Page:Summary Report of Al Capone for the Bureau of Internal Revenue.djvu/18

SI-7085-F As soon as the excitement over the murder of Assistent States Attorney McSwiggen on April 26, 1926, died down, Capone resumed his gambling activities in Cicero. The Hawthorn Smoke Shop was reopened and Fred Ries was employed as cashier. Practically all of the business relating to the profits of that establishment was conducted by Mr. Ries with Jack Guzik, the financial representative of Capone. There are submitted herewith as Exhibit No. 11, a sworn statement made before me by Ries dated September 18,1930, Exhibit No.12, a sworn statement of Ries dated October 20, 1930, and Exhibit No. 13, a copy of the testimony of Ries at the trial.

Mr. Ries was a hostile witness and considerable difficulty was experienced in locating him as for a very long time he was kept under cover in Florida and other points by Louis Lipschultz, Jack Guzik and other agents of the Capone organization because they were informed that this Unit was looking for him as a witness in this case. They were arranging to furnish him with funds and to send him to California when on August 30, 1930, Special Agent Tessem and I found him at St. Louis, Missouri, as he was about to leave for Los Angeles, California. An air mail special delivery letter from Cicero, Illinois, was delivered to Ries by a special delivery messenger just before we entered the room. The letter was from Louis Lipschultz, brother-in-law of Jack Guzik and contained instructions for Ries to proceed at once to California. Lipschultz had been furnishing large sums of money to Ries to keep him away from Chicago in order that he might not be located and used as a government witness against the Capone organization. Mr. Ries plainly showed and also said that he was filled with fear of death from the Capone organization in the event he testified truthfully to us. When we questioned him regarding his employment in the gambling establishments in Cicero he cleverly denied any knowledge of the facts which could be used by the government as evidence against Al Capone, Jack Guzik or other principals in that organization. By comparison of his penmanship with indorsemants on canceled cashier's checks amounting to $224,704.00 purchased under the name of J. C. Dunbar at the Pinkert State Bank in Cicero during the years 1927 and 1928,we established that Mr. Ries had used the name of Dunbar and had purchased all of these checks. In spite of his alleged ignorance regarding the cashier's checks or the identity of his employers or other facts of value it was decided that he should be held as a material witness. No Federal Judge was available in St. Louis, Missouri, and he was taken to East St. Louis, Illinois, before Federal Judge Wham who fixed his witness bond at $15,000.00. He was unable to furnish bail and was held in the county jail at Danville, Illinois. No publicity was given to his detention as a witness as we did not wish the Capone organization to come to his rescue bail him out. After he had been detained in jail for a - 17 -