# Kefauver Part 2: testimony of Virgil W. Peterson, Chicago Crime Commission, on the Capone syndicate (6-7 July 1950), pp. 125-213

Canonical: https://mobfiles.org/items/kefauver-p2-peterson-testimony-1950-07-06/

The Crime Commission's operating director gave a prepared history of the Capone organization from the Torrio era on, including that Nitti headed it after Capone went to prison and that since Nitti's suicide in 1943 Accardo had 'frequently been considered the leader.'

Virgil W. Peterson, operating director of the Chicago Crime Commission and a former FBI agent, testified on 6 and 7 July 1950 (Part 2, pp. 125-213) from a long prepared statement on the Capone organization, beginning in the Torrio era.

He said (p. 130) that "when Capone was committed to Federal prison, Frank Nitti became the head of the Capone gang," and that among those "sought by police as suspects - and they were just suspects" in the Saint Valentine's Day killings were Tony Accardo, Claude Maddox and Tony Capezio. He said (p. 134): "Since Frank Nitti committed suicide in 1943, Tony Accardo has frequently been considered the leader of the Capone syndicate." He said Accardo was named a public enemy by the Crime Commission in 1931, and that Accardo visited Paul Ricca and Louis Campagna at Leavenworth "under the pretext that he was an attorney," using the name of a Chicago lawyer. He said (p. 135) that Ricca "is frequently considered the top ranking member of the Capone syndicate" and had "naturally kept in the background" since his 1947 parole.

Of Jake Guzik he said (pp. 138-139) that he "was the business manager of the Capone syndicate or was called such during the heyday of Al Capone's regime," that he was found guilty on November 20, 1930 of income-tax evasion for 1927-1929 and sentenced to five years and a $7,500 fine, and that in 1946 James Ragen alleged in a signed statement that Guzik, Accardo and Murray Humphreys tried to take 40 percent of Continental Press. He listed Nitti, Campagna, Ricca, D'Andrea, Guzik, Accardo, the Fischettis and Humphreys among the syndicate's powerful members.

Peterson spoke from the Crime Commission's records. His statements are a witness's characterizations, not committee findings, and the "considered the leader" sentences report reputation. This is the "Peterson statement" that Part 5 refers to. Quotations follow the Internet Archive's OCR of the printed volume. Page numbers are the printed running heads and can be off by one near a page break.

## Sources

- U.S. Senate Special Committee to Investigate Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce, via Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/investigationofo02unit
- Full text of the volume (Internet Archive, OCR): https://archive.org/download/investigationofo02unit/investigationofo02unit_djvu.txt