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Chicago's OG - The Rise and Fall of Al Capone · Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People

• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Dirtnap City, the podcast about interesting dead people.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Kelly and I'm here with my buddy Alex, and we're going to talk about somebody super interesting today.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_01: Alex, how are you doing?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: I'm doing great.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_02: Hello, everybody in Podcast Land.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Kinda enjoying a little bit of fall weather, although it could be uh could be spring and on a Thursday where you are.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Who knows?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's always Thursday.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: The beauty of podcast land, it kind of um jumps from time to time.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: Evergreen.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_01: Evergreen, yes.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: This this content is used by students to do study for term papers, to write papers.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's used by um historians.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: When you say students, what what grade are we talking here?
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, kindergarten through six?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: K through six.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: K through six.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Our our stuff is uh it's good for the classroom.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: We should probably get a school district to sponsor us at some point.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Did you ever have your kids have one of those deals where they had to dress up like a historical figure?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: What were some what were some good ones that your kids did?
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um Tate, I think, did Alexander Hamilton, because he was kind of into the the musical in elementary school.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: He just rapped all day long.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: He just kept talking about his shot, whatever that means.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then and then my daughter, I want to say um some maybe it was Marie Curie or some famous um scientist lady.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: She had to do, you know, uh a scientist and she did that.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: So what about what about your son?
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I uh a lot of a lot of athletes.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: So like uh Roberto Clemente, I think, was uh I can remember um that being one of them.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: I uh I think that if you went to a school on one of those days, you'd find that a lot of people that we've already talked about here.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, we're kind of we're kind of covering the the cream of the crop.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: If you're looking for ideas, just peruse our uh our catalog.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: We've got right five episodes or so of of this, and um, you know, or if you need a Halloween costume and you you're trying to do a historical figure, that's a great great one.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: Uh maybe uh Andre the Giant.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think yeah, I think Andre the Giant, Henry VIII would be kind of a fun one.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Einstein's a popular Halloween, Halloween gig.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um or you could go a little more um little more eccentric and do Howard Hughes.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: Tesla, yeah.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Just have a pigeon, walk around with a pigeon.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, um, shout outs to our Patreons.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks to you guys for helping us support the show.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, we did make an announcement in a previous episode that any Patreon who signs up new before the end of the year will get one free pass to tell us when to publish an episode.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: Not what episode it can be, but like when it actually gets published.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we still aren't taking requests.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, not yet.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Not yet.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, although although, you know, we might start with our Patreons.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: We we we're trying to hit critical mass in that department.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it would cost at least$1,000 for you to give us a request.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: Or five dollars a week for 200 weeks.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: Can you do that on Patreon?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: Just do an installment like that.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's what Patreon is.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, right.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: No, I'm in a thousand dollars a week for 200 weeks.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, oh, a week.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, okay.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, that's that's retirement money there.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, you know, we don't take requests.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I I want to talk to you actually.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's a really great segue into our our person for today.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_01: Is it?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I went with somebody from the 20th century.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: I know you're not a big fan, but I decided today to talk about somebody and and and this guy, I don't really think he took requests either.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's kind of that was his vibe.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't he didn't take requests.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: He was uh born in 1899, January of 1899, but 1899 nonetheless.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: So if you round up, he was born in the 20th century.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: In New York City.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: He uh died in 1947, also in January.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: So didn't didn't live for too long, 48 years on the on the earth.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um he died in Florida, as as many seems like a lot of people start in New York and end up somewhere else.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but uh 48-year-old guys don't usually end up in Florida, so that's interesting.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um he had a lot of nicknames.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: You want to hear a couple of his nicknames?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Some people called him Big Boy, some people called him snorky.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Snorky means sharp dresser, by the way.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: It was only people really close to him that could call him snorky.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh he sometimes was called Big Al.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of like our friend.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh occasionally known as public enemy number one.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I think.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: Now I know who you're talking about.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: Scarface.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: I know exactly who you're talking about.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: Who do we who are we talking about?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_02: Alphonse Capone.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, Alphonse Gabrielle Capone, born in Brooklyn, January 17th, 1899, to Gabriele Capone and Teresa Reola.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And you're right, he did not take requests.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, his father, they both were Italian immigrants, uh, came over to you know, first generation.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: So he was first generation American.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, his father was a barber, Gabriella was a barmer, a barber, and his mother was a seamstress, and they lived in uh New York on what was called Navy Street in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever heard of that?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: I guess it was an area where a lot of the ships came in and a lot of the sailors would go on leave, like shore leave.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And even at a young age, he kind of hooked up with these uh guys called the junior 40 thieves, and they would um they would harass sailors.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: They would they would actually you think sailors are tough, right?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: You think of like military guys as being tough, but apparently these you know 10, 11, 12-year-old kids would harass these sailors as they came in to port and and sometimes steal the steal from them or beat them up or whatever.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I guess I guess if you get enough enough 11-year-olds, sure, then yeah, it can be formidable.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: How many 11-year-olds do you think it would take to ha hassle you?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, just ask any middle school teacher about how that works in a lunchroom.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean good, good answer.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he was born uh one of eight children.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: He had uh a brother named uh Raphaela, who um went by Ralph or Bottles was his nickname.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: He ended up taking charge of um his brother's beverage industry later in life.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_02: A little bit of a girl named Ralph.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta love that.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, Raphaela was uh guy, a brother.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: Raphaela is a I think you said it was his sister.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: No, Raphaela was his brother, also known as Ralph Capone or Bob.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: Rafaella, yeah.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Sal Salvatore, who was Frank, who was also part of his uh organization.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there was an Ermina, who was uh his sister, but she died very young, like you know, child as a as a baby.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: Ermino, um, who got to be known as uh Albert later in life.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Matthew and Mafalda.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: Matthew and Mafalda were much younger than Al.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: I think I think Al was a third, third child.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then like Mafalda ended up living with him later, his sister, that was his youngest sister.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but Ralph and Frank were the ones that really kind of joined up with him and and kind of helped him get into his criminal empire.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Ralph was the uh bottles guy, and I think Frank was the numbers guy.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: But they had another brother named James, who later changed his name to Richard Hart and became a prohibition agent in Homer, Nebraska.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of ironic that, but he he didn't really associate with the family.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like many um Italian Americans or first generation immigrants, he really didn't like the um Alfonso.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't like to be called that.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted to be called Al.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um and he didn't like Capone.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: He wanted to be Capone, you know, he just he Americanized it.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: He, smart kid, went to Catholic school, but ended up dropping out.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's rumors that he had actually hit a teacher in the face um and got expelled, but you know, they're not sure about that.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: But he dropped out at 14, and then he ended up working odd jobs all around Brooklyn.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, I told you his dad was a barber, and his dad really didn't want him to be a criminal.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like a lot of the kids growing up in that situation kind of turned to crime.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: He his dad bought him a um shoe shine kit.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's big back then.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: You can you envision that?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like a little box.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: I wish they still had those for kids.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: My shoes are a little uh dusty.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: Bought him a shoe shine kit.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Al ended up um instead of he sold the shoe shine kit, and then he uh went around and bullied all the other um uh shoe shine boys and set up uh kind of an extortion racket where he would uh protect them, protection money.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh they all paid him to to not beat them up, basically.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Jeez.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_01: He was he was he was a little handful at a very young age.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder the story about him punching a teacher.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think and you say you don't know if that's true?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think he put that out there?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: No, no.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: What what was said, and I think this was said by the school, was that um some other kid was getting his goat, was teasing him, you know, was really getting after him, and he actually was getting into a fight with the other kid, and the teacher tried to break it up and he punched the punched the teacher.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it wasn't I don't know that it was uh actually intentional going after the teacher, but it was the teacher trying to break things up and getting in the way.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's not the same.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: There is a there's also a note, I don't know the validity of validity of this or not, but it said he played semi-professional baseball from 1916 to 1918, so in his later teenage years.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: So another sports figure here, if that's true.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_01: But what what really kind of changed everything was when he met Johnny Torrio.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Johnny Torrio was um kind of the generation before him gangster.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: And Johnny Torrio, there were a couple guys.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: There was Johnny Torrio, and there was a guy named Frankie Yale.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: These guys were some of the first people to start organizing crime.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, up until then, the I don't even think the term organized crime was used.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what do you think of when you hear that?
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: The mafia.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um so did it not exist?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: You're talking about in America, it didn't exist, or yeah, it didn't didn't really exist in America before the early 1900s.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: And Johnny Torrio and Frankie Yale and some other folks um started this idea of treating um treating their organization like a business.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I certainly there were gangs, like gangs of people that would beat, you know, like gangs of New York is an Irish, but you're right, maybe treating it like a business, like a like a business and and having people like yeah, like the wire and yeah, having a hierarchy and having systems, checks, checks, and balances in place to be able to, you know, uh take care of things if somebody fell out of favor or if somebody died.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but but it was kind of interesting.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned um Irish gangs.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: There were Irish gangs too.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: So the the Italians were kind of at the bottom of towards the bottom of the uh status when it came to immigrants.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like the Irish kind of looked down on the Italians, um, the the Germans looked down on the Italians, um, they they were not treated very well.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Capone ended up, he worked in a box factory, and he met this woman named May Josephine Coughlin, who was a little bit older than him, and they fell in love.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: They uh she ended up getting pregnant, and she was Irish Catholic, and um, but they they really liked each other, you know, this wasn't just a one-time thing, and so they ended up getting married after that she had a baby um out of wedlock named Albert Francis Capone, and he he went by Sonny, he was born in 1918.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: But um when the parents heard out heard about it, her her parents were Irish and they were very not into it.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like her her mother did not want Al to be a part of the family, but he kind of could be charming, and he worked his charm, and he ended up um you know, after the baby was born, both families consented to the marriage.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: And the the from what I've read, they were really in love.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: They actually really loved each other, you know, throughout their whole marriage.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Which we can't say that about you can't say that about a lot of marriages, period, but especially in that world, right?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: Sure, sure.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: That's a that's you're signing up for a lot when you sign up for to to marry a mob boss.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: And and he wasn't a mob boss at the time, but that's the direction he was going, right?
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, he was in some small-time gangs.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think I mentioned the junior 40 thieves uh back at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: Great name for he was in another one called the Bowery Boys.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he was in one called the Brooklyn Rippers.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: That's a that's a I don't know.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that maybe that's like a Bronx cheer.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man, who let the Brooklyn Ripper?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_02: Every every one of these you say, I'm picturing like on the back of a jean jacket, like in a motorcycle gang.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's yeah, yeah.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: Brooklyn Rippers rippers in that in that font, right?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there was one called the five point five points gang that was based in Manhattan.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: And actually, that was the one that he uh worked at or was part of when he met Frankie Yale.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: Now, as I said before, Frankie Yale was one of the OGs of organized crime in the United States.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: His he his name wasn't really Yale, it was something else, something more Italian.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: But he decided one of his first things he did was um he was into ice delivery, so they delivered ice for cooling things down, and then he opened a place called in 1970 seventeen called the Harvard Inn.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: And it was he took the name Yale.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think his last name was like Yaw Yali or something like that.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was kind of similar to Yale.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: So he took the name Yale and named the club the Harvard Inn as sort of irony.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: He thought that the collegiate names would would help.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: I like it, yeah.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: It classes it up a little.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: And and of course, you know, the the Harvard Inn was just a brothel with um all kinds of um you know speakeasy stuff going on once once prohibition started.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, there were cigars.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh there was um, as a matter of fact, Yale actually sold a brand of cigars that had his face on them, you know, on the box.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um that was kind of something he was known for.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: You don't go in there and get a glass of wine.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, you know, you get you get hooch or booze.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: Did you ever see that movie?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's a wonderful life.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: And so when they when they go in there and they I think the the angel orders uh uh I think he orders like a uh some kind of old-timey drink, like meat or something like that.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: And the the bartender, he's getting tired of the angel.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: He goes, Look, Mac, we serve hard liquor here for people who want to get drunk.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty good.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good bartender.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um well, well, so funny you mentioned a bartender.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: So um Capone was actually that was one of his jobs at the Harvard Inn.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: He was uh he was a bartender, and one night this guy named Frank Galluccio, Galluccio walked in with his sister.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: Frank and his sister walked in, and Capone said Galluccio's sister had a nice ass.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that was all Galluccio had to hear.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: He broke a bottle and cut uh Al on the face several times.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that's actually where he got the scar that that made him Scarface.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And he hated that nickname.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: He did not like the nickname Scarface, and he actually wore makeup to cover it.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's so funny because now people want to be called Scarface as like a tribute to that, you know.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, people wear their scars more more as a badge of honor, but sure uh Al Al did not like that.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but he hated the nickname.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: He wore makeup over it.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he did.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: He wore makeup.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: He was a he was kind of a dandy.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: He was a bit he had suits, like all different color suits.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, yeah.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Lots of jewelry.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: He he was a very I mean, like I said, his his uh one of his nicknames as a child was Snorky, which meant uh sharp dresser.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: But if you think about gangsters today, I mean that's all part of the image too, is like to drive the first thing you do, you spend your money on you know, jewelry and clothes.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Car and a car.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: And a car and a boat.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he ended up um after working for um for Yale for a while, he ended up going straight to Johnny Torrio's organization in Chicago.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: And Torrio was, as I said, one of the old school Italian organized crime guys that kind of started organized crime in Chicago, like one of the OGs of Chicago organized crime.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he actually was a pretty good negotiator and wasn't really known for violence.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he would do the violence, but he wasn't known for the violence.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: He kind of stayed away from it as much as he could, tried to negotiate with people, tried to work things out with rival gangs.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: He his whole philosophy was there's plenty for everybody, right?
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: So we don't we don't need to fight over things.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: And um, so you know, Capone was working for him as a bouncer, uh as a bartender, and he was working in some brothels, and it was around that time that he started working for Torio that he ended up getting a case of syphilis, and that was something that actually could have been cured.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: Apparently, even back then there was cures for that.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: But he this is around 1922, 1923, around that time he um contracted it, he never got it looked at, and it kind of just got worse and worse throughout his entire life.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, he just had it for oh man.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, had it for years and years, and I guess that's the kind of thing that can spread.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is that how he died?
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: Go to your brain.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's not how he's um no, we'll we'll get to that.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get to that.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um I'm kidding.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: So in 1923, he he put down roots in uh Chicago's South Side, bought a house, and then ended up bringing his wife, uh, mother, sister, um, all to live with him.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: Like he and his son, Sonny.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: And by the way, Sonny was kind of a sickly child.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sonny had uh ear problems and allergies and a lot of um a lot of issues, but but apparently Al loved him very much, like was really proud of Sonny.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think Sonny Capone died in the 2000s.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think he lived through the 2000s, yeah.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_01: But um, but anyway, the whole family came to live with him.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: His mother, you know, his father had passed away.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Gabrielle had passed away, and uh his mother was kind of a pill and didn't get along with May, his wife, and so there was a lot of tension in the house, and Al's way of dealing with the tension was to leave and go to one of his brothels or one of his speakeasies or something.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: He spent a lot of time out away from the house doing his work, doing his business.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and what happened is uh uh Torrio actually got shot in an ambush where Capone was unhurt, but uh Torrio got shot.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: He ended up recovering, but basically resigning and saying, you know what, I'm done.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um he was older at then Capone.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_01: Capone was 26 at the time and became the boss.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: They uh Torrio said, you know what, you can have it.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, here here's here's what I want, but you can run it and you can take care of things.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_01: I trust you, you've been a loyal servant.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so it's yours.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so at the time, was he seen as the muscle or like the brains?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: Or well, Capone, a couple of things.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, first of all, he was he was a big child.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like when he was like 10, 11, 12, he looked much older than he was, and so he kind of had a reputation for being this big muscle guy, but he was also really good with numbers.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: So he ran the numbers for Torio for a while.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: He was he was uh definitely someone who helped him with his accounting and with his you know keeping the the Real books and the fake books, and making sure that they had um, you know, their cash flow was good and they were paying off the right people.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I think he was a little bit of both.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty, but he Capone didn't often get involved in the, you know, explosions and beatings and murders that allowed him.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, when you when you say that Torrio tried to steer away from the violence, that's always though it's always present, right?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's the leverage that the mob has for you.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: They they aren't afraid to do that.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: Cor Torio just wasn't as quick to do it as Capone was, right?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Tori Torrio was a little more, and again, his as I said, his uh philosophy was there's plenty to go around.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: So guys, let's let's sort this out, and you can have this side, we'll have this side, and that's yeah, you don't have to beef with other with other uh gangs.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and that was the big thing was um you know during that time the gang violence was huge.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: And what's interesting that as Capone was on the rise, there were there were people getting a lot of people getting killed, a lot of gangsters, but the public to some degree ignored it because it was gangsters killing gangsters.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: And they they saw that as okay, you know, who cares?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: Just just gangsters killing gangsters.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_01: It was one of those things where that sort of proliferated things, and of course, the other big factor was prohibition.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_01: So this was right at the time that prohibition took effect, and all of a sudden there was this whole market for booze and alcohol and speakeasies, and with the speakeasies came the gambling, and with the gambling came the um the prostitutes, and with the prostitutes came the drugs, and you know, all this stuff kind of the racketeering, all of this stuff kind of melded together, and actually Capone's um timing was pretty fortunate because his organization uh grew tremendously after Torrio retired, partly because of prohibition, because there was such a market.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: And not only were there was gambling and alcohol illegal, but also addictive.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: So you I mean that's a yeah, captive market there.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_02: A captive, I mean, you you it's the demand is gonna be there, whether it's legal or not.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's crazy.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: And and he was bribing many, many elected officials, many, many judges, many, many cops.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, he he was bribing a ton of people, and so you know, he was able to pass himself off.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, one of his famous quotes was I'm just a businessman giving the people what they want.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: And he would also say, All I do is satisfy public demand.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was thought he had around 800 people on his payroll at the top of his game.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now he moved to a little town called Cicero, which is just southwest of Chicago, sure, to stay out of um kind of the way his main rival was a guy named Bugs Moran.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: You probably heard of him, right?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_02: He was I've been to Cicero too, I think.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, it's not that far from Chicago.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I want to just kind of give you a quick rundown of some of the players of of uh gangs, gangsters during that time, and and even some of these even go into the 50s and 60s.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a guy named Joseph Ambrosino, he was called Joey Brains.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_01: There was a guy named John Diamico, he was called Jackie Nose.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: There was a guy named Louis Altanazio Jr., he was called Louis Haha.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_01: Not as imposing.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Louis Haha.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and there was a guy named Luigi Minoccio, he was called Baby Shacks, and this was because he had a baby face and because he shacked up with a lot of women.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_01: There was a guy named Joseph Carna who was called Junior Lollipops again.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Not hey, junior lollipops, but that came from a restaurant that his father owned, uh, called Lollies.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: In a way, it's so soft that it's almost scary.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, here's one for you.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Israel Alderman was called Ice Pick Willie.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now that yeah, that'll get my attention.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: Who's coming over?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_02: Ice Pick Willie.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'll get my I'll get my wallet.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: The reason was uh he actually was known for uh killing people using an ice pick through the eardrum, and apparently that will puncture the brain, but not really leave much evidence of foul play.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um so if they did an autopsy, they might not notice.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: And he would do this in a speakeasy that he owned in Minneapolis, and basically the victim would slump over, look like he was drunk, and they would just drag the body out and no questions were asked.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: Man, it's cold-blooded.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there was Cadillac Frank, he worked on Cadillacs.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: There was a guy named Albert Tannenbaum, his nickname was TikTok, and I thought it was gonna be something cool, like he, you know, he made built bombs or something.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: No, it was because he talked too much.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: So they called him TikTok.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: No, uh, there was a guy named Joseph uh Bonano, who was called Joe Bananas.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Joey Bananas.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think I heard him.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, all this is going on.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Capone's got the the moniker of Scarface and all these, he's hanging out with all these other guys and shooting some of them, fighting some of them.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um again, he was making all kinds of money.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: As a matter of fact, it's it's said that his annual take was close to a hundred million dollars in in the early 1900s.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is just crazy money.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's not adjusted for like today's money?
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, actually a hundred million dollars.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, so that's like a billion today.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, he was making a billion dollars.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: And and and but he had I mean, he had like like I said, 800 people who worked for what they called the outfit.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: His his organization was called the outfit.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'd never heard that before.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: No, I hadn't either.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: That wouldn't look good on a jean jacket.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, the outfit.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_01: What yeah, I think some of those other gang names were much better.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: But um he really was running this huge empire, you know, for a while.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: He kind of got uh 1928, he wanted to get out of Chicago, and so he ended up buying a house in Florida from Claire, uh Clarence Bush of the Anheiser Busch family, and it was on Palm Island, which is between Miami and Miami Beach.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's still a place, Palm Island.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think the house is still there, actually.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um but yeah, I mean that what was going on here is people were getting bribed, the police were getting bribed, um, the politicians were getting bribed.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: Chicago was a very, very corrupt place.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: But people, as long as it was gangsters killing gangsters, um the public wasn't that outraged.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like they didn't really, you know, they they let it slide.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: They let all the corruption slide.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of like it is today, right?
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I feel like it's a little harder to get away with these kind of things today, but do you know what it was his downfall?
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of a series of events.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh was it tax evasion?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: He ended up that was that was his ultimate downfall, but it began on February 14th, 1929.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_01: No, St.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: Valentine's Day Massacre, right?
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_01: What do you know about that?
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_02: Uh was it wasn't it a shootout at a restaurant?
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I think it's this is one of those dirt and epsilon things where you've heard of it and you don't know a lot about it.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: So the St.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_01: Valentine's Massacre was actually a it was an assassination uh by Capone's gang against the Northside gang, which was the one that was run by Bugs Moran.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: They were trying to get Moran.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: Capone had his guys stationed outside of this garage watching to see when they were gonna meet.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so Bugs Moran had this was his headquarters, he had his guys coming in to meet um, you know, on a regular basis to talk about their deals for the Northside gang.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh Capone's men were dressed up as cops, and so they came in dressed as cops and initiated a police a police raid.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, said this is a police raid.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Now, all these guys, all the cops were on the take.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: So what these guys would typically do is raise their hands, not not put up a fight, and get um, you know, the cops would pretend to have to have done something, and it was like a PR stunt for the cops, but but nothing would really happen.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so the the gangsters would go along with it because these cops were on the take.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: Well, these weren't real cops, these were Capone's men dressed up like cops, and they blasted and murdered the Northside gang gangsters.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, just brutally.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: I guess they beat them and they shot them and they just kind of left him bloody pulps on the floor of this place.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: And Bugs Moran had been tipped off and had not uh come in, so he had he had gotten away.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: He should have told his guys.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think maybe they were already there.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: They didn't have cell phones, then it's harder to get the message out.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: He couldn't text his boys.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, apparently this was so heinous and so violent.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and the pictures, there were pictures of it that were published in the newspaper, was so you know, it happened on Valentine's Day.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I remember I can picture one of those guys just sprawled out in a pool of blood.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: This got the attention of federal people like uh uh guy named Walter Strong and Herbert Hoover got involved, the president.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_01: And the entire federal government said, okay, Chicago is basically run by the gangsters.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: We've got to get it under control.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: So this guy, uh Walter Strong, convinced Hoover to do something about it, and so they started looking at ways to capture, you know, and prosecute Capone because they figured he was kind of at the top of the top of the heap, top of that twenty thousand dollar pyramid or hundred million dollar pyramid, right?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, seriously, hundred million dollars.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: He was at the top of it, and so they they were going to figure out how they could um bring him down, but they didn't go in immediately.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_01: They kind of bided their time.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: They they started looking for ways, like there was suddenly public support for for bringing down the gangsters.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: Up until this time, Capone was kind of a hero in Chicago.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you knew that.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think that's that's similar to like how some of the drug lords are in in uh you know Mexico.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_02: Some of them take care of the villages, yeah, yeah.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: And they're kind of seen as heroes, and and kind of some of them are kind of like Robin Hood, right?
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_02: Where they take care of the poor people.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_01: He was called that.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: He would give money to children, he would uh give money to charity, he would, you know, he was a big gambler and he would go and bet, and he would he kind of threw money around.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he had plenty of money to throw around, so he threw it around, and people in Chicago really kind of like looked up to him.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_01: He was a celebrity.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: And but you know, like I said, the Justice Department, the Department of Treasury, the prosecutors, all these people were like, okay, enough is enough.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: The Prohibition Bureau, right?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: They they were like, okay, we gotta stop all this bootlegging, we gotta stop all this stuff.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the group of these guys, and and uh and a lady as well, they all kind of her name was uh Mabel Walker Wildebrandt.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: Have you heard of her?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_02: No, but was the guy Elliot Ness?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, Elliot Ness was one of the one of the guys.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they all got together and figured out the best way they could get Capone, and it turned out, and this is when he became public enemy number one.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: So he got arrested um in 1929 for contempt of court because he had actually feigned an illness, uh, had a had a doctor fake a note, but then they had pictures of him like on his yacht, and so they they said he was faking, and so contempt of court, he got arrested, he got out in 1929.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: He got indicted for carrying a weapon, and he did serve a little bit of time, but as soon as he got out, that's when they were like, Okay, we got to get him for longer.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they arrested him on vagrancy charges in Florida, um, because basically the governor did want him in in Florida, he wanted him out of the state.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: He's like, We don't need this trash here.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_01: What does it take to be a vagrant?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I was about to say, vagrancy uh by definition is the law, is the crime of wandering around without a permanent home, job, or resource.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I remember Barney Fife and uh and Andy Griffith used to um tell people to when they were just standing around move along, you're vagrant.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_02: So remember that?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_01: So this was actually a law that was used to um harass people in poverty, minorities.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, vagrancy laws were actually not a great thing, but they just standing around talking to your friend, and then you're doing something illegal.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and the word vagrant comes from the Latin word vagari, which means to wander.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_02: So Yeah, what's wrong with some of my it's most of my time spent just wandering around.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Being a vagrant.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm total vagrant.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_01: They're they're trying to get him on something that sticks, right?
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: They they keep getting him on these little things that don't stick.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Well, finally, this uh U.S.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: assistant attorney general named Mabel Walker Wildebrandt, um, who was apparently one of the highest ranking women in the government at the time, she came up with the idea of tax evasion.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: And and at the time, nobody had really thought of this.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody had put two and two together.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it sounds obvious now, like kind of a hindsight thing, but nobody had put together here's this guy living this extravagant lifestyle with multiple homes, with this huge operation, with a yacht, with um, you know, all these clothes and luxury goods, and he's never paid a dime in taxes.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: If he had paid taxes, though, and you put his occupation as, you know, gangster or criminal enterprise person, then they could have got him like isn't it one of those things where if he would have paid taxes, then he would have exposed himself to a bunch of other stuff?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: He had a front uh early on where he pretended to be a dealer of used furniture.
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_02: Making a hundred million a year.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: That was one of his first fronts.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: He also had a front as a doctor, Dr.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: Brown.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: He c he called himself Al Brown, and he had an office set up and all that stuff, which eventually fell away as he grew and grew, but but he had that in Chicago.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the thing was it wasn't that he was earning all that money, it's that he wasn't paying taxes.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: Actually, if he had paid taxes on his ill-gotten gains, if he had just filed a tax um report and said he got it from selling furniture, they couldn't have made the stick.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: He just didn't pay any taxes.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I wonder, gangsters now do they pay taxes?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: I think they do with a false as a false pretense.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they're like, oh yeah, I'm a you know, I'm a consultant.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I made$100 million consulting last year.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_01: Here's my tax money.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the government is a lot less likely to come after you if they've got their money, right?
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: And this was the case here.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: He hadn't paid tax.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he was making a hundred million dollars during the prohibition years, he was paying millions to in bribes and to his his you know employees and such, part of the organization.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: His brother ended up getting sent to um prison for uh tax evasion.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: So his brother Ralph, who um was part of his thing, and so he decided he really didn't want that to happen to him, so he agreed to go in and do a plea bargain.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: So on June 16th, 1931, he pled guilty to uh tax income or income tax evasion, and he had 5,000 Volstead acts violations uh against him.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now remember the Volstead Act was the thing that kind of gave prohibition its teeth, and they had um they had actually uh charged him with five thousand different things.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, he was gonna do a bargain where he was gonna get two and a half years of prison for that.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: That was his deal.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then what happened is the judge threw out the plea plea bargain, said, Nope, not doing it.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: Not sure how all that worked, but basically um said, No, we're we're gonna come at you for something even stronger.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um they decided to press him for more information about his finances.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: His lawyers slipped up and they let it known that he did owe tax and that he hadn't paid.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like they actually admitted that, um, the lawyers did without meaning to, and that's where they got him.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: It kind of stuck that that he they had the evidence written by the um by his lawyers that he had been earning income but not paying taxes, and that was what they needed.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so they were able to uh convict him on five accounts of income tactics income tax evasion on October 17th, 1931.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: He got sentenced to 11 years in federal prison, fined$50,000 plus court costs, and was held liable for$250,000,$215,000 of interest due and back or of back taxes plus interest due.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty genius.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean$215,000 was nothing for him, right?
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: But 11 years in prison was.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_02: And gets him off the streets.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_02: And he's probably, you know, you go, well, somebody's just gonna take his place.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: But he's so charismatic that probably nobody could really take his place, you know.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_02: When you get a guy like that off the streets, that's probably a big deal.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: Well, there was a guy named Frank Niddy, who was one of his um one of his upper echelon in in uh his syndicate, who took over and uh ended up um kind of running it, but at a lower level and with less violence than when Capone was in office.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you definitely do some damage when you take care of a big big wig like that.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: So Capone was sentenced um to 11 years.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: He started out in Atlanta, um, and he had a job in prison.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_01: He he was not doing well at that point because he had been diagnosed with syphilis and gonorrhea.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um he was withdrawing withdrawing from cocaine use and he had a problem with his nose, nasal septum because of the cocaine use.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you don't use your product, man.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_01: That's rule number one, right?
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: He he ended up with a job eight hours a day in prison stitching shoes, and apparently he was pretty good at it.
• 41:56
  SPEAKER_01: He ended up in uh the cell with a guy named Red Rudensky, who had worked for Capone in the past, and a lot of people picked on Pacone Capone because you know, here he was his big big gangster, but he didn't have all of his men there.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so um Red kind of took care of him, and they ended up uh moving him to Alcatraz, and he was actually one of the first prisoners to to go into Alcatraz in August of 1934, it had just opened.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was gonna say I I uh I've been to Alcatraz a few times.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_02: I remember seeing his cell there.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_02: Cell 181 in the Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_02: So you said he was a big celebrity.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder, was there like an outcry when he got sent to jail?
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_02: Were people mad?
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think so.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think the the Valentine's Day massacre kind of turned things around.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: You know, people were like, ooh, he's a monster, you know.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: They they for some reason that really and and there were there was certainly innocent people getting killed on the streets, you know.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like just gangsters, but I think at that point that was the tipping point.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure that that's why the I'm sure the authorities wanted that picture on the page to to kind of get that up.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, he did get stabbed in prison by a guy named James Lucas, but it, you know, it wasn't anything uh life-threatening.
• 43:20
  SPEAKER_01: He was able to play the banjo in Alcatraz, uh, and and apparently belonged to a band called the Rock Islanders, which would give Sunday concerts.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_02: Um it doesn't really track with with what I've heard about Al Capone today.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, banjo.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that that uh I don't know that that may or may not be true, just like everything else on this show.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_01: Um according to the internet.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_01: So he got worse and worse, right?
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, his um his syphilis turned into neuro syphilis and started to really um downgrade his brain, you know, really erode his mental facilities.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: He had um uh problems walking, he was confused, disoriented, and he was actually paroled in November 16th, 1939, a little bit early, uh, because his wife you know said, look, look at him.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_01: He's you know, he's uh he's not the same man.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um let him out.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: So he ended up uh going back to Florida and you know, as I said, Frank Nitty had taken over the operation and was still running things, but a little bit less violently.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_01: But um and then prohibition ended, of course, and that really changed things.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: But apparently um uh the organization kept running until the fifties.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_01: And and and they've said that um you know, some spurs of it are still in existence today.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_02: Of of that actual the the of the outfit.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_01: Outfit.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_01: There was a guy named Salvador uh Soli D.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_01: De Laurentiis, um who is uh as of like 2022, was still alive and still running some bit of the outfit.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: He ended up going back to Florida, like I said, spending time with his family.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um he was one of the first people to get uh penicillin in 1942 when it kind of went into mass production.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: That definitely helped him, but it was too late.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: His brain was damaged, he had um already kind of had a lot of damage to his body and wasn't able to overcome it.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_01: And he had a stroke in 1947, um on January 21st, and then he uh suffered a heart attack on January 22nd and died on tw January 25th of the U.S.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: I wonder why he never got that syphilis treated.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_02: You figure he was probably in and out of the of doctors for other, you know, gunshots.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think so.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think he was a tough guy.
• 46:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think he I think he saw himself as a tough guy.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: Also, I know that um at one point his wife actually contracted it, you know, because of him, and she got it treated.
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: She actually did get it treated, and she um they had they loved each other, but she knew that he had affairs and that he had girlfriends and and you know, mistresses and such, but she actually kind of like stayed.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_01: I I there's a lot of speculation that they weren't uh physically active together after she got the syphilis because she was you know mad about that and also didn't want to get it again, you know, and kind of had it treated.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_01: So um, yeah, I mean it he is one of these guys that as you said, um people look up to some of these gangsters and see them as heroes, as Robin Hoods.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but he is such a well-known gangster and such a well-known name.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you think of Al Capone, you think of Scarface, you just you just think of organized crime and you think of Chicago, and and and now, you know, now that I know more of the story, like I didn't really know his involvement in the Valentine Valentine's Day Massacre.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know about him moving to Florida.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, he still has uh relatives like like descendants that are around that still uh some of them embrace the name and kind of you know answer questions and like the notoriety, and some people want nothing to do with it and change their names.
• 47:33
  SPEAKER_02: Oh no, I was gonna say if you're a descendant and you're listening, uh give us the other side of the story.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_02: We'd love to hear it, yeah.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_02: But please please don't hurt us.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, no, yeah.
• 47:44
  SPEAKER_02: Not beefing, it's over.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's over.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_02: We'd love to hear, you know, we're we're kind of on the the folk story, but we'd love to hear if there's a different uh side of him that you want to bring out.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you had a uh an infamous uh relative, you know, from some 50 to 80 years ago, would you uh how would you feel about that?
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_02: Depends what they were infamous for.
• 48:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Al Capone.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I hope See that seems I don't I don't know.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think that's like if my last name was Capone I'd be Al Capone.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I would probably rock it.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'd probably I'd probably embrace it, sure.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_02: Alec Capone.
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_02: But if you're related to like the Jared from Subway guy, you know.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_02: But I don't even know his last name, so I guess that doesn't From Subway.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, it probably just depends.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: But I would say if if I was Al Capone, I'd probably just own it.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: If my name was Adolf Hitler, probably not so much.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think there's any Hitlers around anymore.
• 48:53
  SPEAKER_02: I think they've all changed their name.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_02: I think a few of them live in the US, like in Ohio, and have changed their name and you know, just don't want anything to do with that.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think there's any Hitlers that are still around.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think I checked that a couple years ago.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_02: What a what a um rough last name to have.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean.
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: There's some last names that you're you just kind of to own.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_02: But others are just too infamous.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: What about Al Capone?
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think I would own it.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_01: I think I would, you know, enough time has passed, right?
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: If it was 20 years after the fact, it would be harder to do, but you know, almost a century or more than a century after the fact, it's not.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_01: It feels like it feels like history at this point.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_02: What if your name was what if you were related to Awful Canawal?
• 49:42
  SPEAKER_02: Would you own that?
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_01: I would love that.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: I would love that.
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: I would probably team up with uh Evil Kinevil's grandson or son and do something really cool.
• 49:51
  SPEAKER_02: Do a podcast.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: Do a podcast with him.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_01: Well, but I gotta do a podcast with Al Capone, so that's pretty cool.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I enjoyed that.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, good, good.
• 50:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I appreciate it.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, if you if you want to know more about Al Capone, there's lots of movies out there about him, and uh he he really did kind of influence the media a lot.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, he's not only been the subject of many movies, but just that whole gang thing that was going on during Prohibition during that time period.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_02: Even hip hop culture still kind of embraces oh, not kind of, it embraces that stuff from way back then, even yeah.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_01: Way back in the day.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: Jolie Capone, that's my name they say.
• 50:33
  SPEAKER_00: Golden history, but I don't play that way.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_00: Kids in the yard think I'm packing heat.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm packing textbooks, my friends say me.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: Never stop.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's closely that's my feet.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_00: The shuttle night is the field.
• 51:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's the real field.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_00: That's my screen.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's the real field.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hiding in the living life control never started for history haunts me, but I wear it light.
• 51:53
  SPEAKER_00: A name's so heavy in the day and night.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_00: They think I'm like bad liking the tales, but I'm into fiction browsing library trails.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: Gangsters broth, but the heart's so pure.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: Knives and bullets, that's the lore.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: Reality's a nerd hiding in the lore.
• 52:10
  SPEAKER_00: Living a life Capone never saw before.