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Alphonse Gabriel Capone
January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947
Popularly known as Al Capone, he was an American gangster who
led a crime syndicate dedicated to the smuggling and bootlegging
of liquor and other illegal activities during the Prohibition
Era of the 1920s and 1930s.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, to southwestern Italian emigrants
Gabriele and Teresina Capone, Capone began his career in
Brooklyn before moving to Chicago and becoming the boss of the
criminal organization known as the Chicago Outfit (although his
business card reportedly described him as a used furniture
dealer).
By the end of the 1920s, Capone had gained the attention of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation following his being placed on
the Chicago Crime Commission's "public enemies" list. Although
never successfully convicted of racketeering charges, Capone's
criminal career ended in 1931, when he was indicted and
convicted by the federal government for income tax evasion.
Early life
Capone was born to Gabriele Capone (December 12, 1864 – November
14, 1920) and his wife Teresina Raiola (December 28, 1867 –
November 29, 1952) in Brooklyn, on January 17, 1899. Gabriele
was a barber from Castellammare di Stabia, a town about 15 miles
(24 km) south of Naples, Italy. Teresina was a seamstress and
the daughter of Angelo Raiola from Angri, a town in the province
of Salerno in southwestern Italy.
Gabriele and Teresina had nine children: Vincenzo Capone (1892 –
October 1, 1952), Raffaele Capone (January 12, 1894 – November
22, 1974), Salvatore Capone (January 1895 – April 1 , 1924)
Alphonse Gabriel Capone (January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947),
Erminio Capone (born 1901, date of death unknown), Umberto
Capone (1906 – June 1980), Matthew Capone (1908 – January 31,
1967), Rose Capone (born and died 1910) and Mafalda Capone
(later Mrs. John J. Maritote, January 28, 1912 – March 25,
1988).
The Capone family emigrated to Canada so that Jein 1894 and
settled in the Navy Yard section of downtown Brooklyn. When Al
was 14, the Capone family moved to 21 Garfield Place in Park
Slope, Brooklyn. In the new neighborhood, Al Capone met both
gangster Johnny Torrio and Mae Josephine Coughlin, whom he would
marry a few years later at St. Mary’s Star of the Sea Roman
Catholic Church.
Early criminal career
Capone's life of crime began early. As a teenager, he joined two
gangs, the Brooklyn Rippers and the Forty Thieves Juniors, and
engaged in petty crime.
Capone left school in the sixth-grade at age 14, after being
expelled for punching a teacher at Public School 133. He then
worked at odd jobs around Brooklyn, including in a candy store
and a bowling alley.
After his initial stint with small-time gangs, Capone joined the
notorious Five Points Gang, headed by Frankie Yale. It was at
this time that he began working as a bartender and a bouncer at
Yale's establishment, the seedy Harvard Inn. It was there that
Capone got the scars that gave him the nickname "Scarface."
Various stories are circulated that attempt to explain the name:
1. One story is that when he was working as a waiter for a young
couple, he leaned down and said to the woman, "Honey, you have a
nice ass and I mean that as a compliment." Her brother, Frank
Gallucio, pulled a knife and slashed Capone in the face three
times before leaving the bar with his sister. Word of the fight
eventually reached Yale, who forced Capone to apologize to
Gallucio.
2. Another story is that he asked a Sicilian barber to give him
a particular style of haircut popular with Sicilian gangsters
and the barber refused (perhaps because Capone was a
Neapolitan), upon which Capone vandalized the shop, knocking
down a row of personalized shaving mugs belonging to customers
and the barber then slashed his face with a straight razor.
This incident caused Yale to take Capone under his wing and
eventually led to his rule over the Chicago Outfit. It is
speculated that Capone forgave Frank Gallucio and even hired him
as a bodyguard later in his career.
However, the knife wounds left gruesome scars, which plagued
Capone for the rest of his life. He truly disliked this nickname
and once allegedly killed another man because he called him
that.
Alphonse Gabriel Capone (January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947),
popularly known as Al Capone, was an American gangster who led a
crime syndicate dedicated to the smuggling and bootlegging of
liquor and other illegal activities during the Prohibition Era
of the 1920s and 1930s.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, to southwestern Italian emigrants
Gabriele and Teresina Capone, Capone began his career in
Brooklyn before moving to Chicago and becoming the boss of the
criminal organization known as the Chicago Outfit (although his
business card reportedly described him as a used furniture
dealer).
By the end of the 1920s, Capone had gained the attention of the
Federal Bureau of Investigation following his being placed on
the Chicago Crime Commission's "public enemies" list. Although
never successfully convicted of racketeering charges, Capone's
criminal career ended in 1931, when he was indicted and
convicted by the federal government for income tax evasion.
Early life
Capone was born to Gabriele Capone (December 12, 1864 – November
14, 1920) and his wife Teresina Raiola (December 28, 1867 –
November 29, 1952) in Brooklyn, on January 17, 1899. Gabriele
was a barber from Castellammare di Stabia, a town about 15 miles
(24 km) south of Naples, Italy. Teresina was a seamstress and
the daughter of Angelo Raiola from Angri, a town in the province
of Salerno in southwestern Italy.
Gabriele and Teresina had nine children: Vincenzo Capone (1892 –
October 1, 1952), Raffaele Capone (January 12, 1894 – November
22, 1974), Salvatore Capone (January 1895 – April 1 , 1924)
Alphonse Gabriel Capone (January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947),
Erminio Capone (born 1901, date of death unknown), Umberto
Capone (1906 – June 1980), Matthew Capone (1908 – January 31,
1967), Rose Capone (born and died 1910) and Mafalda Capone
(later Mrs. John J. Maritote, January 28, 1912 – March 25,
1988).
The Capone family emigrated to Canada so that Jein 1894 and
settled in the Navy Yard section of downtown Brooklyn. When Al
was 14, the Capone family moved to 21 Garfield Place in Park
Slope, Brooklyn. In the new neighborhood, Al Capone met both
gangster Johnny Torrio and Mae Josephine Coughlin, whom he would
marry a few years later at St. Mary’s Star of the Sea Roman
Catholic Church.
Early criminal career
Capone's life of crime began early. As a teenager, he joined two
gangs, the Brooklyn Rippers and the Forty Thieves Juniors, and
engaged in petty crime.
Capone left school in the sixth-grade at age 14, after being
expelled for punching a teacher at Public School 133. He then
worked at odd jobs around Brooklyn, including in a candy store
and a bowling alley.
After his initial stint with small-time gangs, Capone joined the
notorious Five Points Gang, headed by Frankie Yale. It was at
this time that he began working as a bartender and a bouncer at
Yale's establishment, the seedy Harvard Inn. It was there that
Capone got the scars that gave him the nickname "Scarface."
Various stories are circulated that attempt to explain the name:
1. One story is that when he was working as a waiter for a young
couple, he leaned down and said to the woman, "Honey, you have a
nice ass and I mean that as a compliment." Her brother, Frank
Gallucio, pulled a knife and slashed Capone in the face three
times before leaving the bar with his sister. Word of the fight
eventually reached Yale, who forced Capone to apologize to
Gallucio.
2. Another story is that he asked a Sicilian barber to give him
a particular style of haircut popular with Sicilian gangsters
and the barber refused (perhaps because Capone was a
Neapolitan), upon which Capone vandalized the shop, knocking
down a row of personalized shaving mugs belonging to customers
and the barber then slashed his face with a straight razor.
This incident caused Yale to take Capone under his wing and
eventually led to his rule over the Chicago Outfit. It is
speculated that Capone forgave Frank Gallucio and even hired him
as a bodyguard later in his career.
However, the knife wounds left gruesome scars, which plagued
Capone for the rest of his life. He truly disliked this nickname
and once allegedly killed another man because he called him
that.
On December 30, 1918, Capone married Mae Josephine Coughlin, an
Irish woman, who, shortly before their marriage, had given birth
to his son, Albert Francis ("Sonny") Capone. The couple lived in
Brooklyn before moving to Amityville, Long Island, to be close
to "Rum Row."
Capone was still working for Frankie Yale and is thought to have
committed at least two murders before being sent to Chicago in
1919, mainly to avoid the retribution of Bill Lovett, a violent
lieutenant in the White Hand Gang, who was busy searching for
Capone who had supposedly hospitalized one of his subordinates.
Capone was familiar with Chicago, having been sent there
previously by Yale in order to help crime boss James "Big Jim"
Colosimo dispose of a troublesome group of Black Hand
extortionists. Capone went to work for Colosimo's empire under
Giovanni "Johnny" Torrio, another Brooklyn native.
Chicago
Torrio immediately recognized Capone's talents, and soon Capone
was elevated to running the Four Deuces bar and given
responsibility for much of the alcohol and prostitution rackets
in the city of Chicago. With prohibition in full effect, there
was a fortune to be made in bootlegging. Colosimo's reluctance
to move into this area of crime led to his murder on May 11,
1920, in the foyer of his own nightclub. Yale was later arrested
for the murder, but the case collapsed through lack of evidence.
Torrio was now in charge and promoted Capone to be his second in
command.
The Capone family moved to Chicago for good, buying a red-brick
bungalow at 7244 South Prairie Avenue on the city's South Side.
The house served as Capone's first headquarters.
Activity in Cicero, Illinois
After the 1923 election of reform mayor William Emmett Dever in
Chicago, Chicago's city government began to put pressure on the
gangster elements inside the city limits. To put its
headquarters outside of city jurisdiction and create a safe zone
for its operations, the Capone organization muscled its way into
Cicero, Illinois. This led to one of Capone's greatest triumphs:
the takeover of Cicero's town government in 1924. Cicero
gangster Myles O'Donnell and his brother William "Klondike"
O'Donnell fought with Capone over their home turf. The war
resulted in over 200 deaths along with the infamous "Hanging
Prosecutor" Bill McSwiggins.
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 at polling stations by thugs. Capone's
mayoral candidate won by a huge margin but only weeks later
announced that he would run Capone out of town. Capone met with
his puppet-mayor and personally knocked him down the town hall
steps, a powerful assertion of gangster power and a major
victory for the Torrio-Capone alliance.
For Capone, this event was marred by the death of his brother
Frank at the hands of the police. As was the custom amongst
gangsters Capone signaled his mourning by attending the funeral
unshaven, and he cried openly at the gathering. He ordered the
closure of all the speakeasies in Cicero for a day as a mark of
respect.
Much of Capone's family put down roots in Cicero as well. In
1930, Capone's sister Mafalda's marriage to John J. Maritote
took place at St. Mary of Czestochowa, a massive Neogothic
edifice towering over Cicero Avenue in the so-called Polish
Cathedral style.
Capone's wealth and power grows in Chicago
Severely injured in a 1925 assassination attempt by the North
Side Gang, the shaken Torrio turned over his business to Capone
and returned to Italy. Capone was notorious during the
Prohibition Era for his control of large portions of the Chicago
underworld, which provided the Outfit with an estimated US $10
million per year in revenue. This wealth was generated through
all manner of illegal enterprises, although the largest
moneymaker was the sale of liquor.
Demand was met by a transportation network that moved smuggled
liquor from the rum-runners of the East Coast and The Purple
Gang in Detroit and local production in the form of Midwestern
moonshine operations and illegal breweries. With the funds
generated by his bootlegging operation, Capone's grip on the
political and law-enforcement establishments in Chicago grew
stronger. Through this organized corruption, which included the
bribing of Mayor of Chicago William "Big Bill" Hale Thompson,
Capone's gang operated largely free from legal intrusion,
operating casinos and speakeasies throughout Chicago. Wealth
also permitted Capone to indulge in a luxurious lifestyle of
custom suits, cigars, gourmet food and drink (his preferred
liquor was Templeton Rye from Iowa), jewelry, and female
companionship.
However, this unprecedented level of criminal success drew the
attention of Capone's rivals, particularly his bitter rivalries
with North Side gangsters such as Dion O’Banion, Bugs Moran and
lieutenant Earl "Hymie" Weiss. Such opposition led to attempts
to assassinate Capone throughout the 1920s. He was shot in a
restaurant, and he had his car riddled with bullets more than
once.
These attacks prompted Capone to fit his Cadillac with armour
plating, bullet-proof glass, run-flat tires, and a police siren.
Most of the would-be assassins were incompetent and Capone was
never seriously wounded, but every attempt on his life left him
increasingly shaken and slightly afraid of Moran, who was almost
certainly involved in most of the attacks.
Members of the gang that had wounded Torrio shot into the
headquarters of Capone's gang, which was disguised as a doctor's
office and an antique dealer's shop. Nobody was hurt in the raid
(Capone's bodyguard threw him to the ground at the first sound
of gunfire), although the headquarters was riddled with bullet
holes. This event forced him to call for a truce, one that would
be short-lived.
When the headquarters moved to the Lexington Hotel, Capone had
it filled with his armed bodyguards around the clock. For his
trips away from Chicago, Capone was reputed to have had several
other retreats and hideouts located in Brookfield, Wisconsin;
Saint Paul, Minnesota; Olean, New York; French Lick, as well as
Terre Haute, Indiana; Dubuque, Iowa; Hot Springs, Arkansas;
Johnson City, Tennessee; and Lansing, Michigan. Tunnels found
under the city of Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, are said to have been
another hideout of Capone's. As a further precaution, Capone and
his entourage would often suddenly show up at a one of Chicago's
train depots and buy up an entire Pullman sleeper car on night
trains to places like Cleveland, Omaha, Kansas City and Little
Rock/Hot Springs, Ark. where they would spend a week in a luxury
hotel suite under assumed names with the apparent knowledge and
connivance of local authorities. In 1928, Capone bought a
retreat on Palm Island, Florida.
Capone considered Moran to be a homicidal lunatic, for good
reason, and lived in fear of the Moran gang. The fusillade
launched against his headquarters, where at least ten gunmen
fired for over ten minutes, must have been particularly
unnerving. Even in his last days as he lay ravaged by syphilis,
Capone raved on about Communists, foreigners, and George Moran,
whom he was convinced was still plotting to do him in from his
Ohio prison cell.
St. Valentine's Day Massacre
Al Capone orchestrated the most notorious gangland killing of
the century, the 1929 St. Valentine's Day Massacre in the
Lincoln Park neighbourhood on Chicago's North Side. Although
details of the killing of the seven victims in a garage at 2122
North Clark Street are still in dispute and no one was ever
indicted for the crime, their deaths are generally linked to
Capone and his henchmen, especially Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn.
McGurn is thought to have led the operation, using gunmen
disguised as police and toting shotguns and Thompson submachine
guns.
The massacre was Capone's effort to dispose of Moran. The North
Side gang had become increasingly bold in hijacking the Outfit's
booze trucks and encroaching on the South Side and Capone was
ready to put it to an end.
After all efforts to secure a truce had failed, Capone, his
accountant/chief extortionist Jake "Greasy Thumb" Gusik, and
Frank "The Enforcer" Nitti agreed that they'd have to risk the
political heat that would come from wiping out Moran and his
gang or face eventual elimination at the hands of the North
Siders. They assigned the task to McGurn and told him to use
"outside torpedoes" to avoid implication. McGurn secured the
services of triggermen from New York, Tennessee, Detroit, and
downstate Illinois.
They rented an apartment across from the Clark Street trucking
garage that served as a Moran headquarters to monitor their
targets' habits and movements and placed a call to the garage
offering to sell a truckload of whiskey stolen by freelancing
Sicilian immigrants from a Capone shipment. Such freelancers
often hijacked such shipments from both gangs and sold them to
the highest bidders, so no suspicions were aroused in the Moran
camp. The stolen booze (high-grade Canadian whiskey) was brought
to the garage, and the deal was done.
As hoped, the entire Moran gang was there. Unknown to the North
Siders, these "freelancers" were being paid by McGurn to set
them up for the kill. On January 13, the freelancers called
again and set up another transaction for the next day. The
freelancers were expected to drive the truck right into the
garage, where McGurn hoped the entire Moran gang would again be
assembled. At the set time, a stolen Chicago police car pulled
up and uniformed "officers" entered the building, along with
others who had been standing nearby.
Apparently, the gang members thought that they had been scammed
and that they had been set up for a raid. They sheepishly lined
up to cooperate in the belief that their lawyers would fix
things downtown, as they had many times before. Moran, spotting
what he thought to be a police car outside, decided to keep
walking and did not enter the garage.
It is believed that a local optometrist (who supplemented his
income through bootlegging and liked to hang out at the garage
with the gang members) had been mistaken that morning for Moran
because he was of similar height and wore the same color gray
hat and coat favored by the North Side chieftain. After the
supposed Moran entered, the lookouts triggered the "raid."
Forensic evidence shows that the seven victims were almost cut
in two by machine gun fire and that many of the victims had
their faces shot off by shotgun blasts for good measure. People
in the neighborhood saw the police go in and heard what they
thought were a series of backfires, which were common at a
garage. The "police" later led some men out to the car and left.
The grisly scene was discovered after the mechanic's dog began
to howl so loudly that neighbors went in to see what was wrong.
One of the Moran gang survived long enough to be questioned in a
hospital before he died. True to gangland custom of omertà, he
refused to cooperate with the police in the slightest degree,
obedient to the unwritten code of honor then prevalent among the
Chicago underworld.
Although Moran escaped, all his chief deputies were killed and
his illegal liquor operation in Chicago rapidly declined. When
asked by reporters if he believed Capone was behind the
killings, Moran scornfully replied "Only Capone kills like
that!"
An indignant Capone countered, "Oh yeah! Listen ... they don't
call that guy 'Bugs' for nothing!" in a reference to Moran's
reputation for savagery. With his remaining resources, Moran
marked Capone and his key underlings for extermination.
Capone arranged to have himself jailed in Philadelphia for a
year to avoid numerous "murder for hire" outfits that were
hunting for him. McGurn was gunned down at a bowling alley on
the anniversary of the garage slaughter, and two others involved
in the killing disappeared.
Moran eventually ran out of resources and fled to Ohio, allowing
Capone to return to Chicago, where he quickly found himself in
the legal quagmire that effectively removed him from power. It
is generally thought that Capone precipitated his own decline
with the garage killings. Graphic photos of bodies lying in
pools of blood were plastered all over the papers.
A secret convocation of Chicago civic leaders initiated an
all-out effort to drive Capone from power. Nevertheless, had
Capone and his gang done nothing, the North Side gang likely
would have succeeded in killing their rivals and taking over the
entire city. Moran and his associates were driven by a visceral
hatred of the "South Side Scum," whom they considered to be
sexual deviants and degenerates who dealt in prostitution and
drug peddling and allowed debased jazz musicians to play in
their bars.
Moran had also repeatedly vowed to avenge the deaths of his
close friends and mentors O'Banion and Weiss (the latter being
gunned down on the steps of Trinity Cathedral). It is said that
Nitti became enraged with McGurn (whom he considered to be a
rival) over Moran's escape and the unfavorable publicity that
ensued.
Federal income taxes and downfall
Although Capone always did his business through front men and
had no accounting records in his own name (even his mansion was
in his wife's name), Al Alcini started linking him to his
earnings. This let the government see that Al Capone was not
paying substantial income tax. The federal income tax laws
allowed the federal government to pursue Capone on tax evasion,
their best chance of finally convicting him.
Pursuing Capone were Treasury agent Eliot Ness and his
hand-picked team of incorruptible U.S. Prohibition agents, "The
Untouchables," and agent Frank Wilson of the Treasury
Department's Bureau of Internal Revenue. During a routine
warehouse raid, they discovered in a desk drawer what was
clearly a crudely coded set of accounts. Ness then concentrated
on pursuing Capone for his failure to pay tax on this
substantial illegal income. This story has become a legend and
the subject of books and films.
Capone was tried in a federal court in 1931. The Alcinis tried
to help Capone, but he pleaded guilty to the charges on advice
of his legal counsel, hoping for a plea bargain. But after the
judge refused his lawyer's offers, and the jury was replaced on
the day of the trial to frustrate Capone's associates' efforts
to bribe or intimidate the original panel, Al Capone was found
guilty on five of 22 counts of tax evasion for the years 1925,
1926, and 1927, and willful failure to file tax returns for 1928
and 1929. Capone's legal team offered to pay all outstanding tax
and interest and told their client to expect a severe fine. The
judge sentenced him to eleven years in a federal prison and one
year in the county jail, as well as an earlier six-month
contempt of court sentence; he ultimately served only six and a
half years because of good behavior in prison. He also had to
pay fines and court costs totalling 80,000 dollars.
Capone's image
Part of the reason Capone was taken to task in this way was his
status as a celebrity. On the advice of his publicist, he
stopped hiding from the media by the mid-1920s and began to make
public appearances. When Charles Lindbergh performed his famous
transatlantic flight in 1927, Capone was among the first to push
forward and shake his hand upon his arrival in Chicago.
Capone often tried to whitewash his image and be seen as a
community leader. For example, he started a program, which was
continued for decades after his death, to fight rickets by
providing a daily milk ration to Chicago school children. Also
during the Great Depression, Capone opened up many soup kitchens
for the poor and homeless.
Capone was a man with style, and if he ever killed someone
himself, or one of his henchmen killed an important person,
hundreds of dollars worth of flowers were sent to the funeral,
and even Capone and some of his men went to the funeral. In one
instance, one of Capone's rival gang leaders was killed by his
men, and Capone sent $5,000 worth of flowers to the funeral. In
one fight between Capone's men and another gang, an innocent
woman was shot, but not fatally, and required hospital
treatment. Capone paid all her hospital bills.
Capone could often be seen sitting in box seats with his son and
bodyguards at Chicago White Sox and Chicago Cubs games. He, his
brother Ralph, and Gusik regularly went to the race tracks in
Chicago, as well as during their security forays into Arkansas
and Nebraska. He was also an opera fan and liked circuses and
rodeos, where he would buy huge blocks of tickets and distribute
them among low-income neighborhoods.
Capone and Nitti were both fans of "New Orleans" jazz music and
were instrumental in the rise of such talents as Louis Armstrong
and others, who regularly played at Capone speakeasies on the
South Side. Bob Hope related performing, when he was an up and
comer, at one of these clubs, where he was terrified of the
prospects of bombing in front of such a crowd.
He gained a great deal of admiration from many of the poor in
Chicago for his flagrant disregard of the Prohibition law that
they despised. He was viewed for a time as a lovable outlaw,
partially because of his extravagant generosity to strangers and
often lending a hand to struggling Italian-Americans. His
nightclub, the Cotton Club, became a hot spot for new acts, such
as Charlie Parker and Bing Crosby. He was often cheered in the
street.
Such efforts, however, did not change his reputation for
violence and murder within the city. Capone did not help his own
PR problems by being linked to an incident where two men were
bludgeoned to death with baseball bats after they were thought
to be disloyal to the Outfit: accounts of this incident put the
bat in Capone's hands. The brutal murders of the St. Valentine's
Day massacre also didn't help, as they made people view Capone
as a killer and socially unacceptable.
Capone headed a list of "public enemies" corrupting the city
compiled by the chairman of the Chicago Crime Commission, Frank
J. Loesch, in April 1930. The list was published by newspapers
nationwide, and Capone became known as "Public Enemy No. 1."
Prison time
In May 1932, Capone was sent to Atlanta, a tough federal prison,
but he was able to take control and obtain special privileges.
He was then transferred to Alcatraz, where tight security and an
uncompromising warden ensured that Capone had no contact with
the outside world. Capone entered Alcatraz with his usual
confidence, but his isolation from his associates, and the
repeal of Prohibition, meant his empire was beginning to wither.
He attempted to earn time off for good behavior by being a model
prisoner and refusing to participate in prisoner rebellions.
When Capone attempted to bribe guards he was sent to solitary
confinement.
During his early months at Alcatraz, Capone made an enemy by
showing his disregard for the prison social order when he cut in
line while prisoners were waiting for a haircut. James Lucas, a
Texas bank robber serving 30 years, reportedly confronted the
former syndicate leader and told him to get back at the end of
the line. When Capone asked if he knew who he was, Lucas
reportedly grabbed a pair of the barber's scissors and, holding
them to Capone's neck, answered "Yeah, I know who you are,
greaseball. And if you don't get back to the end of that fucking
line, I'm gonna know who you were."
Capone earned the contempt of many of the inmates in Alcatraz
when he refused to take part in a prisoners' strike after a sick
inmate, accused of malingering, was denied medical treatment and
died. Continuing his work in the prison laundry, Capone was
continually harassed by other prisoners and often called a
"scab" or "rat." He was eventually allowed to remain in his cell
until the strike was resolved.
Shortly after returning to work, an unidentified inmate threw a
heavy lead sash at Capone's head, but he suffered only a deep
cut on the arm after being pushed out of the way by convicted
bank robber Roy Gardner.
Reassigned to mopping up the prison bathhouse, Capone was
nicknamed the "wop with the mop" by inmates. He was later
stabbed in the back by Lucas, who was sentenced to solitary
confinement. Capone was hospitalized for a week. He suffered
further harassment and unsuccessful attempts on his life
throughout his prison sentence, including spiking his coffee
with lye and attacking him as he was walking towards the
dentist's office. He remained under protection from several
inmates (possibly from payoffs by the Chicago Outfit).
Though he adjusted relatively well to his new environment, his
health declined as his syphilis (contracted as a youth)
progressed, and he spent the last year of his sentence in the
prison hospital, confused and disoriented. Capone completed his
term in Alcatraz on January 6, 1939, and was transferred to the
Federal Correctional Institution at Terminal Island in
California, to serve his one-year misdemeanor sentence. He was
released on November 16 1939, spent a short time in a hospital,
then returned to his home in Palm Island, Florida.
Physical decline and death
Capone's control and interests within organized crime had
decreased rapidly after his imprisonment, and he was no longer
able to run the Outfit after his release. He had lost weight,
and his physical and mental health had declined, most noticeably
with the onset of dementia. On January 21, 1947, Capone had an
apoplectic stroke. He regained consciousness and started to
improve but contracted pneumonia on January 24, and suffered a
cardiac arrest the next day (possibly associated with the
complications of third-stage neurosyphilis).
Alphonse Capone was originally buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery,
in Chicago's far South Side between the graves of his father,
Gabriele, and brother, Frank. However, in March 1950, the
remains of all three family members were moved to Mount Carmel
Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois, west of Chicago.
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