Alphonse Gabriel Capone "Scarface"
"i'm a kind person, i'm kind to everyone, but if you are unkind to me, then kindness is not what you will remember me for."
The most famous gangster in American history.
He was a businessman who aquired his fame during the Prohibition.
Capone's multi-million dollar Chicago operation in bootlegging, prostitution and gambling dominated the organized crime scene.
He was responsible for many brutal acts of violence, mainly against other gangsters.
He was born in the Brooklyn borough of New York City, to poor Italian immigrants on January 17, 1899.
His parents were Gabriele Capone and Teresa Capone.
His father was a barber and his mother was a seamstress.
Capone went to Catholic school.
Capone was a good student school, but then he began falling behind and had to repeat the sixth grade.
He started playing hooky and hanging out at the Brooklyn docks.
Capone’s teacher hit him for insolence and he hit back.
The principal gave him a beating.
Capone never again returned to school.
Capone never again returned to school.
The Capones had moved out of the tenement to a better home in the outskirts of the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn.
He worked odd jobs for awhile.
He then became involved with some small time gangs.
He worked his way up to the Five Points Gang.
He worked odd jobs for awhile.
He then became involved with some small time gangs.
He worked his way up to the Five Points Gang.
Johnny Torrio was running a numbers and gambling operation near Capone’s home.
In 1917, Torrio introduced Capone to the gangster Frankie Yale.
He employed Capone as bartender and bouncer at the Harvard Inn in Coney Island.
One night, he made an indecent remark to a woman at the bar.
Her brother punched Capone, then slashed him across the face, leaving three indelible scars that inspired his enduring nickname "Scarface."
He hated that name.
When he was photographed, he hid his scarred left side of his face.
His close friends called him "Snorky", because he was a sharp dresser.
Johnny Torrio was the boy’s godfather.
Capone wanted to do right by his family, so he moved to Baltimore where he took an honest job as a bookkeeper for a construction company.
When Capone’s father died of a heart attack in 1920, Torrio invited him to come to Chicago.
Capone jumped at the opportunity.
Torrio owned a booming business in gambling and prostitution.
In 1920 the enactment of the 18th Amendment prohibiting the sale and consumption of alcohol.
Torrio focused on bootlegging.
Torrio focused on bootlegging.
Capone brought both his street smarts and his expertise with numbers to Torrio’s Chicago operations.
Torrio quickly promoted him to partner.
Capone began to develop a reputation as a drinker and rabble-rouser.
He hit a parked taxicab while driving drunk, and was arrested for the first time.
Torrio quickly used his city government connections to get him off.
Capone contracted syphilis after he became a bouncer in a brothel.
He never sought treatment.
Capone contracted syphilis after he became a bouncer in a brothel.
He never sought treatment.
Capone cleaned up his act when his family arrived.
His wife and son, along with his mother, younger brothers and sister all moved to Chicago.
Capone bought a modest house in the middle-class South Side.
In 1923, Chicago elected a 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.
A 1924 mayoral election in Cicero threatened their operations.
To guarantee their candidate would get elected, Torrio and Capone initiated an intimidation effort on the day of the election, March 31, 1924.
Some voters were shot and killed.
Chicago sent in police to respond.
They brutally gunned down Capone’s brother Frank in the street.
In 1925, after an attempt on his life by rival North side mobsters, Torrio decided to leave the business to Capone and return to Italy.
Capone ignored his mentor’s advice to maintain a low profile.
He moved his headquarters to a plush suite in the Metropole Hotel in downtown Chicago.
He began living a luxurious and public lifestyle.
Newspapers of the time estimated Capone’s operations generated $100 million in revenue a year.
He was able to gain public sympathy with his sociable and generous personality.
He gave to charities and was cheered at ball games.
As anti-Prohibition resentment grew, some considered him a Robin Hood figure. a dissident who worked on the side of the people.
In later years, Capone expanded his bootlegging business through increasingly violent means.
His name became connected with brutal violence, and his popularity waned.
William Hale Thompson and the city's police meant he seemed safe from law enforcement.
He gave to charities and was cheered at ball games.
In later years, Capone expanded his bootlegging business through increasingly violent means.
His name became connected with brutal violence, and his popularity waned.
If an establishment refused to purchase liquor from him often got blown up, and as many as 100 people were killed in such bombings during the 1920s
In 1926, Capone’s sworn enemies were spotted in Cicero.
Capone ordered his men to gun them down.
William McSwiggin, known as the “Hanging Prosecutor,” had tried to prosecute him for a previous murder.
McSwiggin was with the two marked men and all three were killed in broad daylight.
The public demanded justice.
The police raided Capone’s businesses.
They gathered documentation that would later be used to bolster charges against him of income-tax evasion.
Capone called for a “Peace Conference” among the city’s criminals.
An agreement was reached to stop the violence.
It lasted just two months.
1929 Capone dominated the illegal liquor trade in Chicago.
Other racketeers fought for a piece of the bootlegging business.
“Bugs” Moran had previously tried to assassinate both Torrio and Capone.
He was after Capone’s top hit man, “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn.
Capone and McGurn decided to kill Moran.
February 14, 1929, posing as police, McGurn’s gunmen assassinated seven of Moran’s men in a North Side garage in broad daylight.
Bugs Moran escaped the slaughter.
He was dubbed “Public Enemy Number One.”
President Herbert Hoover ordered the federal government to step up its efforts to get Capone on income-tax evasion.
In 1927, the Supreme Court had ruled that income gained on illegal activities was taxable.
This gave the government a strong case for prosecuting Capone.
June 5, 1931 Capone was indicted on 22 counts of income-tax evasion.
In 1927, the Supreme Court had ruled that income gained on illegal activities was taxable.
This gave the government a strong case for prosecuting Capone.
June 5, 1931 Capone was indicted on 22 counts of income-tax evasion.
Capone remained confident that he would get off with a minimal sentence.
He struck a plea bargain in return for a two-and-a-half year sentence.
The judge in the case declared that he would not honor the agreement.
Capone quickly withdrew his guilty plea.
The case went to trial.
Capone used the best weapon in his arsenal: bribery and intimidation.
At the last moment, the judge switched to an entirely new jury.
Capone was found guilty and sent to prison for 11 years.
Capone spent the first two years of his incarceration in a federal prison in Atlanta.
He was caught bribing guards.
Capone was sent to the island prison Alcatraz in 1934.
He could no longer wield his still considerable influence.
He began suffering from poor health.
Capone had contracted syphilis as a young man.
Now he suffered from neurosyphilis, causing dementia.
After serving six-and-a-half years, Capone was released in 1939 to a mental hospital in Baltimore.
He remained there for three years.
His health rapidly declining.
Capone lived out his last days in Miami with his wife.
He died of cardiac arrest on January 25, 1947.
A New York Times headline said, “End of an Evil Dream.”
Capone’s was at times both loved and hated by the media and the public.
Prohibition was repealed in 1933.
Some in the public felt that Capone’s and others’ involvement in selling liquor had been vindicated.
Capone was a ruthless gangster responsible for murdering or ordering the assassinations of many people.
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