IRS Tackles Capone: Crime Pays With Taxes
Federal investigators targeted Al Capone through his income tax evasion after failing to prosecute him for murder, bootlegging, or racketeering. IRS agent Frank J. Wilson spent years tracing Capone's lavish spending, from custom suits to a Miami estate, to prove unreported income. The breakthrough came when Capone's own lawyer, during settlement negotiations, inadvertently admitted that Capone had earned substantial taxable income in 1928 and 1929. Capone was convicted on five counts of tax evasion on October 17, 1931, and sentenced to eleven years in federal prison, the harshest tax sentence ever imposed at that time. He served time at Atlanta and then Alcatraz, where syphilis progressively destroyed his mental faculties. He was released in 1939 and died in 1947 with the mental capacity of a twelve-year-old.
May 4, 1932
94 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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