POOR AND DEMENTED

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 3, 5 January 1939, Page 9

POOR AND DEMENTED

FORMER RICH GANGSTER RELEASE TO BE DEFERRED SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 21. The one - time multi - millionaire racketeer Al Capone is now without means. This is revealed by Federal investigators. Internal Revenue agents state that Capone’s vast fortune has disappeared since he w;as sent to Alcatraz prison in San Francisco Bay. His only asset is said to be his heavily-mortgaged Florida estate. The remainder of his assets have been swallowed up in attorney's fees and in income-tax liens. The prisoner’s mental illness has made him “too dangerous for release.” Ordinarily he would have been eligible for release on January 19. But he ma 5 now be detained for another two years for treatment. The District Attorney, Mr. William Campbell, has revealed that the former gangster is suffering from paresis. He lapses into bouts of irrational violence in one week out of every four. Capone's relatives and attorneys will, confer with Government officials soon in an attempt to decide what can be clone with him. This man, who used to sit in a palatial office in Chicago directing his 12,000,000 a year vice and liquor rackets, now spends much of his time crouching in his cell. He is hated by his 300 fellow prisoners, and has been involved in a number of fights.