Louis Capone (1896 – March 4, 1944) was a New York organized crime figure who became a supervisor for the notorious Murder Inc. Louis Capone was not related to Al Capone, the boss of the Chicago Outfit.
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Born in Naples, Italy, Capone moved to New York City with his family and grew up in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. As as adult, Capone moved to Brownsville, Brooklyn.
Capone was described as a suave, well-groomed man who projected sympathy. He had watery blue eyes and a broken nose.[1]
Capone's legitimate business was a pasticceria (an Italian-style cafe serving coffee and pastries)in Brooklyn. The pasticceria became a popular hangout for teenagers, including future street gang leaders Abe Reles and Harry Maione. Capone built up a rapport with the boys by giving them free food. These young men soon became Capone's protegees in crime.[2]
Capone had strong connections with the Purple Gang out of Detroit, Michigan, and was operating loansharking operations in both Detroit and New York. Capone was also involved in labor racketeering with the local Plasterers Union. Capone also had close ties with mobster Joe Adonis. .[2]
In 1929, Capone survived an assassination attempt. On July 29, 1929, Capone was buying green peppers at a Brooklyn vegetable stand when a man walked up and fired five shots into his back. Seriously wounded, Capone eventually recovered at a local hospital. Police said the assailant was an associate of Capone's in the Plasters Union who had personal grievances with him.[3]
With the end of the Castellammarese War in 1931, Reles and Maione's gangs evolved into a network of contract killers that became known as Murder, Inc.. Mobster Albert Anastasia, a patron of Capone's restaurant, persuaded the two gang leaders that they could make a lot of money by working together for the Cosa Nostra. Anastasia would send Cosa Nostra murder contracts to mobster Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, the boss of Murder Inc. Capone would recruit the individual hitmen from the Reles and Maione gangs. These hitmen were mainly Jewish and Italian-American hoodlums from Brooklyn, [4] By 1934, all the Cosa Nostra families were using Murder inc. As time progressed, Capone spent considerable energy mediating disputes between the two gang leaders.[2]
In 1936, Capone participated in the murder of Joseph Rosen. Buchalter had previously ruined Rosen's trucking business and was now afraid that Rosen would implicate him in criminal activity. To protect himself, Buchalter ordered Rosen's murder. On September 13, 1936, Weiss and other gunman shot Rosen 17 times in his Brooklyn candy store, killing him instantly. [5] Capone identified the victim and worked out a plan for the gunmen. [1]
In 1939, Capone allegedly participated in the murder of Irving Penn. Buchalter had ordered Capone to plan the murder of Philip Orlovsky, a mobster who was cooperating with the government in an investigation of Buchalter. Capone gave the job of identifying the target to mobster Jacob "Kuppy" Migden. On July 25, 1939, Migden mistakenly identified Irving, a publishing executive, to the hitman, who then shot and killed Irving at his home in the Bronx. [6]
In 1940, Abe Reles became a government witness and helped break up Murder Inc. In jail on a pending 1933 murder charge, Reles gave into pleas from his wife and agreed to help prosecute Capone and the rest of the organization. In early 1941, as a result of Reles' assistance, Capone was indicted in the Penn murder. However, Capone never went to trial on these charges.[6]
On November 30, 1941, Capone and the other defendants were convicted of first degree murder in the 1936 Rosen murder. At that time, New York State law mandated the death penalty for this offense.[5] Over the next two and a half years, Capone and his co-defendants filed a series of legal appeals that culminated in a case review by the United States Supreme Court. After their legal appeals were exhausting, the condemned men submitted clemency petitions to the governor of New York. They were all denied.
On March 4, 1944, Louis Capone was executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. Capone had no final words before he was electrocuted. Weiss and Buchalter immediately followed him to execution. [7]
Capone was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Flatbush, Brooklyn.[8]
In the 1960 film Murder Inc., Capone was portrayed by Lou Polan.
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