On this day 80 years ago, notorious mob boss Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
Capone had been running the largest outfit in Chicago since 1925. He was popular for saying "I'm just a businessman, giving the people what they want." Attaining celebrity status, he was seen as a modern day Robin Hood: giving the people vices (which the government had banned) and passing money around (which the banks had lost as a result of the Depression). His organization earned about $100 million a year from illegal liquor sales, prostitution, gambling and racketeering. Capone himself was reputed to have safe-houses in at least ten states. His Cadillac was outfitted with bullet-proof plating, run-flat tires and a police siren. After it was seized by the Treasury Department, it was used as FDR's limousine.
This power didn't come without a price. Capone was spending millions in bribes to keep corrupt government officials from pursuing him, and constantly fighting against rival gangs challenging his position. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, a pre-emptive measure against seven members of the North Side Gang, is arguably his biggest mistake. A usually complicit public was so outraged they demanded direct, federal intervention to shut down all organized crime.
Capone was never tried for any alleged role in numerous murders. Tax evasion was the best charge the federal agents could get him with. They investigated his numerous front companies and successfully got him locked away at Alcatraz. While serving his sentence, Prohibition was repealed, effective breaking the power of all the infamous gangs. Capone's organization had completely dissolved by the time he was released on parole in 1938.
Capone's mental health deteriorated rapidly after this point due to neruosyphilis. A doctor's examination in 1946 revealed that his mental capabilities were equivalent to that of a 12-year-old child. In his latter years, he raved about Communists, foreigners an Bugs Moran, whom he was convinced was trying to kill him.
A combination of a stroke, pneumonia and cardiac arrest killed him in January, 1947.
