Eighteen-year-old Al leaned across a table in a bar room, making a lewd comment to a young lady, loud enough to be overheard by everyone within earshot. The woman's older brother, defending his sister's honor, pulled out a knife and sliced young Al across the face. The resulting scar would brand him for life with the nickname he grew to despise: Scarface.
Al Capone was born in Brooklyn in 1899 of solid parents who had come to the U.S. from Naples, Italy. In spite of the good influences of his parents, Al was determined to seek a different path. By the sixth grade, he had dropped out of school. He joined the roughest gangs of New York. By nineteen, married with a child, he was a seasoned gangster.
He left New York for Chicago, following his mentor, mobster Johnny Torrio. With the arrival of Scarface, the Windy City would never be the same. Within one year, he was a major player. Within three years, he was the number two man in the Chicago mob. Within six years, age 26, he took control of Chicago and was considered the most successful gangster in the world.
At its height, Capone's criminal operation was brining in $120 million a year. By today's standards, that number is comparable to a major U.S. corporation. His secret was simple: every business needs a business plan. His went like this. One, eliminate the competition by killing them. Two, boost employee productivity with a motivational incentive plan consisting of: do what the boss tells you and do it right, or you will be killed. Three, if a customer buys alcohol or hookers or any other vice product Capone offered from anyone else, kill the customer and their supplier.
No one could stop him. Fifty percent of the Chicago police force from the top down was on his payroll. Judges, public officials and politicians were also on the payroll. Capone was directly or indirectly responsible for the murders of over seven hundred people. It was impossible to convict him of anything in Chicago, because it was impossible to seat a local jury. For a juror to find Al Capone guilty of anything was the same as committing suicide.
Capone regularly visited police departments asking if anyone wanted to arrest him. Everyone knew better. But the federal government was a different story, and they wanted him. The feds felt the best way to get him was on income tax evasion. It took years, but eventually IRS agents brought him down.
At his trial, Capone was confident things would go his way. His men had been able to get to the jurors and pay them off. But in a surprise, at the last minute the judge switched the jury with the jury that had been picked for another case. Scarface was found guilty and sent away for eleven years. That time included incarceration on The Rock.
At Alcatraz, Capone was just another inmate. By the time he got out, syphilis - a disease he had picked up before prison while sampling the wares of his prostitution business - had ruined his mind, body and health. He died at this Florida mansion at the young age of 48. He barely knew his own name.
George Johnson, the man who prosecuted Scarface, said if Capone would have channeled his energies, talents and brilliant mind into a legitimate business, he would have been widely successful. Factions of the criminal organization Capone masterminded still exist and flourish.
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