Author: Capone a Mobster, Not Monster

The notorious and legendary Al Capone was a mobster but he was not a monster, his grandniece Deirdre Marie Capone tells Newsmax TV.

Capone is the author of “Uncle Al Capone – The Untold Story from Inside His Family.” She tells Newsmax that she spent years running from the family name, moving to Minnesota, and keeping the family history from her children. It all changed when one of her children came home from school and said they were studying Al Capone.

Watch the exclusive interview here.



She gathered her children together and told them, “I was born Deidre Marie Capone, my uncle was Al Capone. The four of them looked at each other and then they looked back at me and in unison the four of them said ‘Cool, mom!’”

Nonetheless, she kept the secret of her family from the larger world until her book came out.

“Now, people are asking me questions, buying the book, and I’m signing the book to for them,” she said. “It’s a different atmosphere today. I think people are fascinated that there’s this history in America and shows like ‘Boardwalk Empire,’ which was a great show that has shined a lot of attention to how life was back them. My message to people is: ‘Was Al Capone a mobster? Oh yes, he was. Was Al Capone a monster? No, he was not.’

“By the way, my book of the hundred books that have been written about Al Capone – my book is written by the only person, the only author that truly knew him. None of the other authors have ever set eyes on Al Capone."

According to the FBI website, Al Capone was convicted of a variety of charges including tax evasion in 1931. He was sentenced to prison and released in 1939, “suffering from paresis derived from syphilis” and greatly deteriorated. He died in Florida in 1947.

Ralph “Bottles” Capone was Deirdre Marie Capone’s grandfather and also involved in the family business.

“My father was the first-born of the new generation of Capones,” she said. “He was the first-born grandchild of Al’s mother and father, all the hope and promise thrusted upon his shoulders. Two years later, Al had a son, Al’s son was born with a ravaging syphilis, he was deaf, and he had a learning disability. So my father was earmarked to play the role in the Capone family that John Fitzgerald Kennedy played in the Kennedy family.”

She noted that mobsters in the old days had two personas, “the family man” and “the business man.”

“I remember this; I was born in the 1940s, so I knew him in my early years,” she said of Al Capone. “ But I had my grandfather who was Al’s older brother and business partner, so I was 34, and my grandfather only had one son, my father who committed to this life, so my grandfather felt very responsible too – he really schooled me – he made me promise that I would not write my book until all the original family members had passed. Back in those days, men had two persona, there was the family man, but there was the business man and they were very, very, distinct and different.”