Louis Capone

Louis Capone (September 5, 1896 – March 4, 1944) was a New York organized crime figure who became a supervisor for Murder, Inc. Louis Capone had no known relation to Al Capone, the boss of the Chicago Outfit. Capone was convicted of murder in 1941, and sentenced to death. He was electrocuted at Sing Sing Prison on March 4, 1944.

Early life

Capone was born in Naples, Italy, and moved to New York City with his family as a child, where he grew up in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn. As an 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.

Mob rackets

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 protégés in crime.

Murder, Inc.

With the end of the Castellammarese War in 1931, Reles' and Maione's gangs developed into a network of contract killers that became known as Murder, Inc. 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. 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.

Indictments

In 1940, Reles became a government witness and helped break up Murder, Inc. In jail on a pending 1933 murder charge, Reles gave in to 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. 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 exhausted, the condemned men submitted clemency petitions to the governor of New York, which were all denied.

Death

On March 4, 1944, Louis Capone went to the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. Capone had no final words. He was followed in the chair by Weiss and Buchalter.

Capone was buried in Holy Cross Cemetery in Brooklyn.

In popular culture

In the 1960 film Murder, Inc., Capone was portrayed by Lou Polan.