(2 of 2)
Presiding was U. S. District Judge James Herbert Wilkerson, 61, who last month sent Capone's brother Ralph to the penitentiary for three years for income tax evasion. A Harding appointee in 1922, Judge Wilkerson sprang immediately into national prominence less than two months after he mounted the bench by granting a sweeping injunction (framed by then Attorney General Daugherty) against railway shopmen in the great strike that year. Fingering the ribbon of his glasses with an air of abstraction, he heard Mr. Capone's young doctor and nurses testify that, down with pleurisy, he had been in grave condition during February and March 1929. Then Judge Wilkerson listened to other witnesses who related how the supposedly bed-ridden gangster had taken an airplane ride to Bimini (bootleg base), a boat trip to Nassau, attended the Sharkey-Stribling fight in Miami, the Hialeah races. "It is evident," commented Judge Wilkerson, "that someone is lying."
Suddenly, unexpectedly, when the final evidence was in. Judge Wilkerson pronounced judgment, without taking the case under advisement. "The trouble with this whole proceeding," said he, "was that the defendant was trifling with the court. . . . The evidence established beyond all possibility of doubt that during the month of February the respondent was not confined to his bed. . . . The statement made on March 5 that he had been out of bed only ten days was glaringly false." Found guilty of contempt, Capone was sentenced to serve six months in the Cook County jail.
Stunned, Gangster Capone mumbled: "If the judge thinks it's correct, he ought to know. You can't overrule the judge." Later, regaining his self-possession, he said: "We'll get another court to overrule this court."
Judge Wilkerson allowed the Capone lawyers 30 days in which to ask the Circuit Court of Appeals to take jurisdiction for a review of limited points. Meantime, their client went free on $5,000 bond.
Adding to Capone's difficulties last week was a deportation order signed by Secretary of Labor Doak for Antonio ("Mops") Volpe. stout Capone henchman, convicted ten years ago of forging War Saving Stamps. "What's the matter with Volpe?" complained the badgered Capone. "He's raised seven kids and that's the best recommendation I know of."
Chicagoans wondered if at last Capone's luck had turned against him, if his strange immunities from the Law were over, if his contempt conviction were the beginning of the end of his power in the second city of the land.