Eliot Ness, the man who took down Al Capone, was by fact and legend untouchable.
His third wife Elizabeth? Not with $2 or $3 on the line.
One of the oddities on display at the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission’s Harrisburg headquarters is a copy of a citation issued to Mrs. Ness at 7 p.m. on Aug. 14, 1956 at Lyman Run Lake in Potter County. Fish warden Kenneth Aley fined her for fishing on a resident license even though she hadn’t lived in the state for the required 60 days before buying it.
According to Aley’s written report, he found Eliot, Elizabeth and Robert Ness – the couple’s adopted son – at the lake.
Eliot Ness wasn’t fishing and so didn’t have or need a license. Robert was, but was too young to need one.
Elizabeth did have a line in the water, and needed a license, and when Aley asked her to produce it – one of the old-style fishing buttons — she did.
The problem was it was a Pennsylvania resident license, and when she was asked to provide identification, she anted up an Ohio driver’s license. That matched the plates on the family’s Ford convertible, registered in Ohio.
Elizabeth explained that by saying she’d just moved to Coudersport the day before.
“Her husband then told me that he had lived here since the first of the year and that his wife and boy had stayed in Ohio until the boy had finished school, and until they had time to find a house,” Aley wrote in his report. “He based the facts that as long as he had lived here in a hotel room that his wife was a resident.”
Aley didn’t agree and said he planned to proceed with the citation; Elliott Ness asked for time to consult with a lawyer. Aley consented, “with the understanding that I would investigate into the case further.”
He went to the issuing agent who had sold Elizabeth Ness her license. That person claimed to have told her she couldn’t buy a resident license, but that she insisted on gettng one anyway because “she didn’t want to pay the difference in licenses for only a few months trout fishing.”
A Pennsylvania resident license was $2.50 in 1956. Exactly how much a nonresident one cost is unclear, but it’s thought to have been closer to $5.
“I then went to the County Commissioners office and her husband had made no attempt to become a resident,” Aley’s report reads. “He had paid no taxes or had he been accessed (sp) in this County. I then went to the District Attorney and upon his advise proceeded with the case.”
Eliot and Elizabeth asked to have until 2 p.m. on Aug. 17 to decide whether to settle or take their case to court.
In the end, after consulting their attorney, they settled, and Elizabeth paid a $25 fine. She wrote a check to Aley, who in turn wrote one out to the commission.
And Ness, who wasn’t even fishing, became connected to the Fish and Boat Commission forever.
Eliot Ness
