Somewhat ironically, it was the pen pushers from the tax office who posed the greatest threat to the gangsters' bootlegging empires. In May , the Supreme Court ruled that a bootlegger had to pay income tax on his illegal bootlegging business. Capone left for Miami with his wife and son and bought Palm Island estate, a property that he immediately started to renovate expensively. This gave Elmer Irey his chance to document Capone's income and spending.
But Capone was clever. Every transaction he made was on a cash basis. The only exception was the tangible assets of the Palm Island estate, which was evidence of a major source of income.
I want that man in jail. Mellon set out to get the necessary evidence both to prove income tax evasion and to amass enough evidence to prosecute Capone successfully for Prohibition violations. Eliot Ness , a dynamic young agent with the U. Prohibition Bureau, was charged with gathering the evidence of Prohibition violations.
He assembled a team of daring young men and made extensive use of wiretapping technology. While there was doubt that Capone could be successfully prosecuted for Prohibition violations in Chicago, the government was certain it could get Capone on tax evasion. In May , Capone went to a "gangster" conference in Atlantic City. Afterward, he saw a movie in Philadelphia. When leaving the cinema, he was arrested and imprisoned for carrying a concealed weapon. Capone was soon incarcerated in the Eastern Penitentiary, where he stayed until March 16, 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.
Elmer Irey undertook a cunning plan to use undercover agents posing as hoods to infiltrate Capone's organization. The operation took nerves of steel. Despite an informer ending up with a bullet in his head before he could testify, Elmer managed to amass enough evidence through his detectives, posing as gangsters, to try Capone in front of a jury.
With two vital bookkeepers, Leslie Shumway and Fred Reis, who had once been in Capone's employment, now safely under police protection, it was only a matter of time before Capone's days as Public Enemy No. 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.
The jury returned an indictment against Capone that was kept secret until the investigation was complete for the years to Capone and 68 members of his gang were charged with 5, separate violations of the Volstead Act. These income tax cases took precedence over the Prohibition violations.
Fearing that witnesses would be tampered with, and having doubts that the six-year statute of limitations would be upheld by the Supreme Court, a deal was secretly struck between Capone's lawyers and government prosecutors. Capone was to plead guilty to a lighter charge and would receive a sentence of between two and five years. When word got out, the press was outraged and campaigned against what they saw as a blatant whitewash.
The overconfident Capone, who believed he would receive less than five years in prison, became less cocky when he realized that his plea bargain was now null and void. He was dressed in a conservative blue serge suit and was without his usual pinkie ring and gaudy jewelry.
It was inevitable that Capone's henchmen procured a list of jury members to bribe, but unbeknownst to Capone, the authorities had been aware of the plot.
When Judge Wilkinson entered the courtroom, he suddenly demanded that the jury be exchanged with another in the same building. On October 17, , Benji, a film about a stray dog who helps rescue several kidnapped children, opens in theaters; it will go on to become a family classic. Written and directed by Joe Camp, Benji starred a mutt named Higgins, who had been rescued as a puppy from a California Though this was one of the most powerful and destructive earthquakes ever to hit a populated area of the United States, the death toll could have been Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox.
Wilhelm Voigt, a year-old German shoemaker, impersonates an army officer and leads an entire squad of soldiers to help him steal 4, marks. Voigt, who had a long criminal record, humiliated the German army by exploiting their blind obedience to authority and getting them to Unfortunately for Ronald Reagan and his advisors, the Iran-Contra scandal To allow us to provide a better and more tailored experience please click "OK".
Sign Up. Travel Guides. Videos Beyond Hollywood Hungerlust Pioneers of love. Alexandra De F. History of The Rock. Al Capone, the Gangster. Capone at Alcatraz. Give us feedback. Read Next View. San Francisco Proper Hotel. Argonaut Hotel - a Noble House Hotel. Palihotel San Francisco. Axiom Hotel San Francisco. Jump directly to the content. Sign in. All Football. AL Capone, born in , was the infamous boss of the organised crime gang the Chicago Outfit.
0コメント