Eliot Ness Didn't Convict Al Capone. A Tax Agent's Ledger Did.

Eliot Ness Didn't Convict Al Capone. A Tax Agent's Ledger Did. Everyone knows the story: Eliot Ness and the Untouchables brought down Al Capone. Capone was never tried for anything Ness's squad found; the 5,000 Prohibition counts built from their raids were set aside. He was convicted in October 1931 on five counts of tax evasion and failing to file, on a case built by Frank J. Wilson of the Treasury's Intelligence Unit, starting from three ledgers seized in a 1926 raid on the Hawthorne Smoke Shop in Cicero. One entry read "Frank paid $17,500 for Al". This film follows the documents: Brooklyn and Johnny Torrio, Prohibition and the beer wars, Cicero and the Hawthorne Inn, the McSwiggin killing and the 1926 raids, United States v. Sullivan (1927), the St Valentine's Day massacre, Hoover and the Chicago businessmen, the Public Enemy list, Ness's squad, Wilson's search, the bookkeeper Leslie Shumway and the cashier Fred Ries, Edward O'Hare, the failed plea deal, Judge Wilkerson's jury switch, the verdict, Atlanta and Alcatraz, and how the 1957 memoir became the legend. A note on accuracy: Ness's raids were real and costly to Capone, and the film says so. His memoir, written with Oscar Fraley and published after his death, is described as dramatised. The jury switch follows Wilson's account and the trial record. No photographs of the St Valentine's Day dead are shown. CHAPTERS 0:00 The hook 0:58 Brooklyn 1:32 Chicago 2:11 The beer wars 2:36 Cicero 3:42 Untouchable 4:14 The celebrity 4:46 McSwiggin 5:36 The Sullivan case 6:16 The St Valentine's Day massacre 6:45 The White House 7:10 Public enemy number one 7:54 Ness 8:46 Frank Wilson 9:35 The ledger 10:08 The bookkeeper 10:49 The cashier 11:16 The informant 12:00 The letters 12:17 Indicted 12:46 The deal 13:20 The jury 13:52 The court 14:10 The evidence 14:43 The verdict 15:12 Atlanta and Alcatraz 15:51 Wilson 16:03 Ness 16:58 The vault 17:19 The legend 17:42 Close Forty-fourth film in a series on the archive behind the famous stories. Same method as the rest: the official version, then the documents. SOURCES United States v. Sullivan, 274 U.S. 259 (1927). Hawthorne Smoke Shop ledgers, seized 1926. Frank J. Wilson, letters of 27 March and 8 April 1931; Summary Report on Alphonse Capone, Bureau of Internal Revenue. Federal indictments, 13 March and 5 June 1931. Verdict, 17 October 1931. Chicago Crime Commission, public enemies list, April 1930. Eliot Ness with Oscar Fraley, The Untouchables (1957). IMAGE CREDITS Library of Congress (Harris & Ewing, National Photo Company); National Archives (US); Federal Bureau of Investigation; Internal Revenue Service; Nationaal Archief (Netherlands); Chicago Tribune, 1926. All public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. #AlCapone #EliotNess #Prohibition #TrueCrime #History