Free The Outfit by Gus Russo Page B

together their evidence from physical artifacts and the paper trail, not from corrupted officials. Simultaneously, IRS chief Elmer Irey focused on Capone’s 1928 purchase ($31,000 cash down) of his $40,000 Palm Island estate. Using the pseudonym Michael Lepito, one agent, Pat O’Rourke, actually infiltrated Capone’s Lexington Hotel headquarters. That led the team to Capone’s bookkeeper, eventually found hiding in Miami.
    As per custom, Capone dispatched legal emissaries to the nation’s capital to put in the fix. The guardians of the public trust were more than happy to take the money, but delivered nothing in return. One of Capone’s lawyers, his tail between his legs, reported back to the boss, “I spent forty thousand dollars in just one office, spreading it around.” He told how he had placed a bundle holding $30,000 in a deserted Senate office and watched from his hiding spot as a U.S. senator made off with it. “Later I learned that we had not bought a goddamn thing,” the legal eagle lamented. Capone also went after Irey himself and must have been stunned when Irey refused the enormous bribe put forward. Irey told the Capone bagman, “So far as I am concerned, Al Capone is just a big fat man in a mustard-colored suit.” Reportedly, the bribe attempt only fueled Irey’s zeal to destroy Capone.
    At least one member of the team developed a grudging respect for The Big Guy. George Johnson recognized Capone’s obvious talents and spoke of them with his son, George, Jr. “My father said many times that Al Capone could have been a brilliant businessman,” remembered the younger Johnson. “[He] meant that he had the organizational ability, cunning, intellect, and street smarts it took to succeed.”
    After three years, Johnson, Irey, and Green had enough evidence. First they collared Capone’s second-in-command, Frank Nitti, who had spent at least $624,888 in three years alone. He was sentenced to eighteen months and a $10,000 fine. Al’s brother Ralph was sentenced to three years at Leavenworth and a $10,000 fine on tax evasion.
    In pretrial proceedings, Capone cut a deal with Attorney Johnson that threw out the five thousand prohibition violations that would have cost Capone an astounding twenty-five thousand years to life in jail. Capone smiled throughout the pretrial proceedings, never imagining he would lose. After all, he had gotten away with murder for a dozen years. Nonetheless, Capone purchased extra insurance by bribing the entire list of prospective jurors, which his boys had characteristically acquired.
    Finally, the big show, the trial of Scarface Al Capone, took place over four days in October 1931. Judge James Wilkerson, who earlier had thrown out Capone’s plea deal with Johnson, now displayed the wisdom of Solomon: He switched the jury-pool list at the last minute and secured an untainted jury. A now somber Capone watched as a parade of witnesses attested to his lavish lifestyle. Although it represented a small fraction of Capone’s total funds, the government was able to show that between 1924 and 1929 Capone had netted at least $1,038,660.84, for which he should have paid $215,080 in income tax. Capone’s high-priced legal team appeared impotent, seeming to have spent no time trying to develop an explanation for Al’s warehouse of expensive possessions. On October 17, 1931, after deliberating for eight hours, the jury returned their verdict of guilty, ending Al Capone’s six-year reign. At his sentencing a week later, Capone was sent to federal prison (Atlanta, then Alcatraz) for eleven years, in addition to a $50,000 fine and a $30,000 fee in court costs. No other tax delinquent, before or since, has received such punishment.
    Practically before Capone’s handcuffs could be affixed, the word began to spread that he had been set up, as some pointed to his inept defense The bottom line held that, since Al’s removal would be better for all concerned, an unholy alliance had been