Today in History: OCTOBER 17 = Al Capone is Convicted of Tax Evasion

On today's date, October 17 in 1931 Al Capone (left) was convicted of Income Tax Evasion and sentenced to 11 years in Federal Prison. After a lifetime of violence, killing and bloodshed it took the long arm of the Internal Revenue Service to at long last put this ruthless criminal behind bars.

The Rise of "Scarface" Al Capone

Alphonse Gabriel Capone was born on January 17, 1899 to Italian immigrant parents in New York City. He started the crooked path early, being expelled from school at 14. He joined a street gang and it was in such company that he acquired at age 17 during a fight the facial scar which gave him the nickname which he personally hated. But this kid had a lifetime of crime ahead of him, and his scar was certainly no hindrance. While he was still a teenager he took up with the Five Points Gang and made himself useful as a bouncer in their brothels. In 1920 he moved to Chicago, becoming a trusted lieutenant to Johnny Torrio, the head of a crime syndicate which supplied alcohol which was then illegal under the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In 1920 this amendment established prohibition as the law of the land. Torrio was nearly killed in an attack by the North Side gang and was sufficiently frightened to retire while he still was alive. He returned to Italy handing over the reigns of his organization to Capone in 1925.

Capone Goes for Bigger Profits

Al decided to expand the business, particularly the illegal liquor end of things, and he wasn't shy about using increasingly violent means to do it, effectively going to war with the North Side gang

which had attacked Torrio. Violence increased as did the body count while Capone's men fought it out with North Side thugs and their leaders Dean O'Banion and George "Bugs" Moran (right). At stake was control of the bootleg liquor business and the millions of dollars to be raked in from it and the brothels which they controlled. Of course Capone was careful to pay off the various politicians, policemen, judges, in particular Chicago Mayor William Hale Thompson which protected him from too much law enforcement. Capone became a kind of celebrity and enjoyed every minute of it. He

loved it when the crowds would cheer for him when he showed up at baseball games. He even cultivated a certain Robin Hood image by opening soup kitchens (left) to feed poor men hit by the economic depression which was at its worst. Anybody who could bring relief to the millions left unemployed was certain to be a popular man with the public.

The St. Valentines Day Massacre

But the violence could get to be too much. Capone wanted to wipe out the North Side gang and the influence of its Irish-American leader, "Bugs" Moran once and for all. On February 14, 1929, seven members of the North Side gang were lured into a garage by several men dressed as Chicago policemen. There the men were lined up against a wall and were shot down in cold blood. It may be that Capone's men thought

that the group they had murdered included Moran himself. But it did not. In fact, it was Moran himself put the finger squarely on his blood rival by commenting to the press: "Only Al Capone kills like that." Capone had taken the precaution of being out of town at that time. No investigation was able to link the murders into Capone's hands, but he was widely believed to be the one behind it. His public image was severely damaged by this brazen murder in broad daylight leading to calls for Government action, while the papers began referring to Al as "Public Enemy No. 1"

The I.R.S. Finally Bags Al

As Capone's fortune rose, so did the Treasury Department's interest in his income. A ruling by the Supreme Court in May of 1927 worked in the government's favor. In U.S. -v- Sullivan it was determined that “gains from illicit traffic in liquor are subject to the income tax (and) would be taxable” by the government. Al Capone claimed for years that he had no income which was taxable, so this was exactly what the feds needed to reel in Capone. Led by Elmer Irey and Frank Wilson a group from Treasury known as "the T men" they quietly followed Capone's money and gathered the necessary evidence to show that Capone had made millions off of income for which he had never paid taxes. And on today's date Mr. Capone was convicted on 22 counts of Income Tax Evasion, was sentenced to 11 years in prison was fined $50,000 ($847,111 in today's dollars), charged court costs and ordered to pay back taxes of $215,000 (now, $3,642,576).

Jail is Tough on Al

Capone began serving his sentence in Atlanta, but there were charges that he was allowed too many luxuries there, so his residence was changed to the Federal Penitentiary on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. There, the warden, one James Aloysius Johnston, proved to be a more difficult man to deal with than Capone had dealt with before. There would be none of luxuries that Al had enjoyed before. As prisoner # AZ-85, Capone occupied a normal cell of 5 ft. by 9 ft., working in the prison laundry. These surroundings in a claustrophobically small cell in a damp place like Alcatraz is to anyone who has ever toured the place as this writer once did a few years ago, were not conducive to anybody's good health. At Alcatraz, Capone's body, ravaged by syphilis, began to turn against him leading eventually to insanity. He was released from the Rock after only four years there, and eventually died of a stroke on January 25, 1947 at his home in Palm Island, Florida.