leading his men into the club to attack the Yale crew as they gathered for their annual Christmas party. Instead, Yale had Al Capone and his men set up an ambush and open fire on Lonergan, Aaron Harms, James "Ragtime" Howard, Paddy Maloney, Cornelius "Needles" Ferry, and James Hart. Lonergan, Ferry, and Harms were all killed while Hart was severely wounded. An examination of the original police reports and witness accounts does not support this version. According to author Patrick Downey, the Adonis Club shootings were most probably a spur-of-the-moment reaction to a drunken argument that Needles Ferry had engaged in with Capone and his companions. Downfall By the mid-1920s, Yale was noted as one of the most powerful gangsters in Brooklyn. In addition to his numerous rackets, Yale made inroads into labor racketeering and dockside extortion as well. In spring of 1927, however, Yale's long friendship with Capone began to fray. As a major importer of Canadian whisky, Yale supplied much of Capone's whiskey. Yale would oversee the landing of the booze and make sure the Chicago-bound trucks made it safely through New York. Soon, many of the trucks began being hijacked before they left Brooklyn. Suspecting a double cross, Capone asked an old pal James "Filesy" DeAmato to keep an eye on his trucks. DeAmato reported that Yale was indeed hijacking his booze. Soon after this, Capone's spy realized that his cover had been blown and tried unsuccessfully to shoot Yale on the night of July 1, 1927. Six nights later, DeAmato was gunned down on a Brooklyn street corner. In a last-ditch effort to mend the relationship with his longtime friend, Capone invited Yale to Chicago to view the Dempsey-Tunney heavyweight title rematch at Soldier Field on September 22, 1927. While their visit was civil enough, the pair's friendship began to rapidly deteriorate after Yale returned to New York. Distracted by a gang war with rival mobster Joe Aiello, a brief exile from Chicago, and the 1928 Republican primary election, Capone had to wait until the spring of 1928 to plan retaliation. On July 1, 1928, a Sunday afternoon, Yale was in his Sunrise Club, located at 14th Avenue and 65th Street, when he received a cryptic phone call. The caller said something was wrong with Yale's new wife Lucy, who was at home looking after their year-old daughter. Refusing Joseph Piraino's offer to drive him, Yale