The Outfit

by Russo, Gus

  When the conference ended, the bosses returned to their respective dominions. For Joe Accardo, that meant back to work on the disposal of the mail-fraud charges and the complex parole issue. His bags were hardly unpacked when the Outfit heard the news from Florida: At his Palm Island estate, Big Al Capone, the gang’s forty-eight-year-old patriarchal figure, had suffered a massive stroke on his January 18, 1947, birthday and died one week later. The event was likely related to his raging case of syphilis, which had rendered him both weak and demented. After being released to his family on November 16, 1939, Capone underwent a program of experimental syphilis remedies at Baltimore’s Union Memorial Hospital.4 While the treatments actually succeeded in slowing the progression of the disease, they could not stop the inevitable. After four months, Al Capone retired, finally, to his villa in Florida, where he spent his final years with his beloved wife and son in near seclusion.

  Shortly after his death, Capone’s body was secretly loaded into a laundry truck and driven to a local funeral parlor, where it was then embalmed and placed in a hearse. Ten days after Al Capone’s passing, the $2,000 coffin bearing his disease-ravaged corpse arrived by hearse from Miami, with Capone’s family arriving by train. At around 2 P.M. Scarface was interred in the Mount Olivet Cemetery on Chicago’s Far South Side. From behind a police-guarded periphery, a couple hundred gawkers braved the frigid eleven-degree winter air to observe the amazingly small (by Chicago standards) gangster funeral. The top bosses who did attend arrived in rental cars, hoping to avoid identification by police. The intimate gathering was the result of a decree by boss Joe Accardo: “We gotta draw the line someplace. If we let ’em, everybody in Chicago will crowd into the cemetery. Al had no enemies.”

  The curious throng watched as only Al’s most trusted friends and relatives drove up to burial plot fifty-eight near the south end of the cemetery. The Campagna family and Al’s brother Ralph attended, as well as Capone’s in-laws and other relatives from New York. But those who were of most interest to the press and public were the pinkie-ringed, well-dressed men alighting from the follow-up cars, a who’s who of Chicago crime paying their respects to Al’s mother, Theresa Capone; his widow, Mae; and son, Sonny. Some Outfitters considered “too hot” at the time were barred from the proceedings by Accardo; they were instead allowed to pay their respects indoors at the Rago Brothers Chapel, the site of the private wake held earlier. Wake attendees later spoke of the hoods’ reliving old times, bringing smiles to one another’s faces. Curly Humphreys especially was noted as having lightened the mood with war stories that kept the likes of Guzik chuckling. Now graveside, the mischievous mourners were more true to form with a distraught Charlie Fischetti barking at a press photographer who attempted to take a picture of Al’s distraught mother, “I’ll kill the son of a bitch that takes a picture.” Al’s younger brother, Matt, also threatened the press. The grief-stricken older brother, Ralph “Bottles” Capone, was more restrained as he pleaded, “Why don’t you leave us alone?”

  Under the funereal canopy, Monsignor William J. Gorman conducted the brief reading as Al’s mother sobbed profusely, comforted by Joe Accardo. Before reciting the traditional prayers of the Catholic Church, Gorman offered his own thoughts on the occasion: “The Roman Catholic Church never condones evil, nor the evil in any man’s life. But this ceremony is sanctioned by our archbishop in recognition of Alphonse Capone’s repentance, and the fact that he died with the sacraments of the Church,”

  In a few years, due to their disdain for curiosity seekers, the Capone family had Al’s remains secretly transferred to a family plot in Mount Carmel Cemetery on Wolf Road in the western suburb of Hillside. His spare, flat grave marker notes merely his name, birth and death dates, and a quotation: “My Jesus, Mercy.”5

  On May 6, 1947, the fraud charges were finally dropped in New York. According to sources developed by reporter Jim Doherty, the order for the dismissal came from Washington, from Attorney General Tom Clark, the same Tom Clark who one year earlier had ordered the FBI’s CAPGA (Capone Gang) probe disbanded; and the same Tom Clark who scuttled an FBI investigation into the Kansas City vote fraud that defeated Truman’s sworn enemy Congressman Roger Slaughter and resulted in the murder of a female election official. After the court proceedings, Hughes met with Ryan to collect the balance of his fee. Ryan walked Hughes to the Manhattan’s Corn National Bank, where, as promised, he transferred a $14,000 cashier’s check to Hughes. After saying their good-byes, Ryan and Hughes went their separate ways. Hughes said he never saw the mysterious Ryan again. When pushed by congressional investigators, Hughes admitted that he had possessed Ryan’s phone number, but had lost it when a pickpocket had lifted his address book at a Chicago Cubs game.

  The Tax Payments

  Undoubtedly the easiest preparole penalty to satisfy was the issue of Ricca’s and Campagna’s back taxes and penalties, totaling over $600,000. Although the dollar figure was irrelevant to a crime cartel pulling in millions per month, Humphreys believed the punishment excessive and decided to have it lowered; he may have also relished the opportunity to show off the long reach of his growing personal influence. Almost immediately, the penalty was lowered to a paltry $126,000, while the Outfit’s law enforcement adversaries threw up their collective hands in frustration and bewilderment. It has never been explained just how Curly accomplished this feat of legerdemain.

  Humphreys then accompanied attorney Bernstein to Leavenworth to report the good news to Ricca, who, according to Bernstein’s later testimony, repeated the gang’s mantra: “Go see Bulger.” After consultation with the enigmatic Joe Bulger, Bernstein waited for the other shoe to drop. Meanwhile, Bulger, the “supreme president” of the twenty-five thousand-member Unione Siciliana, put the word out once more: “The boys need some money.” Apparently, Ricca and Campagna had demurred from tapping their personal fortunes to settle the matter. Without hesitation, the same loyal Sicilians answered the call as they had four years earlier when they’d contributed to the gang’s bail fund. Out of the blue, men began arriving at Bernstein’s office, bringing sheaves of banknotes, saying, “This is for Paul” or “This is for Louis.” The FBI estimated that some forty-two separate drop-offs were made. It was as though, according to Bernstein, money fell from the sky. Bernstein later told a rapt, if dumbstruck, congressional committee, “This sounds like fantasy, I agree with you. It sounds fantastic.” To the end, Bernstein contended that he never identified the men who contributed to the fund. When Louis “Little New York” Campagna learned of the windfall, he feigned astonishment, exclaiming, “It’s an act of God!” Later, when grilled by congressional investigators, Campagna was asked by a sarcastic Congressman Clare Hoffman, “Do you believe in Santa Claus?” To which a bemused Campagna answered, “Yes. I mean, if you were me, wouldn’t you?”

  The fraud charges and the tax penalties dispensed with, the stage was set for the coup de grace. Crime historians agree that the obtaining of an early parole for Capone’s heirs is one of the greatest examples of the influence of organized crime in U.S. history.

  The Impossible Parole

  In 1947, some eleven thousand requests were made for early paroles, with roughly 50 percent granted. When word reached Chicago that Al Capone’s proteges were under consideration, virtually no one believed it would be possible. No one, that is, except the Outfit. At the gang’s direction, the letters of reference began arriving at the parole board’s office. Dozens of influential Chicagoans, including one bishop and four other clerics, spoke up in testament to the redeeming qualities of their friends, Ricca et al. Steve Healy, the owner of the landmark Stevens Hotel and one of Chicago’s premier public-works contractors, also worked for the gang’s release. Calling from California, Sidney Korshak suggested to his Chicago law partner Harry Ash that he act as Charley Gioe’s parole supervisor, the revelation of which would later cost Ash his irony-laden patronage job as the Illinois superintendent of crime prevention. Korshak had stayed in regular contact with Gioe, visiting h
im many times in Leavenworth. Meanwhile, the Chicago press reported that rumors were circulating about an alleged Jake Guzik trip to New York. The allegations, never investigated, stated that Guzik had New York boss Frank Costello offer Postmaster General, and former Democratic National Committee chairman, Robert Hannegan $350,000 if he could secure the paroles.

  At the same time, Louis Campagna’s wife, Charlotte, was instructed to call Paul Dillon to enlist his services once more. Dillon later said he accepted the offer to make up for what Bioff and Browne had done; they were the ringleaders, he said, and he had personal experience with Browne, whom he knew to be a liar. “[Browne] was as unreliable a man as I ever dealt with,” Dillon later testified. “When I found that his testimony was the main testimony that convicted these men, I said I wouldn’t believe in their conviction under any conditions.”

  Although Dillon claimed to have met with Wilson only as a favor for Mrs. Campagna, he in fact admitted cashing a $10,000 check from the Campagnas at the conclusion of his minimal work on their behalf. Also added to the legal team was Ricca’s attorney from the original extortion trial, A. Bradley Eben. It is possible that Eben was brought in on the chance that his connections might hold some sway on the eventual outcome: His mother, Mary Agnes Eben, worked in the White House as assistant secretary to President Harry Truman.

  Dillon, who routinely traveled to the nation’s capital every other week, immediately went to Washington to call on his friend parole board chairman T. Webber Wilson, where he greeted Wilson’s secretary saying, “Wilson will know me. I’m a friend of the president.” Dillon was informed that Wilson was out of town and that the board would not be considering the gang’s parole until it came due in early August. Dillon then filled out the requisite paperwork, formally requesting the paroles for his clients. Per custom, the original judge in the case (John Bright) and the prosecutor (Boris Kostelanetz) were sent Bureau of Prison Form 892, asking their opinions on the the impending decision. Kostelanetz wrote back in strong opposition: “The convicted defendants are notorious as successors to the underworld power of Al Capone. They are vicious criminals who would stop at nothing to achieve their ends. The investigation and prosecution were attended by murder, gunplay, threatening of witnesses, perjury, etc.” As Kostelanetz later told Congress, “I opposed parole in each case, except the case of Gioe.” He explained that the court was never able to demonstrate that Gioe profited from the extortion scam. Judge Bright concurred: “I beg to advise you that I would oppose a parole.” Bright then enumerated the laundry list of crimes in which the men were involved. “I know of no better way to suppress these kinds of activities than severe punishment . . . When I sentenced [Ricca] and his coconspirators to prison I felt very strongly that the full sentences should be inflicted.”

  Despite the perceived obstacles, the gangsters were confident. In Chicago, Mooney Giancana, privy to Truman’s vulnerable past, told his brother that Ricca and the rest would be out “real soon.” In his own hyperbolic manner, Giancana described how Truman’s shadow world in Kansas City would be used to leverage the eventual early release of the Hollywood-extortion prisoners:

  It’s just like Chicago out there. They had a mick mayor, Pendergast, on the take big time . . . loved to bet on the ponies. And they got the Italians [Lazia] for muscle and to make money with the rackets. So, fact is, Truman owes everything he’s got to us. Pendergast made him a judge and then, with Italian muscle behind him, got him into the Senate. When the ’forty-four election came up . . . Kelly here in Chicago got him on the ticket with Roosevelt. Shit, Chicago got Roosevelt and Truman nominated and elected. We were good to Roosevelt; he was good to us. He died and Truman’s been our man in the White House ever since. It’s been smooth sailing with him there.

  On August 5, Dillon again showed up at the office and met with Wilson and another of the board’s three members, Fred S. Rogers. (Both Rogers and the third member, Boleslau J. Monkiewicz were appointed by Maury Hughes’ longtime friend Attorney General Tom Clark.)

  On August 11, 1947, after the parole board had conducted what Congress later called “perfunctory” investigations into the defendants’ histories, the paroles were approved by Wilson and Rogers, over the objections of Kostelanetz, Bright, and a host of Chicago newsmen. In Leavenworth, Ricca and pals began packing their bags, and two days later, when Monkiewicz came to Washington, he added the final imprimatur. Rogers later said that Wilson had convinced him that “the Al Capone Gang [the Outfit] was not functioning in Chicago.” According to Rogers, Dillon persuaded the board that Bioff and Browne “testified themselves out of the penitentiary and testified these men in.” Incredibly, the board never learned of the defendants’ phone-book-thick rap sheets. Jim Doherty, an investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune, interviewed the parole board about their action and came away from the interview perplexed: “They [the board members] were very vague and mysterious. They seemed to have had no idea of who these men were. They never heard of the Capone gang. The Capone gang to them was something that might have come out of a fairy tale or might have been something in ancient history, but they didn’t know, or at least they wanted me to believe they didn’t know, the menace of the Capone gang to the city of Chicago.”

  Syndicated columnist Drew Pearson had his own theory about the parole board’s baffling pronouncement. Parole Board Chairman Wilson “was crooked,” Pearson informed the FBI. According to Pearson, Wilson had compromised his position on at least two occasions when “money changed hands in connection with the granting of paroles.” Soon after their controversial ruling on the Outfit’s paroles, Wilson and Rogers resigned their posts.

  On the first day Ricca and friends became eligible for parole, only one week after Dillon’s meeting in Washington, they exited the confines of Leavenworth. Unquestionably a massive “coming out” party was thrown at one of the Outfit’s restaurants. Throughout Chicagoland, Outfit associates celebrated their bosses’ triumph. Perhaps the grandest coming-out party was thrown by Paul Ricca five months later, on the occasion of his daughter Maria De Lucia’s wedding to Alex Ponzio, the owner of an electric supply company. Maria had postponed her marriage until her father was released from prison.6

  After the ceremony, some five hundred guests feasted at the Blackstone Hotel, where, according to the bridegroom, the tab came to between $27,000 and $30,000, an astronomical sum in 1948. Jules Stein’s Music Corporation of America (MCA) supplied the Buddy Moreno big band at a cost of $1,000. Before the day ended, the Ponzios were the recipients of the traditional Italian envelope presentations from the guests, and given the stature of the father of the bride, no one was about to present a thin wrapper. According to Alex Ponzio, the couple received an amazing $35,000 in cash, in addition to a $20,000 trust gift from Paul Ricca to his daughter.

  The Uproar

  The good cheer, however, was not universal. One month after the paroles, and after reading Jim Doherty’s work in the Trib, Illinois congressman Fred E. Busbey, a member of the Committee on Expenditures, fired off a letter to Attorney General Tom Clark, demanding an investigation. Clark complied with the request and tasked Hoover’s FBI to investigate. While waiting for the FBI’s report, Busbey and Michigan congressman Clare Hoffman, the committee chair, initiated their own congressional probe. Between September 1947 and June 1948, the committee interviewed 56 witnesses under oath, while the FBI spoke with some 275. Although the committee was never able to prove a bribe had been paid for the gang’s release, they were highly suspicious of the administration’s actions.

  Fueling the committee’s suspicions was the total lack of cooperation of Clark’s Justice Department and Truman’s White House, since both refused to turn over the FBI’s interviews to the committee.7 Congressman Busbey wrote: “To this day, members of this committee have been unable to get even a hint of [the FBI’s] results, nor what was learned from interviewing 275 or more witnesses.” On two occasions in October 1947, Hoffman wrote to President Truman, beseeching him to issue an executiv
e order commanding Clark to release the FBI material to the committee. Truman never responded, but merely instructed Deputy Attorney General Philip Perlman to deny the request based on the principle of separation of powers. In its final report, Hoffman’s committee concluded: “The syndicate has given the most striking demonstration of political clout in the history of the republic.”

  Just how politically sensitive the findings of the withheld FBI report were can be seen in the recently released portions of the document, in which the Bureau ended with the following summary and caution:

  It is noted that Humphreys’ involvement in the above situation is consistent with his functions to act as the mastermind of the strategy utilized by Chicago area hoodlums when confronted with prosecution of any type. Extreme caution should be exercised in the use of this information. It should not be included in the body of a report even though paraphrased. It should not be used . . . unless specific clearance is obtained from the Bureau and from Chicago. This is an extremely delicate and sensitive source which the Chicago office is making every effort to protect.

  In 1948, under extreme pressure from Hoffman’s powerful committee, the reconstituted parole board revoked the paroles, but the Outfit’s lawyers posted bail and succeeded in introducing a barrage of delaying tactics that stalled the case into oblivion.

  Throughout the committee’s investigation, legislators repeatedly hinted that “big money” had been paid to secure the gang’s release. In Chicago, street hoods claimed to know for certain that this money went not just to attorneys, but “into the White House and the attorney general’s office.” And more than money may have been used in the bribery. According to Mooney Giancana, Curly Humphreys relayed a Ricca offer to the attorney general. “Ricca even promised Clark a seat on the fuckin’ Supreme Court if he helped get him out,” Giancana said. According to his brother Chuck, Mooney told how the allegedly extorted Hollywood studios made a $5-million personal gift to Truman for the granting of the paroles, with Tom Clark guaranteed the Supreme Court post for his role. The Outfit also promised Truman its support in the 1948 elections. As far as Truman went, “We own him,” said Giancana. “We own the White House,” In that contest, Truman’s friends in Chicago reportedly returned the parole favor. “Boy, does Truman owe Chicago,” Giancana said. “Thirty thousand votes . . . that’s all he won by. Jesus, we had to beg, borrow, and steal to swing the son of a bitch . . . No way the man doesn’t know who got him elected.” After the razor-thin 1948 election, the Outfit felt they had increased their “marker” on the Oval Office.