Al Capone Wikipedia

Born in 1899 in Brooklyn, yourpowermed.hu New York, to poor immigrant parents, Al Capone went on to become the most infamous gangster in American history. In 1920 during the height of Prohibition, Capone’s multi-million dollar Chicago operation in bootlegging, prostitution and gambling dominated the organized crime scene. Capone was responsible for many brutal acts of violence, mainly against other gangsters. The most famous of these was the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in 1929, in which he ordered the assassination of seven rivals.

U.S. History

Capone was soon incarcerated in the Eastern Penitentiary, where he stayed until March 16, 1930. 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. According to various estimates, gangster Al Capone was worth about $100 million by 1927. As the head of organized crime in Chicago, he oversaw a number of lucrative rackets, including gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging. Capone apparently reveled in attention, such as the cheers from spectators when he appeared at baseball games. In 1923, when Chicago elected a reformist mayor who announced that he planned to rid the city of corruption, Torrio and Capone moved their base beyond the city limits to suburban Cicero.

He also stood apart from other gangsters by being very present in the public eye, chatting with reporters and throwing big parties all while participating in illegal activities. After nine hours of discussion, on October 17, 1931, the jury found Capone guilty of several counts of tax evasion. Judge Wilkerson sentenced him to 11 years in prison, $50,000 in fines, and court costs of another $30,000. In response to the public outcry over the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, President Herbert Hoover ordered the federal government to step up its efforts to get Capone on income-tax evasion. The Supreme Court had ruled in 1927 that income gained on illegal activities was taxable, which gave the government a strong case for prosecuting Capone.

• In 1926 Capone went into hiding for three months after he and some of his gunmen inadvertently killed McSwiggin while attacking other rivals.
• He entered Atlanta penitentiary in May 1932 but was transferred to the new Alcatraz prison in August 1934.
• With his business acumen, Al became Torrio's partner and took over as manager of the Four Deuces — Torrio's headquarters in Chicago's Levee area.
• In November 1939, suffering from the general deterioration of paresis (a late stage of syphilis), he was released and entered a Baltimore hospital.

Illness and death

But when Capone’s father died of a heart attack in 1920, Torrio invited him to come to Chicago. Al Capone died in 1947 of cardiac arrest after a stroke at the age of 48. Shortly afterward, Capone shot his first man, got into trouble with an Irish gang and beat a mobster half to death with his own hands. 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. As Capone's reputation grew, he still insisted on being unarmed as a mark of his status.

Capone was never indicted for his racketeering but was finally brought to justice for income-tax evasion in 1931. Capone’s life captured the public imagination, and his gangster persona has been immortalized in the many movies and books inspired by his exploits. Federal authorities became intent on jailing Capone and charged him with twenty-two counts of tax evasion. During a highly publicized case, the judge admitted as evidence Capone's admissions of his income and unpaid taxes, made during prior and ultimately abortive negotiations to pay the government taxes he owed. After conviction, he replaced his defense team with experts in tax law, and his grounds for appeal were strengthened by a U.S. Capone showed signs of neurosyphilis early in his sentence and became increasingly debilitated before being released after almost eight years of incarceration.