Al Capone

The Chicago Outfit's co-founder and leader, Alphonse Gabriel Capone, often known as "Scarface", was an American mobster and businessman who rose to fame during the Prohibition era. At age 33, he was sentenced to prison, bringing an end to his seven-year reign as a crime lord. Capone's parents were Italian immigrants who settled in New York City in 1899. As a youngster, he joined the Five Points Gang and started working as a bouncer in places frequented by organized crime, such brothels. In his early 20s, he relocated to Chicago and worked as Johnny Torrio's bodyguard and trusted factotum. Torrio was the leader of a criminal organization that supplied alcohol illegally and was politically shielded by the Unione Siciliana.

Capone's rise and demise were significantly influenced by his fight with the North Side Gang. After being nearly slain by North Side gunmen, Torrio retired and gave Capone authority. Through more violent tactics, Capone grew the bootlegging operation, but he appeared to be safe from the law thanks to his mutually beneficial ties with the city's police and mayor, William Hale Thompson. In an effort to put Capone in jail, the federal government filed 22 charges of tax evasion against him. In 1931, he was found guilty on five charges. The judge accepted Capone's admissions of his income and unpaid taxes, made during prior (and ultimately unsuccessful) negotiations to pay the government taxes he owed, as evidence in a highly publicized case.

He was found guilty and given an 11-year federal prison term. His grounds for appeal were bolstered by a Supreme Court decision after his conviction, and he changed his defense team with tax law specialists after being found guilty, but his appeal eventually fell short. Early in his imprisonment, Capone began to exhibit symptoms of neurosyphilis, and before being freed from prison after almost eight years, he grew more and more disabled. He had a stroke on January 25, 1947, and then passed away from cardiac arrest.