For Capone: Six Months

Until last week the official criminal record of Alphonse ("Scarface Al") Capone of Chicago, foremost U. S. gangster, stood:

1) Held by police for questioning in connection with two murders while a member of Brooklyn's Five Points Gang. Dismissed.

2) Booked as "Alfred Caponi" in Chiago in 1922 on charges of driving while intoxicated, carrying concealed weapons, assault. Never brought to trial.

3) Accused in 1922 (under the name of "Tony Capone, alias Al Brown") of the murder of Joe Howard, petty footpad and hijacker. Never brought to trial.

4) Indicted for the McSwiggin murder in 1926 in Chicago; never brought to trial.

5) Sentenced in Philadelphia in 1929 to one year in jail, of which he served ten months, for carrying concealed weapons (TiME, May 27, 1929).

Sleek, porcine, bejeweled and bespatted, "Scarface Al" last week came to grips with the law once more in his amazing extra-legal career. He admitted that he weighed 235 Ib. but protested: "I'll sweat it off this summer." As he entered Chicago's Federal Court, onlookers were surprised at the absence of a bodyguard. -'Much of this talk about my guards is bunk. Most of them are my guests," he said.

The U. S. charge which Gangster Capone found waiting for him inside the building was contempt of court. Two years ago on grounds of extreme illness he excused himself from returning from Miami to Chicago to be examined by a grand jury investigating bootleggers' incomes. Last week the Federal Government was prepared to show that Capone had been playing 'possum, could well have answered the summons to Chicago.

During the noon recess of his trial's second day, Gangster Capone was taken to the city detective bureau and docketed on a charge of vagrancy. There he described his occupation as the "real estate business," was released on $10,000 bond.

Before a flock of newshawks, Gangster Capone became expansive: ". . . Say, this is great weather you have here. It beats Miami. The old homestead looks okay. . . . I've been asked if I have come home to write the story of my life. I haven't. It would probably make a lot of money. The last bid I had was $2,000.000. . . . I saw a piece in one of the papers about a month ago telling about how I was going into the pictures. Can you fancy that?"

"What do you think of the American girl?" asked a presswoman.

"I think you're beautiful," bantered the gangster. The presswoman hurriedly retreated, startled. Then Capone entered the court room, settled down once more, confident that "they haven't got a thing on me."

Presiding was U. S. District Judge James Herbert Wilkerson, 61, who last month sent Capone's brother Ralph to the penitentiary for three years for income tax evasion. A Harding appointee in 1922, Judge Wilkerson sprang immediately into national prominence less than two months after he mounted the bench by granting a sweeping injunction (framed by then Attorney General Daugherty) against railway shopmen in the great strike that year. Fingering the ribbon of his glasses with an air of abstraction, he heard Mr. Capone's young doctor and nurses testify that, down with pleurisy, he had been in grave condition during February and March 1929. Then Judge Wilkerson listened to other witnesses who related how the supposedly bed-ridden gangster had taken an airplane ride to Bimini (bootleg base), a boat trip to Nassau, attended the Sharkey-Stribling fight in Miami, the Hialeah races. "It is evident," commented Judge Wilkerson, "that someone is lying."

Suddenly, unexpectedly, when the final evidence was in. Judge Wilkerson pronounced judgment, without taking the case under advisement. "The trouble with this whole proceeding," said he, "was that the defendant was trifling with the court. . . . The evidence established beyond all possibility of doubt that during the month of February the respondent was not confined to his bed. . . . The statement made on March 5 that he had been out of bed only ten days was glaringly false." Found guilty of contempt, Capone was sentenced to serve six months in the Cook County jail.

Stunned, Gangster Capone mumbled: "If the judge thinks it's correct, he ought to know. You can't overrule the judge." Later, regaining his self-possession, he said: "We'll get another court to overrule this court."

Judge Wilkerson allowed the Capone lawyers 30 days in which to ask the Circuit Court of Appeals to take jurisdiction for a review of limited points. Meantime, their client went free on $5,000 bond.

Adding to Capone's difficulties last week was a deportation order signed by Secretary of Labor Doak for Antonio ("Mops") Volpe. stout Capone henchman, convicted ten years ago of forging War Saving Stamps. "What's the matter with Volpe?" complained the badgered Capone. "He's raised seven kids and that's the best recommendation I know of."

Chicagoans wondered if at last Capone's luck had turned against him, if his strange immunities from the Law were over, if his contempt conviction were the beginning of the end of his power in the second city of the land.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.