by Deirdre Bair
“blubbering jungle hippopotamus”: Chicago Tribune, Feb. 22, 1931; Chicago Herald and Examiner, Feb. 24, 1931.
“a sumptuous blue suit”: The quotations are from Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 305, 306, 310; Kobler, Capone, 320; Bergreen, Capone, 418.
CHAPTER 18: JAIL IS A BAD PLACE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES
Wilson sent impassioned requests: Wilson to Irey, March 27, 1931. I have been told by several lawyers, including Mary Lawrence Test and Vincent J. Bartolotta Jr., that several thousand documents are not really very many in a trial such as this. I, and the lawyers I have consulted, consider this another of Wilson’s exaggerations.
Wilson and his team gathered: Wilson, report, Dec. 21, 1933.
Wilson described how he stumbled upon them: Wilson, “Undercover Man,” Collier’s, April 26, 1947; Chicago Tribune Archives, June 14, 1959, p. 284.
“prowled the crummy streets”: Ibid., p. 33; Linder, “Al Capone Trial (1931).”
“Hanging an income tax rap”: Frank J. Wilson, as told to Howard Whitman, “How We Caught Al Capone,” Chicago Tribune, June 14, 1959, a reprinted but abridged and slightly changed version originally from Collier’s, April 26, 1947.
“wash their own dirty linen”: Kobler, Capone, 276.
“took him to task”: Chicago Crime Commission, Jake Guzik file, no. 1688, Nov. 14, 1920. John Binder provided this information.
“cocky, beady eyed, cop-hating”: Wilson, as told to Whitman, “How We Caught Al Capone.”
“Scarface Al, [sitting] with a jeweled moll”: Ibid.
“merely shake…He rattled”: The connection to the 1954 song “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” is irresistible in the context of Wilson’s wording. One hopes his co-writer and/or editor for the 1965 memoir had the grace to shorten it for publication.
Wilson tracked down one other witness: Chicago Tribune, March 6, 1931; Berkeley Daily Gazette, June 17, 1931.
“bedraggled veteran in her fifties”: Wilson, report, Dec. 21, 1933; retold in Kobler, Capone, 279.
Malone’s role as Lepito: Irey and Slocum, Tax Dodgers; Wilson and Day, Special Agent.
“the greatest undercover agent”: Wilson’s report to Irey, December 31, 1933; Wilson as noted above; David Porter, “Gun Owned by Agent Who Toppled Capone Headed to Vegas Museum,” Associated Press, March 28, 2015. Porter is quoting Paul Camacho, former head of IRS Criminal Investigation and “unofficial agency historian.” The story relates that Malone’s Smith & Wesson .38 special was part of a social exhibition at the Mob Museum. The gun is now owned by his nephew, who said his mother found it under Malone’s pillow after he died in 1960 in Minnesota.
“why kill him?”: Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 296.
High-level gamesmanship existed: Wilson, “How We Caught Al Capone,” Chicago Tribune, June 14, 1959.
CHAPTER 19: “WHO WOULDN’T BE WORRIED?”
“an admission of large taxable income”: Wilson, report, Dec. 21, 1933.
“the backroom brief writing partner”: Schoenberg, http://www.alcaponebio.com/al_capone_outline.htm (this site is no longer active).
they thought he should have been aware: Members of the Capone family who ask not to be identified hold the first opinion. Robert J. Schoenberg believes that AC was fully competent mentally in 1931 despite his seeming indifference to the case (telephone conversation, May 21, 2015; see also Mr. Capone, 255–56). John Binder believes that AC might have initially “ ‘gone along’ to an extent” with his lawyers in the belief that the plea bargain would result in a reduced sentence. Binder also believes AC was mentally competent but that there was incompetence on both sides: AC’s lawyers, who should have known many charges were unenforceable due to statutes of limitations; AC “should have been aware of legalistics” governing the Terrance J. Druggan, Frank “Frankie” Lake, and Frank Nitti trials that applied to his case and should have conferred with his lawyers about them. E-mail and telephone conversation, May 27, 2015.
“pushed around so much”: Chicago Tribune, June 6, 1931.
“Jail’s a bad place under any circumstances”: Philadelphia Bulletin, March 15, 1930.
“conspiracies and conspiracies”: Philadelphia Inquirer, June 30, 1931.
the victory was Capone’s: New Republic, July 1, 1931. Eig, Get Capone, 342, accepts the veracity (unproven) of George Murray, a reporter for the Chicago American who had strong ties to underworld informants. He had covered the trial and wrote in a column of July 23, 1956, that the main reason Judge Wilkerson was so intent on bringing AC to trial was that he was visited “two days before Capone was to come to court…by the confidential secretary of the man [President Hoover] in Washington.” Murray claimed Wilkerson emerged from the meeting “visibly shaken.” Eig comments, “The wonder is that Wilkerson never told it to Johnson.” The entire account, both by Murray and by Eig, is highly suspect. Judges are expected to be impartial, but one wonders if this one would have subjected the prosecuting attorney to such public humiliation, which was certainly harmful to the government’s case.
He said it was likely: To write the following, I have primarily consulted (among many others) the Chicago Tribune, July 31, 1931, transcript of the proceedings; Chicago Daily News, transcript of the opening statement; Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 314–15; Francis X. Busch, Enemies of the State, 201 (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1954); Robert Ross, The Trial of Al Capone, 42 (Chicago: Robert Ross, 1933); Wilson, report, Dec. 21, 1933; Hoffman, Scarface Al, 160–64; Iorizzo, Al Capone, 73–88; personal communications with John Binder and Robert J. Schoenberg.
“Well, who wouldn’t be”: Both stories were Oct. 7, 1931.
CHAPTER 20: “I GUESS IT’S ALL OVER”
“forced by Capone”: Wilson, report, Dec. 21, 1933.
And what they knew of gangland violence: To write the following, I have relied primarily on newspapers, most notably the New York Times and in Chicago the Tribune, Herald and Examiner, Daily News, Evening Post, and American. Also, personal communication with Robert J. Schoenberg, who conducted several important interviews with trial observers and participants and who will be cited separately. John Binder contributed information through useful conversations and e-mails. I have also consulted the books cited throughout of Kobler, Bergreen, Iorizzo, Hoffman, and Binder.
Thomas Nash, who had defended Al in the past: Schoenberg consulted Nash’s son, who had no knowledge of why his father, still representing AC, was never present at the trial.
“really inept criminal defense lawyers”: Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 317.
“When a man makes such statements”: Chicago Herald and Examiner, Oct. 9, 1931.
“Wouldn’t the size of the roll”: Chicago Daily News, Oct. 10, 1931.
“too much for the rural gentlemen”: New York Times, Oct. 13, 1931.
“There seems to be a reasonable doubt”: New York Times, Oct. 17, 1931.
“In other words, can a man get away”: Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 323.
“unjustly, especially by the press”: U.S. Public Health Service, U.S. Penitentiary, Atlanta, Neuro-psychiatric Examination, 40886-Alphonse Capone, May 18, 1932. Mental examination by C. R. F. Beall, psychiatrist, 4.
Except for the occasional slip: Chicago Tribune, March 21, 1931.
“King Alphonse”: Chicago Tribune, June 15, 1931.
“porcine bulk”: Chicago Tribune, Feb. 26, 1931.
“greasy and grinning”: Time, Sept. 21, 1931.
“thick lips”: New York Times, Oct. 8, 1931.
“grinning at the crowds”: Chicago Tribune, Oct. 8, 1931.
“one of those prodigious Italians”: Chicago Herald and Examiner, Jan. 18, 1931.
“You are not wanted”: New York Times, Oct. 3, 1931.
“passion for colored silk underwear”: New York Times, Oct. 18, 1931.
“collegiate style”: New York Times, Oct. 14, 1931.
“a technical means to the end”: Washington Evening Star, Oct. 24, 1931.
“Back then nobody cared”: As quoted by Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 3
24.
CHAPTER 21: “I’M IN JAIL; AREN’T THEY SATISFIED?”
Once again, the press pounced: Some of the sources I have consulted include the Chicago papers: Tribune, Daily News, Daily Times, Herald and Examiner, and Post. Also, New York Times. Books include Bergreen, Capone; Binder, Beer Wars; Busch, Enemies of the State; Hoffman, Scarface Al; Iorizzo, Al Capone; Kobler, Capone; Ross, Trial of Al Capone; and Schoenberg, Mr. Capone. Others will be cited where appropriate.
It made for a lively story: Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 327–28, 448n, cites Kobler, Capone, 351, where the only mention of this possible incident is that AC’s brothers brought him news that Torrio had formed a partnership with Schultz. I was unable to find verification of Schoenberg’s contention, and none of my other research confirmed that this actually happened.
Various gangster memoirs: Among them, Joseph Bonanno, A Man of Honor (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983).
It was not the last time: Diane Capone said she knew of one visit to Alcatraz because her father talked about how he and Mae would go from one movie theater to another, basically killing time until they could see AC.
They tried to hide from the flashing: “Government Takes Capone for Ride to Leavenworth,” Universal Newspaper Newsreel, n.d., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v+p8wFFJOGEY.
Another unidentified woman: Besides Ralph, Matthew was the only brother then married. He was twenty-four and the father of one child. Mafalda might have been holding his child, because she had just given birth to her daughter on April 26, 1932. Although Dolores Teresa weighed more than eight pounds, the child Mafalda carried appeared to be at least a year old.
a card game with one of the escort marshals: See the photograph in Mark Douglas Brown, Capone: Life Behind Bars in Alcatraz (San Francisco: Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, 2004), 18.
He entered the Atlanta penitentiary: May 4 is the date generally given, but it was actually the fifth, because the train took well over twenty-four hours on the journey from Chicago.
Otherwise, with the exception: Information that follows is from AC’s medical records and correspondence exchanged from 1939 to 1947 between his two physicians, Dr. Kenneth Phillips in Miami and Dr. Joseph Moore in Baltimore. The complete medical history is in the Marc and Mary Perkins Collection.
Capone became furious: In her memoir, Polly Adler writes, “Gangsters in general have a very low opinion of prostitutes…A big-time gangster regards a ‘prostitution man’—that is, a man who makes his money through procuring, even indirectly—as the lowest thing there is.” A House Is Not a Home, 173.
He was pleasant and lucid: Neuro-psychiatric Examination, May 18, 1932. Copy graciously provided by John Binder. Partial copy is reprinted in Brown, Life Behind Bars, 16–17.
“entirely inadequate”: Dr. Joseph Moore to Dr. Kenneth Phillips, Jan. 15, 1941, Perkins Collection.
“go astray as some New’s Paper”: Bureau of Prisons documents, June 22, 1932, to the orchestra leader, July 26, 1932, to the deputy warden. Both reprinted in Brown, Life Behind Bars, 18.
There were times when he received: Information that follows until noted otherwise is from Brown, Life Behind Bars, 19–25, where some of the letters are reprinted.
three-part series on the front pages: The first installment appeared on Jan. 23, 1932. Others followed on consecutive days.
“at all interesting”: Neuro-psychiatric Examination, May 18, 1932.
no concrete evidence that he used drugs: Of his many biographers, only Bergreen, Capone, 513, alleges that AC used cocaine. He is the originator of the theory that AC used it beforehand and had withdrawal symptoms in prison. AC family members tell the story, only to insist it is entirely false. Drs. Phillips and Moore make no mention of drugs, and to date they provide the most intimate details of AC’s habits.
The first myth: Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, in notes to p. 332 on p. 450, describes how AC had everything shipped to his mother in Chicago except for the encyclopedias, which he shipped to Mae in Miami. Kobler gives variations of these stories in Capone, chap. 26; Bergreen’s version is in Capone, 510–16.
Al Capone spent two years: AC’s cell mate at Atlanta Morris “Red” Rudensky (along with Don Riley) wrote a memoir, The Gonif (Blue Earth, Minn.: Piper, 1970); a 250-page manuscript allegedly written by an anonymous convict who served time with AC was sent by him to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, where it is now in the AC Permanent File. It is generally discounted because of the wildly inaccurate accounts it contains.
He received no special favors: Warden A. C. Aderhold to director, Bureau of Prisons, Jan. 24, 1932, BOP document files, reprinted in Brown, Life Behind Bars, 22–23.
“on an island”: Homer Cummings, Selected Papers of Homer Cummings: Attorney General of the United States, 1933–39 (New York: Scribner, 1939).
CHAPTER 22: THE MOST INTRIGUING OF ALL CRIMINALS
“too big a problem”: James V. Bennett, I Chose Prison (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970), 99.
none dared risk such a furious assault: Cory Kincade (the pen name of Jolene Babyak, who lived at Alcatraz as a young child) wrote this in her highly suspect book, Alcatraz Most Wanted: Profiles of the Most Famous Prisoners on the Rock (Berkeley, Calif.: Ariel Vamp, 2008), 7. To be fair, in this instance she is both quoting and paraphrasing what James A. Johnston wrote in Alcatraz Island Prison (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949).
Another story followed Al Capone: Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 332n, quotes Kobler (who did not give citations in his book), Capone, 358, saying he (Kobler) talked to Rudensky, who told it to him and also allowed him to read about it in an unpublished version of his published book The Gonif. Because Rudensky was a known contributor to inflated newspaper stories, and there is no other documentation to support the account Schoenberg gives on p. 335, I consider it highly suspect until proven otherwise.
The calm, resigned letters: Information about AC’s attitude from Diane Capone in telephone conversation, June 5, 2015. Information about visits from Paul J. Madigan, Institution Rules and Regulations: United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz, California, Revised 1956, 18.
“the Good Time Law”: Revised Title 18 of the U.S. Code, sec. 4161, as noted in Madigan, Institute Rules and Regulations, 18–19.
“to make any moves of any kind”: Letter dated only “Feb.” Internal evidence suggests one of the last years of his incarceration.
“Al Capone looms on the horizon”: Roy Gardner, unpublished MS, in Esslinger, Letters from Alcatraz, 48.
“Clicks” formed quickly in Alcatraz: This was the spelling used by inmates for prisoners who had been members of, among others, the Machine Gun Kelly and Barker gangs and the rival Chicago gang the Terrible Touhy bootleggers.
“the hopeless despair”: Information that follows is from Gardner’s Hellcatraz, written in 1938 and originally self-published. Republished in book form in 2000 after editing by Tom Ryan, as Douglas/Ryan Communications.
good (not ‘excellent’)”: Confidential Work Report to the United States Board of Parole, Aug. 8, 1935, reprinted in Brown, Life Behind Bars, 33.
The medical examiner’s report: George Hess (surgeon and chief medical officer) to Johnston (warden), June 26, 1936, Bureau of Prisons document in the file of Alphonse Capone, No. 85, reprinted in Brown, Life Behind Bars, 39.
In an undated letter: AC to Johnston, n.d., Bureau of Prisons documents, reprinted in Esslinger, Letters from Alcatraz, 53–54.
Interestingly, the letter was signed: AC’s letter is undated; Teresa Capone’s is Dec. 3, 1934, Bureau of Prisons documents, reprinted in Esslinger, Letters from Alcatraz, 53–54.
“Ask Ralph how sure he is”: AC to MC, March 3, 1935, Bureau of Prisons documents, reprinted in Esslinger, Letters from Alcatraz, 56–57.
The letter, which made it through the censors unedited: Johnston to Bates, March 6, 1935, Bureau of Prisons Archives, reprinted in Esslinger, Letters from Alcatraz, 55.
“I love and adore you”: Esslinger, Letters from Alcatraz, March 3, 1935
, 56–57.
He was fond of the priest: Father Clark was a member of the Society of Jesuits, and he left his papers to the California Jesuit Archives, Santa Clara. Boxes 2 and 3 contain pertinent information about AC. Diane Capone remembers MC speaking of a seminarian AC liked to talk to, “whose name ironically was Casey.”
By Tuesday the eighth: Headlines are (respectively) from International Herald Tribune Asia, El Paso Herald-Post, and Oakland Tribune, all Feb. 8, 1938.
Capone did resist the guards: Oakland Tribune and Bakersfield Guardian, both Feb. 8, 1938.
“Due to the rumors”: MC’s telegram and Johnston’s of the same date are among Bureau of Prisons Archives for Alphonse Capone, No. 85. Schoenberg, Mr. Capone, 343, reprints the entirety of each.
The second and equally important petition: New York Times, Feb. 8, 1938.
“God above to make me well”: AC to MC, Feb. 1938, emphasis mine.
“If you’ve got something on your mind”: AC to Mr. A. Capone Jr., Feb. 17, 1938.
The memorandum written: Bureau of Prisons, memorandum of Nov. 9, 1939. Because this happened on November 16, the date is obviously wrong.
CHAPTER 23: THE ENDGAME
Dr. Moore reluctantly agreed to take charge: James V. Bennett (director, Bureau of Prisons) to Dr. Joseph Moore, Dec. 21, 1939.
Mae and Ralph both assured Dr. Moore: Information that follows is from the medical records and correspondence exchanged between Dr. Kenneth Phillips in Miami, the Capone family physician from 1928 until AC’s death in 1947, and for the family afterward, and Dr. Joseph Moore, in Baltimore, who cared for AC after his release from Alcatraz in 1939 and who consulted with Dr. Phillips until AC’s death.