Syphilitic tax dodger Al Capone retains his tight grip on the imagination of the federal government 70 years after his death, it seems.
With Tax Day fast approaching, the National Archives this week for the first time posted online records from the Outfit boss’s famous 1930 trial.
Archive staff confusingly say it’s part of a federal “Stress Awareness Month,” but you might also consider it a warning of what happens when you fail to file with the Internal Revenue Service.
Capone, of course, was taken down by the taxman after a string of charges connected to his gangsterism failed to stick.
The dry court documents published by the National Archives this week mostly make for unexciting reading. If they’re not quite as anti-climactic as the goofy 1986 live TV special in which Geraldo Rivera spectacularly revealed that Capone’s vault was, er, empty, they might make filling out your 1040 seem like fun by comparison.
There are, though, a few moments of humor.
You might recall the hullabaloo of the final, ludicrous courtroom scene in “The Untouchables,” in which Robert DeNiro, playing Capone, rants and raves as (against Capone’s will!) his lawyer enters a guilty plea on his behalf.
In the real case, Capone pleaded not guilty and was convicted by a jury. Newspaper accounts of the time noted that Capone shouted, “I’m not through fighting yet!” as he was led away.
But the moment of the verdict was rather less exciting — pathetic, even.
A transcript published by the National Archives shows that Capone’s attorney, Albert Fink, uttered as hopeless an argument as Chicago’s federal court has likely ever heard.
“But, your honor, do you think that hardly fair?” Fink said.
File your taxes, people.
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