The Real Story_5of5_The Untouchables
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00:00Al Capone, the gangland overlord who ruled Chicago in the 1920s.
00:15He's a vicious animal, some people are saying. He'll kill you if you don't play ball with him.
00:21The Untouchables, led by Elliot Ness, a fearless crime fighter.
00:28A glamorous, uncorruptible adversary to this ruthless, cunning, diabolical Al Capone.
00:37A story carved into American folklore. A story immortalized by Hollywood.
00:45He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.
00:51They were like knights going out to slay the dragon.
00:55The all-American boy is going against the villains.
00:59But in reality, it would take more than one man and his squad of Untouchables to bring down Al Capone.
01:05Ness's efforts against the Capone outfit were a smokescreen for the more long-term activities that were going on behind the scenes.
01:15As the growing menace of organized crime threatened America, the government,
01:20six wealthy Chicago businessmen, and one intrepid accountant joined forces to send Capone to jail.
01:28Now, thanks to new evidence locked away for 75 years,
01:32the true story of how America's most notorious criminal was brought to justice can be revealed for the first time.
01:39There's nothing like the sight of 75-year-old documents that no one has seen.
01:50Chicago, 1929.
02:16The city was being torn apart by a violent and murderous campaign as one man fought to control the sale of illegal alcohol.
02:28Al Capone wanted it all, and only the Northside mob led by Jim Bugs Moran stood in his way.
02:41February 14th, St. Valentine's Day, a day that will forever go down in Chicago history.
02:48The day the war between the two rival gangs reached a bloody climax.
02:53It was sort of a chilly day out in the low 20s.
02:57There was a light snow falling in the morning, but it stopped early.
03:01But it was enough to make it chilly.
03:03There was a wind blowing off the lake.
03:05And on North Clark Street, one by one, the members of the Northside gang, Jim Moran's boys, assembled in a garage.
03:17Out in the front of the building, a police car pulled up.
03:21Out in the rear of the building, a second police car pulled up.
03:25And out of those came uniformed and plainclothes, purportedly, officers.
03:34But these weren't policemen.
03:36They were gangsters, hired guns from out of town.
03:41Al Capone, very wisely, was in Florida at the time that this happened.
03:46And that's another reason to suspect he knew what was coming.
03:55Some of the people who were lined up against that wall had over 20 bullets in them.
04:14And so it was not just an execution.
04:17It was a slaughter.
04:20Yet miraculously, one of the members of the Northside gang was still alive and conscious when help finally arrived.
04:30They took him to a nearby hospital on the Northside.
04:33They questioned him repeatedly, over and over again.
04:36But he refused to say anything about who shot him and died that afternoon.
04:43And that was the end of the Northside gang.
04:50Al Capone, the country's most ruthless and feared criminal, now ruled Chicago crime unopposed.
05:01No one before had been quite as willing to kill as Al Capone was.
05:08He's a vicious animal, some people were saying.
05:11He's not just a guy that likes to sell whiskey.
05:13He likes more to do more than that.
05:15He'll kill you if you don't play ball with him.
05:18America was shaken.
05:20Organized crime had arrived.
05:22And together with the man who embodied this new menace, it was seen as the greatest threat to civilized society.
05:31Al Capone always argued that he was merely responding to the will of the people in the face of the widely unpopular Prohibition laws.
05:47The nation had ruled that alcoholic beverages could not be manufactured, distributed, or sold.
05:58Prohibition laws were never taken very seriously.
06:00The booze just never stopped flowing.
06:02And once it became clear that the booze was going to keep flowing, drinking became more exciting, more enticing, and more attractive because it was illegal.
06:12They wanted hooch, they wanted their liquor, they wanted to have fun.
06:14A little gambling, maybe some of the bordellos, that was fine.
06:17Nothing wrong with that either, you know.
06:19That was the Roaring Twenties.
06:20People had money to spend and they were spending it.
06:24And all that money was now lining the pockets of bootleggers and racketeers.
06:30For Capone and his outfit, the profits were unimaginable for the times.
06:36A federal government estimate is that the Capone gang in the 1920s was taking in, in revenue, about $120 million a year.
06:43And that would be equivalent roughly to about $1.5 billion a year in today's dollars.
06:53With so much money at his disposal, Capone practically owned Chicago, and almost everybody in it.
07:01He dealt with the police, he dealt with the judges, he dealt with the politicians.
07:05He knew how to do business with them.
07:07That meant paying them off, bribing them.
07:09At the same token, he knew what the public wanted, goods and services.
07:13In his case, they wanted illegal liquor, they wanted prostitution, they wanted gambling, and he supplied that for them.
07:23With Chicago's key law enforcement officials on the take, and Capone's criminal empire flourishing,
07:29the gangster's hold over the city was absolute.
07:34After the events of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre,
07:37he believed that no one, not even the American justice system, would stand in his way.
07:44But in events that have become part of American folklore and immortalized by Hollywood,
07:50one incorruptible government agent and his small squad of untouchables risked their lives to enforce the law.
08:00The crime fighter's name was Elliot Ness.
08:03Ness was attractive, physically fit, somewhat soft-spoken.
08:08He was honest, he was intelligent,
08:12and his track record showed that he was not going to cave in
08:17to all the incentives that most prohibition agents at the time had to not do their job.
08:24They were always offered bribes and inducements.
08:28They were threatened with their lives.
08:32Elliot Ness was only 28 years old when he was given the task of assembling an elite squad of agents,
08:39men who would not be bought.
08:41Their mission was to cut off Capone's economic lifeblood,
08:45destroy his illegal breweries, and gather evidence that could be used in a criminal prosecution.
08:52Ness knew the dangers. Few had ever dared to cross Al Capone.
08:57And that took a lot of intestinal fortitude for a young man, and he was a young man,
09:00to come forward in a big city like Chicago and take on public enemy number one,
09:04the man that everybody feared that nobody wanted to cross.
09:07And that took a great deal of courage to do what he did.
09:12The daring exploits of Elliot Ness and his squad of untouchables are legendary.
09:20Historian Rebecca McFarlane wants to discover how this small band of men
09:25took on the thousands of criminals in Capone's outfit.
09:29She has come to the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland
09:33to read Ness's personal account of his battle against Capone's bootleggers.
09:39Included here really is the only item that Elliot Ness ever wrote about his own background
09:49and the special time that he had in Chicago.
09:53In his own words, Ness describes how he and his squad located Capone's breweries
09:58by secretly following beer barrels.
10:01The first observation we made was that the barrels had to be used over and over again,
10:05and that if we could successfully follow a beer barrel from a speakeasy,
10:08we would wind up locating a Capone brewery.
10:11The plan worked.
10:14Luckily, the raids were successful,
10:16and in most places we captured prisoners, machinery, and alcohol.
10:21One particular evening they found 18 stills.
10:24This was not a difficult job,
10:26because the stench of fermenting mash could be noticed sometimes as much as a half a mile away.
10:31As we continued to raid breweries and to seize trucks delivering beer,
10:35the Capone mob was finding it more and more difficult to operate.
10:40Reports on my movements became more confusing to the mob,
10:43as they would receive word that I was attending the theater or a sporting event on a certain evening
10:48and would turn up seizing a beer truck or brewery when they least expected it.
10:53They were harassing Capone. They didn't put him to jail.
10:56But as far as the public was concerned, we got somebody now.
10:59We're not going to take that stuff anymore.
11:01The cops may be crooked, but these guys aren't,
11:04and Capone's not going to push those guys around, I'll tell you that right now.
11:08In efforts to stop Ness, Capone's mob offered the young Prohibition agent an incentive to halt the raids.
11:16I was informed that if I would leave the breweries alone,
11:19I would find two crisp $1,000 bills on my desk every Monday morning.
11:24This was a pretty good sum of money,
11:26considering that they would pay me weekly a large part of what the government was paying me per year.
11:31The offer, of course, was not considered.
11:34After the attempted bribe, Ness went to the newspapers
11:37to declare that neither he nor his men could be bought.
11:43In Chicago's criminal underworld and in newspapers throughout America,
11:47Kit Ness and his squad were known simply as the Untouchables.
11:53They were like knights going out to slay the dragon,
11:56the all-American boys going against the villains.
11:59What better way to start to restore the public confidence
12:03than to have high-profile newspaper headlines about successful prosecutions,
12:09successful raids, successful law enforcement against an organization that had become too big?
12:15The tide had turned.
12:26October 1931.
12:29Three long years after the Untouchables began busting Capone's breweries,
12:33the gang boss was finally brought to trial and sent to jail.
12:38The newspapers heralded the Untouchables as the saviors of Chicago.
12:43The American public believed that Elliot Ness
12:46had brought the nation's most notorious gangster to justice.
12:50It was clear the citizens of Chicago appreciated what he did.
12:55In this note, someone wrote to Elliot Ness,
12:58Dear sir, please accept my most hearty congratulations
13:03for the fine piece of work done by you and your aides
13:07in getting Scarface Al and his gang.
13:10Your action, to say the least, is indeed courageous,
13:13and I'm sure the American people are greatly indebted to people of your caliber.
13:19Over 75 years after Capone was sent to jail,
13:23it is still the popular belief that Elliot Ness
13:26was responsible for putting the gangster behind bars.
13:29In fact, none of the evidence gathered by Ness and the Untouchables
13:33was used to convict Capone at trial.
13:36Unfortunately, in this day and age, it's not who you are or what you've done,
13:40sometimes it's the perception.
13:42The public's perception is that Elliot Ness brought down Al Capone.
13:46Although it's true that Elliot Ness did fight Capone's bootlegging outfit,
13:51in reality, his role was hyped by the newspapers of the time,
13:55eager to find an all-American hero,
13:57the perfect foil to Capone's arrogant and murderous villain.
14:06And 20 years later, Ness's place in folklore would be secured
14:10with the publication of the book The Untouchables,
14:13written by journalist Oscar Fraley.
14:17The leader of this dedicated group was Elliot Ness.
14:21The leader of this dedicated group was Elliot Ness,
14:24a handsome six-footer whose hand-picked gangbusters
14:27destroyed the myth of Capone's immunity.
14:30Oscar Fraley was a colorful character,
14:32and he certainly knew how to tell a good story.
14:35Ten who proved themselves behind bribery and bullets.
14:39Ten who became known to the underworld as the Untouchables.
14:45After a chance meeting with Elliot Ness in 1955,
14:49Oscar Fraley persuaded the former Prohibition agent
14:52to collaborate on the book.
14:54For Ness, it was an opportunity to tell the true story
14:58of his part in Capone's downfall.
15:01After Ness met with Oscar Fraley,
15:04he went back to his home in Little Coudersport, Pennsylvania,
15:09and began work on what Ness probably saw
15:13as a first draft of a manuscript.
15:16It was a very brief account.
15:18Ness's memory had faded.
15:21He pulled up his clippings from the old Chicago days.
15:24I believe it brought back memories.
15:27He jotted those memories down as best he could,
15:30and he wove together a very brief version of what had happened
15:34in the fight against the Capone outfit.
15:39These 21 pages that Elliot Ness typed
15:43on this onion-skin paper
15:46led Oscar Fraley into a full-sized book of over 200 pages.
15:54Fraley had spotted the potential for a best-seller,
15:57a chance to make some money.
15:59A letter he wrote to Ness
16:01after drafting the first two chapters of the book
16:04expresses the journalist's taste for dramatic impact
16:07over historical accuracy.
16:09You'll notice I did a hell of a lot of research
16:12to check facts and figures like Capone, etc.,
16:15including dates and whatnot.
16:17Don't get scared if we stray away from the facts once in a while.
16:21We've got to make a real gangbuster out of this thing,
16:24and after all, we do have a literary license.
16:27Fraley's book The Untouchables would become the inspiration
16:30for a 1980s Hollywood blockbuster
16:32with Elliot Ness and The Untouchables
16:34waging their own private war on Al Capone.
16:38We had undertaken what might be a suicidal mission.
16:42What the hell?
16:44I figure nobody lives forever.
16:47Elliot Ness never had his day in court with Capone
16:51as The Untouchables movie would have us believe.
16:54Never stop fighting till the fight is done.
16:57By using a person like Elliot Ness,
17:00the Hollywood movie people were able to capture
17:04an adversary, a glamorous, two-fisted, uncorruptible adversary
17:10to this ruthless, cunning, diabolical Al Capone.
17:15If Elliot Ness and The Untouchables didn't bring down Capone,
17:19then who did?
17:22To understand the true story of the gangster's demise,
17:26it's important to go back to the aftermath
17:29of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
17:33Brutality and violence on this scale
17:36had not been seen before in modern America.
17:39It sent shockwaves across the nation
17:42and honest citizens demanded that action be taken
17:45against the growing menace of organized crime.
17:49No punishment can be too severe for these public enemies.
17:53They deserve the whipping post of criminals for treating us like this.
17:58No punishment can be too severe for these public enemies.
18:01They deserve the whipping post of criminals for treating us like this.
18:04Crime with C.
18:07And C, they weren't caught.
18:10They are treated what they really are, rats.
18:13Chicago, the economic capital of America's Midwest,
18:16was now seen as a lawless city ruled by the gun.
18:21I think it's difficult for people today
18:24to imagine what Chicago was like in the 1920s.
18:27There was so much corruption.
18:29The whole city was really on the brink of anarchy.
18:32You can't be a world-class city with that kind of a reputation.
18:36So big business leaders, more than the politicians in town,
18:40decided that they had to do something about that.
18:45These wealthy Chicago businessmen
18:47became known in the newspapers as the Secret Six.
18:52The Secret Six is a fascinating part of the Capone story
18:55because they represent the establishment in Chicago, the old guard.
18:59They were very influential businessmen who were not looking for publicity
19:04and did not want to be publicly identified.
19:08You can call them a vigilante group, and they certainly had elements of that,
19:13or you could just call them a support group
19:16for government investigators who were not yet on the take.
19:21Members of the Secret Six, including Samuel Insull,
19:24who set up General Electric,
19:26traveled to Washington to meet with President Herbert Hoover
19:29to ask for government help.
19:31And they said to him,
19:33we're in a battle that we can't win by ourselves.
19:38Capone has suborned the public safety agencies,
19:42and he's going to be able to run the city of Chicago,
19:47the county of Cook, and who knows what all else in time.
19:52Hoover needed to show America
19:54that he was prepared to tackle organized crime.
19:57The Roaring Twenties were coming to an end,
20:00and the country was heading towards an economic catastrophe.
20:04There was great hostility toward the government.
20:07You know, Hoovervilles were named after President Hoover,
20:10these shacks where people were living in squalor.
20:13A Hoover flag, they called it, when your pockets were turned inside out
20:16because you had no money, that was, you were waving the Hoover flag.
20:20People took this very personally.
20:22They blamed the government for the woes that were befalling this country.
20:26Hoover saw an opportunity to win back public approval.
20:30He met with his Attorney General of the United States,
20:33and he said, quote, get that man.
20:38The nation's most famous gangster
20:40was now in a battle against the President of the United States.
20:46But as the country spiraled into the Great Depression,
20:49the government could not afford to fund
20:51the large-scale law enforcement effort needed
20:54to combat organized crime in Chicago.
20:58The Secret Six agreed to help finance
21:00two separate government investigations.
21:03The first was the Capone Squad, led by Elliot Ness.
21:06They had the task of hampering Capone's income
21:09by destroying his illegal breweries,
21:11but this was largely just a public relations exercise.
21:16If you look at it realistically,
21:18you would never have been able to stop the bootleggers.
21:23It was already too far developed.
21:27You could have busted up barrels daily.
21:30You could have arrested the men,
21:33and they would all be replaced by someone else.
21:35One could argue that Ness' efforts against the Capone outfit
21:40were a smokescreen for the more long-term activities
21:44that were going on behind the scenes.
21:48The Secret Six donated $75,000,
21:51over a million in today's currency,
21:53to a second covert government investigation.
21:59Under new American legislation,
22:01if a case could be made that Capone had been earning money
22:04from his illegal operations,
22:06then he could be prosecuted in a federal court
22:09for failing to pay taxes.
22:18This investigation fell to the Internal Revenue Service.
22:23The role of the IRS in Capone's downfall
22:25has long been shrouded in secrecy.
22:29Under previous laws, it was prohibited
22:31to disclose a citizen's income and tax records
22:34to the general public.
22:36Therefore, the details of the Capone case
22:38have remained locked away at IRS headquarters in Washington.
22:45Hi, Jonathan.
22:46Hi, how are you?
22:47Patty Reed, nice to meet you.
22:48Glad you could come.
22:49Thanks.
22:51Now, for the very first time,
22:53the IRS are opening their Capone files.
22:58So, Jonathan, this is the vault where we keep the Capone files.
23:03They've been in here for many, many years.
23:05Do you want to grab some of those?
23:07This is a unique opportunity for historian Jonathan Ige,
23:11who has been researching the IRS tax investigation
23:14and trial of Al Capone.
23:16How did they get Capone?
23:17What really was the nail in the coffin that put him away?
23:20I think we may find out today,
23:21or at least get a better idea than we've ever had before.
23:29Jonathan will be the first person outside the IRS
23:32to see these files.
23:34Could they reveal the details
23:36of how Chicago's criminal czar was convicted?
23:41This is the original mugshot of Al Capone
23:44when he was sent to Terminal Island.
23:47You can see the scars very clearly there.
23:50This picture was taken at the White House in 1931.
23:56And this was President Herbert Hoover,
23:58who actually directed Treasury Department
24:00to get involved in the Capone investigation.
24:04Also featured in this photograph
24:06is a quiet, inconspicuous accountant.
24:09This is Frank Wilson, who was sent to Chicago
24:12by our chief, Elmer Eyrie, to investigate Al Capone.
24:17He was kind of aloof.
24:19He was standoffish.
24:21He was a very deep, thoughtful person,
24:25and I suspect he was not too pleased
24:27with having to be there in the first place
24:29to have his picture taken.
24:31Wilson's appearance couldn't be more different
24:33than the heroic image of Eliot Ness.
24:36But this was the man that got Capone.
24:40To succeed, his investigation had to be conducted in secret.
24:45Wilson's task was to prove that Capone
24:47had failed to pay tax on his illegal earnings.
24:58He would have to find hard evidence,
25:00track down witnesses, and even send undercover agents
25:03to work inside Capone's outfit.
25:07An unassuming accountant was leading the fight
25:10against organized crime,
25:12the greatest threat to civilized society.
25:15Wilson never publicly disclosed his version
25:18of the events that led to Capone's downfall,
25:21but he did write a full 60-page report
25:24to his supervisors in the IRS.
25:28There's nothing like the sight of 75-year-old documents
25:31that no one has seen to get a researcher excited.
25:36In his own words, Frank Wilson gives a detailed account
25:39of his three-year investigation,
25:42a remarkable insight into one man's struggle
25:45against the Chicago Mafia and its self-appointed leader.
25:48The above-numbered case relates to the evasion of income taxes
25:51by Alphonse Capone, Lexington Hotel,
25:532300 Michigan Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois.
25:56The income of the taxpayer was derived from gambling,
25:59houses of prostitution, and bootlegging.
26:01He was referred to by his associates in the newspapers
26:04of this country and abroad as the Colossus of Racketeers,
26:07King of Gangdom, and the Big Shot.
26:11The defendant had no bank accounts,
26:13bought no property in his own name,
26:15and, with the exception of wire transfers of money
26:18by Western Union and an occasional check,
26:20conducted all of his financial dealings with currency only.
26:25Now, Capone supposedly was bringing in at times,
26:27you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars in just a day.
26:30Wilson had to prove each penny that he was accounting for.
26:34He couldn't generalize.
26:36He couldn't speculate or estimate.
26:38This was all about finding proof,
26:40and he had to go back through these books
26:42and find the proof somehow,
26:44and that's how he spent most of his time.
26:47Wilson poured over the tons of records and documents
26:50seized in raids on brothels, gambling houses,
26:53and illegal drinking dens throughout the 1920s.
26:57He needed to find evidence
26:59that some of the money went directly to Capone.
27:04The biggest problem with investigating Capone
27:06was that he had no paper trail,
27:08and for an accountant, that's everything.
27:10It's like investigating a criminal who doesn't have fingerprints.
27:14Capone received his income and made payments in cash only.
27:18He was one of the richest men in America,
27:20yet on paper, he had no income.
27:23It was all cash, and I don't think there were very many records
27:26kept on the beer business at all,
27:28but the gambling and the brothels,
27:30it seems like there was a little bit more paperwork involved.
27:33Somebody had to keep track of how much money was being brought in
27:36because Capone wanted to make sure he was getting his cut.
27:39So at some point, it had to be written down,
27:41and I guess Capone was careful most of the time
27:43to make sure his name didn't appear in any of those documents.
27:55Wilson was under great pressure.
27:57America's president had demanded that Capone be stopped.
28:01This was, after all, a ruthless individual
28:03whose criminal outfit was believed to be responsible
28:06for hundreds of murders,
28:08as well as many other brutal, unsolved crimes.
28:13On all of the murders, on all of the beatings
28:16that Capone's people administered,
28:19there was really no progress.
28:21They simply could not crack this wall of silence
28:25that had been built up by the organized crime groups in Chicago.
28:29Wilson's tax investigation against Capone
28:32was now the government's only hope,
28:34but as Wilson describes in his report,
28:36penetrating that wall of silence would not be easy.
28:40Unusual difficulties were encountered
28:42during the entire course of this investigation
28:44because all important witnesses
28:46were either hostile to the government
28:48or they were so filled with fear of reprisals
28:50of the Capone organization in the event that they testified
28:53that they evaded, lied, left town,
28:56or did all in their power to prevent the government
28:58using them as witnesses.
29:02Wilson revisited every scrap of documentation he could find,
29:06desperately looking for that one vital clue
29:09that was leading Capone to his outfit's vast income.
29:13His patience finally paid off.
29:18During a raid in 1926 on a well-known gambling joint
29:22called the Hawthorne Smoke Shop,
29:24police had seized documents and records
29:26relating to the business activities of the establishment.
29:30Since no tax investigation was being made at the time,
29:34the books had been locked away and forgotten,
29:36to be rediscovered four years later by Frank Wilson.
29:49As he carefully examined the records,
29:51one book of accounts grabbed his attention.
29:58This book was accidentally discovered by the writer
30:00in a miscellaneous lot of apparently unimportant papers.
30:04The book had no identification marks upon it,
30:06and its value as evidence relating to the income of Alphonse Capone
30:10had not been realized.
30:14It had the following entry.
30:16Frank paid $17,500 for Al.
30:20This one small entry in a ledger
30:22was what Wilson had been searching for.
30:27The IRS agent finally had a lead.
30:31Wilson surmised that Al was Al Capone,
30:33but they had to find a witness...
30:35Correct.
30:36...who could say that, yes, that Al refers to Al Capone,
30:38and that was another key piece of testimony.
30:41Yes, and as you know, he went by many different names,
30:44Al Capone, Al Brown...
30:46Al Capone, Al Caprone, yes, the...
30:49Yeah, Alphonse Brown.
30:50Right, nobody ever quite knew what to call him,
30:52which is a smart business approach if you're in this line of work.
30:56The Hawthorne Smoke Shop ledger could be enough to prove
30:59that Capone took an income from the gambling house,
31:02but Wilson needed the bookkeeper,
31:04the man who wrote the entry,
31:06to verify the evidence in court.
31:10By cross-checking the handwriting in the ledger
31:12with the handwriting of known employees in the Capone outfit,
31:16Wilson eventually found a match.
31:20A careful comparison of the entries in it
31:22established that most of the writing
31:24was that of Mr. Leslie A. Shumway.
31:28Wilson now had a potential key witness
31:30in the case against Capone.
31:36After a search of four months,
31:38he was located at Miami, Florida,
31:40on February 18, 1931,
31:42at which time I interviewed him.
31:44Here's a transcript of Wilson's interview with Leslie Shumway,
31:49and he says that he went to Miami to do this interview,
31:52and then there begins this long quotation.
31:56From about June of 1924 until May of 1926,
31:59I was employed in Cicero, Illinois,
32:01in a gambling establishment.
32:03On account of the illegal nature of this business,
32:05it was necessary to move from place to place
32:07in order to conduct the business
32:09without interference from law officers.
32:11Leslie Shumway's testimony was Wilson's first concrete piece
32:14of evidence against Capone.
32:17The IRS accountant was proving to be
32:19an extremely capable detective.
32:22This was really a frustrated cop.
32:24I mean, Wilson went into the tax work, into the IRS,
32:27in part because he had such bad eyesight.
32:29He didn't pass the exam to be a cop.
32:32And you can see the work of a cop here.
32:34His father was a cop.
32:35And he's out there doing interrogations.
32:37He's not just going through the bank ledgers.
32:39He's not just going through the books.
32:41He's finding witnesses. He's going out there.
32:43He's getting them to talk.
32:45It's fascinating to see because these are key witnesses.
32:48These are guys who are being compelled
32:50to give evidence against Capone,
32:52which is not a smart thing to do for most people.
32:54You know, you're risking your life
32:56by testifying against Capone.
32:58Wilson was now following a money trail
33:00that led straight back to Capone.
33:03From Shumway, he turned his sights on Fred Reese.
33:06Reese had been a cashier at the Hawthorne Smoke Shop
33:09and was responsible for virtually all of the business
33:12relating to the gambling house.
33:14Wilson tracked him down.
33:16But as he describes in his report,
33:18Reese was not going to give up his secrets easily.
33:22Mr. Reese plainly showed and also said
33:25that he was filled with fear of death
33:27from the Capone organization
33:29in the event that he testified truthfully to us.
33:32I get the impression that even though Wilson
33:34was sort of a shy and aloof guy,
33:36he could be intimidating.
33:38As with Leslie Shumway,
33:40Wilson began to use his interrogation skills
33:42to break down Reese.
33:46He focused on the money.
33:48He was asking them about the money and what they did
33:51and who owned the establishments
33:53and how much money did you take in every day
33:55and did you have a ledger?
33:57Once he made them feel safe,
33:59he was able to get them to convince them
34:01that it was in their best interest to cooperate.
34:03It seems like he convinced them that Capone may get you,
34:06but we're definitely going to get you if you don't cooperate.
34:09He has some power in this matter, too.
34:13The case was building against Capone.
34:16Wilson's hard work was paying off,
34:19but it was also bringing him unwanted attention
34:22from the mob boss.
34:25Wilson was contacted by one of his undercover agents
34:28named Mike Malone,
34:30who had been working inside the Capone outfit.
34:33Are we going to New York?
34:36Malone had learned of a plot
34:38to hire five gunmen from New York to kill Wilson.
34:42We were later informed that the imported New York gunmen
34:45had arrived in Chicago
34:47and were cruising around in a blue sedan
34:49bearing a New York license tag.
34:55After the tip-off, the government warned Capone
34:58that they would hold him responsible
35:00for any harm that befell their IRS agent.
35:04Capone was forced to call off the hit
35:06and the assassins returned to New York.
35:10But Capone had demonstrated the measures he would take
35:13to prevent the tax case reaching court.
35:15Wilson now had to make sure
35:17that his key witnesses made it to trial in one piece.
35:21He called on his financial benefactors,
35:23the Secret Six,
35:25to fund America's first witness protection program.
35:28Shumway was hidden in California,
35:30Reese in South America.
35:33By the spring of 1931,
35:35Wilson had established an income
35:38on which Capone had failed to pay tax.
35:42It's down to the penny, 84 cents,
35:44$1,038,655.84.
35:49We were very detailed.
35:51But again, that's only the amount
35:53that they were able to prove that he had received.
35:55No doubt he had a lot more money coming in.
35:59This was a landmark case.
36:02The pressure was now on Wilson
36:04to prove his evidence in court.
36:07But Capone had made a fundamental error.
36:10He took the tax case seriously,
36:12but not seriously enough
36:14to hire the right kind of lawyer.
36:17Apparently he had a lawyer, a tax lawyer,
36:19a real expert working with him at one point
36:22and didn't care for how much this guy was charging him.
36:25So Capone dismissed that lawyer
36:27with some other guys he knew better.
36:29And they were not experts.
36:31They did not appreciate the ins and outs of tax law,
36:34and I think he was ill-served by them.
36:37Capone's lawyers led him to believe
36:41that because this was simply an income tax case,
36:45that if he offered to pay up some amount of the money,
36:49worst case, all of it,
36:51that it would be an easy way out.
36:55The government rejected the offer,
36:57so Capone's lawyers attempted to strike a new deal.
37:01Capone would plead guilty in court
37:03for a maximum jail sentence of 2 1⁄2 years.
37:07Wilson, concerned for the safety and reliability of his witnesses,
37:11persuaded the government to accept the plea bargain.
37:16And then Capone started bragging about it.
37:18I'm only going to get 2 1⁄2 years.
37:20Look at me, I can do 2 1⁄2 years with my eyes closed.
37:23I'll check it out at the courthouse tomorrow,
37:25he was telling all his pals.
37:27Knowing that his lawyers had struck a deal with the government,
37:30Capone pleaded guilty to tax evasion.
37:34But what neither side knew
37:36was that the one man who had to agree to the bargain
37:39wasn't going to let Capone get off so easily.
37:43Judge James H. Wilkinson refused to accept the deal
37:46made between Capone and the government.
37:48Capone was forced to withdraw his guilty plea.
37:52The judge has the right to reject a plea bargain.
37:56He was within his powers there.
37:58The question is whether the judge had an agenda of his own.
38:03The motives behind Judge Wilkinson's decision are still unclear,
38:07but it meant that both Capone and the prosecution
38:10would have to fight their case in front of a jury.
38:23Chicago, October 6th, 1931.
38:26The day Al Capone was finally brought to trial.
38:32Outside the courthouse,
38:33thousands gathered to get a glimpse of the notorious gangster.
38:37The trial was presided over once again by Judge James H. Wilkinson.
38:46There were concerns that Capone may have tried to bribe the jury
38:49on the eve of the trial,
38:51but there was some evidence to suggest that Capone had acquired
38:54the names and addresses of all the jurors.
38:56So at the last minute, Judge Wilkinson threw out that jury
38:59and replaced them with another.
39:02If Capone had tried to stack the first jury,
39:04Wilkinson was trying to stack the second one.
39:06He brought in a jury of people who had all recently served
39:09on other juries where they had convicted bootleggers.
39:13So Capone faced a very difficult jury on that trial.
39:17But despite the courtroom being rigged in the prosecution's favor,
39:21Frank Wilson was still worried that his tax case
39:24would not stand up to scrutiny.
39:28There were still a lot of problems with the government's case against Capone.
39:31They never really had a lot of evidence showing Capone's income.
39:35So they spent a lot of time showing you how much money he spent
39:37at Marshall Fields on clothing,
39:39and how much the drapes cost at his home in Miami,
39:41because they wanted to show the juror that he was a rich man.
39:43This was lifestyles of the rich and famous and murderous.
39:47According to his own account of the trial,
39:49Wilson was extremely concerned that Capone's lawyers
39:52would argue that his one key piece of evidence,
39:55the Hawthorne Smoke Shop ledger,
39:57was inadmissible in court.
40:01The book of accounts related to unpaid taxes in 1924.
40:05Under an American law known as the Statute of Limitations,
40:09the defense could legitimately argue that by 1931,
40:13too much time had elapsed for the ledger to be used as evidence.
40:18Wilson knew that this tax law could enable the gang boss
40:21to walk away a free man.
40:23But unfortunately for Capone, his lawyers didn't.
40:27They never brought up the issue of the Statute of Limitations,
40:30which could have been the key to unlock his cell.
40:33And they never raised it.
40:35So I think he was poorly served by his lawyers.
40:37He was unfortunate to have a very difficult judge,
40:40a hanging judge who really had an axe to grind.
40:45For the last decade, Capone had escaped justice through corruption.
40:49Now he awaited the verdict of a jury that was stacked against him.
40:54The whole point of the Capone trial was to say that no one is above the law,
40:58that you don't make your own rules.
41:00And I don't think the government should have been bending the rules to get Capone.
41:03I think if they couldn't get him by the rules fair and square,
41:05Capone should have walked.
41:11On October 17, 1931,
41:14Al Capone was found guilty on five counts of income tax evasion.
41:19He was later sentenced to 11 years in jail.
41:25In court to see Capone led away was Elliot Ness.
41:29He had submitted his own evidence against the gangster,
41:325,000 prohibition violations in all.
41:35But the government had chosen instead to prosecute the tax case.
41:40He sat in the courtroom anticipating that eventually
41:44he'd be called as a witness, his evidence would be presented,
41:48he'd be in the spotlight, perhaps get that pat on the back
41:51that he felt he deserved for all his activities.
41:54It was never to come.
41:59During the Roaring Twenties, Al Capone had ruled the city of Chicago
42:03through corruption, intimidation and even murder.
42:07In the process, he'd built a thriving criminal organization
42:11and amassed a fortune.
42:17Capone saw himself as a shrewd businessman,
42:21but he had broken a basic rule of business.
42:24He had never filed an income tax return.
42:28This would ultimately lead to his downfall
42:31at the hands of a quiet yet determined accountant named Frank Wilson.
42:36He wasn't a flamboyant man. He wasn't a publicity seeker.
42:39He didn't try to entice the news media to cover him.
42:42I think it was all factors against why Frank Wilson
42:44did not become a household name as he should have been in the 30s.
42:47Wilson's efforts were rewarded by the government.
42:51In 1936, he became head of the American Secret Service.
42:56But it was Elliot Ness who would be best remembered
42:59as the man that got Capone.
43:04Ness left Chicago in 1933,
43:07when the Prohibition laws were finally abolished.
43:12In 1949, following a successful career
43:15tackling crime and corruption in the city of Cleveland,
43:18he turned his back on law enforcement.
43:23By then, he was drinking heavily,
43:26fighting his own personal battle with alcohol.
43:31Had it not been for his meeting with Oscar Fraley
43:34and the author's heroic portrayal of him in the book The Untouchables,
43:37Ness's name may have been lost to history.
43:42There goes two and a half years of my life.
43:45It had been just about that long since the October day in 1929
43:48when I gathered these men of mine together
43:50and told them we were going to do the impossible and get Al Capone.
43:54Well, we had done it.
43:56Only then did it come to me that the work of The Untouchables was ended.
44:02Elliot Ness received only $300 for his part in the book The Untouchables
44:07and fell out with Oscar Fraley over its inaccuracies.
44:12Elliot Ness, for all my research,
44:14never took claim for being the one who sent Al Capone to Alcatraz.
44:20And I don't think he would like that TV and the movies
44:24have credited him with doing it.
44:28In 1957, three months before The Untouchables went to print,
44:32Elliot Ness died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 54.
44:39Not one Chicago newspaper reported his death.
44:50Al Capone was released from Alcatraz in 1939, suffering from ill health.
44:58He died on January 25, 1947.
45:03He was the architect. He was the prototype.
45:05He was the person who really started the modern organized crime era
45:08as we know it today.
45:10Despite the government's efforts to bring down Capone and his outfit,
45:14the mafia in Chicago and throughout America continued to grow in power and wealth.
45:22People who replaced Capone and other people who have replaced them,
45:27and there's been a continuum since that time of a shifting of power
45:33whenever necessary to different individuals.
45:36Still have an outfit in Chicago.
45:38Maybe not quite as strong as it was, say, two decades ago,
45:41but if it's still there, then it probably always will be there.
45:44It's very difficult to penetrate organized crime,
45:47to get them on murders, shakedowns, extortions, things of that nature.
45:51It's easier to get them on the tax cases.
45:53Most organized crime figures have been convicted relating to a fraud or a tax problem.
45:58That's correct, and Frank Wilson got the ball rolling in that case.
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