Capone, Al (not technically a promoter or TP, but...)

The purpose of this board is to track the status of activity, cases, and ultimately the incarceration or fines against TP promoters and certain high-profile TPs.
Famspear
Knight Templar of the Sacred Tax
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Capone, Al (not technically a promoter or TP, but...)

Post by Famspear »

Alphonse Capone - not technically a promoter or a tax protester -- but what the heck.

The provisions of 26 USC 6103 notwithstanding, the Internal Revenue Service has released various documents on Al "Scarface" Capone:

http://www.irs.gov/foia/article/0,,id=179352,00.html
"My greatest fear is that the audience will beat me to the punch line." -- David Mamet
fortinbras
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Re: Capone, Al (not technically a promoter or TP, but...)

Post by fortinbras »

Apropos of nothing, the 1987 Kevin Costner movie, The Untouchables, completely distorted its dramatization of Capone's tax evasion trial. In the movie, Eliot Ness (Costner) discovers that the presiding judge is on Capone's payroll, Ness confronts the judge and threatens to reveal the incriminating documents, whereupon the judge goes back into the courtroom and instructs the bailiff to swap juries with a divorce case going on in the next courtroom; at this announcement the entire courtroom breaks into an uproar and Capone's lawyers immediately throw in the towel even while Capone is telling them not to.

In fact, the Capone trial was very prolonged. It was presided over by a judge whose integrity, then and now, is unassailable. There was no switching of juries -- and a federal court doesn't hear divorce cases anyway. Capone's side fought to the bitter end. It's worth mentioning that the real Ness devoted his time, as a Prohibition Agent, to disrupting Capone's bootlegging rackets - not to investigating Capone's tax situation; someone else should get the credit for that. (Also, the real Ness is not known to have thrown anyone off a courthouse roof.)

While I'm at it, there was a lawsuit over the earlier TV series of the same name, about an episode involving Al Capone. The Desilu TV series -- which bragged about its authenticity -- had a special two-part episode about Capone's prison train from Georgia to Alcatraz. The storyline was that Capone's mob planned to stop the train and liberate Capone, and that one of the guards in Capone's railway car had been bribed to cooperate. This was pure invention, but the series had been bragging about its general authenticity. Desilu was sued for defamation by one of the two guards who had actually been in Capone's railway car. He had been dining out for years on the story of guarding Capone and now Desilu had left everyone with the impression that there was a 50% chance (since there were only two guards in that car) that he had been working for Capone's mob. This was made worse by the repeated boasting of the series about .... A very ignominious defeat for the producers of the series.