G. Aaron Youngquist

Who was G. Aaron Youngquist?

Gustav Aaron Youngquist was a Swedish-American lawyer from Minnesota. He served as Minnesota Attorney General and as the Assistant U.S. Attorney General who successfully prosecuted Al Capone for federal income tax evasion.

Youngquist was born near Gothenborg, Sweden and moved to the United States as a small child with his family. Without any formal education, he enrolled at William Mitchell College of Law and graduated in 1909. Following graduation, he entered into partnership with Charles Loring, a future Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Later, he successfully ran for the offices of Carver County Attorney and Minnesota Attorney General, the latter in 1928.

In 1929, the state Republican Party tried to draft Youngquist as their gubernatorial candidate for the next year's election. Instead, U.S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell convinced Youngquist to accept a position at the Department of Justice, where he was charged with enforcing national prohibition laws. He remained there until 1933, having argued between sixty and seventy cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and overseen the trial and sentencing of Al Capone.