Jacksonville report on Dr. Phillips's affidavit and Capone's whereabouts (23 March 1929)

Part 23 of the FBI Vault’s Capone file, scans 15 to 19. Scan 15 is a short transmittal from J. R. Burdge, Acting Special Agent in Charge at Jacksonville, Florida, to the Director, sending the original and five copies of his report on “Alphonse Capone; Kenneth Phillips, M.D.; Contempt of Court; Perjury”. He writes that, mindful of Mrs. Willebrandt’s wish to handle the matter specially, he has sent the copies to the Bureau rather than to the Chicago office. The report that follows (scans 16 to 19) carries the Bureau serial 69-180-4 and the Jacksonville file number 69-9/74; the research record dates it 23 March 1929.

The report says the inquiry began on telephoned instructions from H. H. Clegg of the Bureau. It quotes the affidavit Dr. Kenneth Phillips swore at Miami on March 5, 1929: that Capone, whose winter home was on Palm Island, Miami Beach, had been under his care since about January 13, 1929, had been ill with broncho-pneumonia and pleurisy, had been confined to bed for about six weeks, and could not safely travel to Chicago. Against that, the report sets out statements from Miami police and other witnesses who said they saw Capone at the Hialeah race track and at other public events in Miami during the same period, and it lists further leads for the Miami agent.

The OCR of scans 16 to 19 is badly garbled. The summary here follows the research index for Part 23, which checked scan 16 against the page image; quotations of the affidavit’s medical wording are not reproduced from this report because the OCR cannot be read reliably. The same affidavit is summarized, in clean type, in Judge Wilkerson’s finding of 27 February 1931, filed separately.