in Philadelphia for carrying a concealed deadly weapon, a handgun, Capone was sentenced to serve ten months in Homelsburg Prison, in Philadelphia, but was released having only served nine months for good behaviour. On February 28, 1931, Capone was found guilty of contempt of court and sentenced to six months in Cook County jail. Later that same year Al Capone was trialled for twenty-two counts of tax evasion and a conspiracy to violate prohibition laws from 1922 to 1931. Capone was found guilty of three of said counts and convicted on October 18, 1931, he was sentenced to eleven years in prison and fined $50,000 for court costs. He entered the Atlanta penitentiary prison in May 1932, however, he was transferred to the new Alcatraz prison in August of 1934 where he served seven years, six months, and fifteen days, before being released on account of his illness on November 16, 1936.

Illness and Death Alphonse Capone was first diagnosed with syphilis, a sexually transmitted disease, while he was serving his eleven years in the Atlanta penitentiary prison, at the same time he was suffering from gonorrhoea and cocaine withdrawal. After his relocation to Alcatraz prison, Al Capone began suffering symptoms of neurosyphilis, an infection of the central nervous system caused by syphilis but was not officially diagnosed until 1938, after this date he spent the remainder of his prison sentence in the hospital wing. Capone's wife Mae's appeal for parole was granted in 1939 due to Al Capone's failing mental faculties and deteriorating health. After his Release Al Capone was admitted to the Baltimore Hospital, from where he retired to his Florida estate in Palm Island. Capone became one of the first Americans to receive the newly mass-produced penicillin, which slowed the effects of the disease. The neurological damage syphilis had caused was not reversible, however, and in 1946 several medical and psychiatric experts attested Al Capone's mental capability was that of a twelve-year-old. On the twenty-first of January, 1947, Alphonse suffered a stroke and subsequently got pneumonia, on the very next day Capone suffered from cardiac arrest and was bed-bound for three days until on January 25, 1947, Al Capone died from apoplexy, the internal bleeding caused by his cardiac arrest, at the age of forty-eight.

"they can't collect taxes from illegal money"

"I would rather be rich affluent and greedy and go to hell when I die, than live in poverty on this earth"

"Capitalism gives all of us a great opportunity if we seize it with both hands and hang on to it"

"Bolschevism is knocking at our gates, we can't afford to let it in. We must keep America whole and safe and unspoiled. We must keep the workers away from red literature and red ruses; we must see that his mind remains healthy"

"It seems like I'm responsible for every crime that takes place in this country"

"I am sick and tired of publicity. I want no more of it. It puts me in a bad light. I just want to be forgotten"

"Every time a boy falls off a tricycle, every time a black cat has gray kittens, every time somone stubs a toe, every time there's a murder or a fire or the marines land on Nicaragua, the police and newspapers holler 'get Capone'"

"why not treat our business like any other man treats his, as something to work at in the daytime and forget when he comes home at night? There's plenty of business for everybody. Why kill each other over it?"

"Now I Know Why tigers kill their young"

Al Capone

Quotes

"Once you're in the racket, you're always in it. The parasites will trail you, begging for money and favours, and you can never get away from them no matter where you go"

"I have always been opposed to violence, to shootings. I have fought, uyes, but fought for peace. And I believe I can take credit for the peace that now exsists in the racket game in Chicago. I believe that the people can thank me for the fact that gang killings are probably a thing of the past"

"All I ever did was sell beer and whiskey to our best people. All I ever did was supply a demand that was pretty popular. Why the very guys that take my trade good are the ones that yell the loudest about me. Some of the leading judges use the stuff"

"Some call it bootlegging. Some call it racketeering. I call it business"

"I have spent the best years of my life giving people the lighter pleasures, helping them have a good time, and all I get is abuse, the exsistance of a hunted man"

"All I ever did was supply a demand that was pretty popular"

" In this life all that I have is my word and my balls and I do not break them for nobody" "The country wanted booze and I organized it. Why should I be called a public enemy?" "What do you want, to get yourself killed before you are thirty? You'd better get some sense while a few of us are left alive"