Al Capone legal paper up for bid

True-crime buffs this week can bid on memorabilia from the lives of legendary gangsters such as Bugsy Siegel, Whitey Bulger and Bonnie and Clyde.

There’s also a signed Al Capone legal document, circa 1930, denouncing allegations the criminal kingpin rananillegal liquor house in Miami.

But mystery surrounds how the document wound up on the auction block— it appears to have been swiped from original courthouse files.

The item is part of the “Gangsters, Outlaws and Lawmen” auction being held by Boston’s R.R. Auction. Online bidding began Thursday. The live event itself takes place Saturday in Cambridge, Mass.

The auction house won’t identify the private seller, but says the legal document from a gangster known as “Scarface” is legit.

On its website, the company shows photos of the six-page document, contained in a distinctive blue folder marked with a handwritten date, “4/26/30.”

So was it pilfered, sometime over the past 87 years? The auction house can’t say for sure.

“We know that multiple copies of court documents are produced and get into private hands,” said Bobby Livingston, the auction house’s executive vice president. “It’s not uncommon.”

A Herald reporter reviewed the Miami-Dade Clerk of Courts archive Wednesday morning and found no original or duplicate of the six-page document. The archive contains similar original court motions — all sheathed in that same blue clerk’s office folder that was standard in the 1930s and marked with the same handwritten dates.

The fact that the document is up for sale shocked retired Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Scott Silverman, who was the court system’s historian and knew the Capone filewell.

“If this is an original document that was filed with the court, it needs to be back in a court file and preserved for future generations,” Silverman said.

Also up for bid: a subpoena, stamped “filed,” identical to ones that still exist in the original court file. The auction house estimates both documents could fetch $30,000 or more.

RR Auction is also auctioning Capone’s diamondstudded pocket watch, sheet music penned by the gangster and trinkets from his Chicago home.