The crook, the smuggled sperm, his wife and their daughter

THE parents of a three-year-old New York girl conceived while her mobster father was in jail have been indicted for their part in smuggling his sperm out of prison.

A federal grand jury in Pennsylvania charged mafia hitman Kevin Granato and his wife Regina with joint conspiracy, and also levelled bribery charges against the mobster.

For three years, the Granatos conspired with each other and more than one prison employee to sneak food, toiletries and cryogenic sperm kits to Kevin Granato, who's serving more than 20 years at Allenwood Federal Penitentiary for his role as a Colombo crime family hit man.

The couple smuggled Kevin's sperm out of the low-security prison to a New York City fertility clinic, the indictment said.

The indictment was reported by the New York Post yesterday. When the paper originally reported the "Mafia sperm baby" story, Regina said she did nothing wrong and only wanted to be a mother.

"My clock was ticking and we wanted a child ... and I did it," Regina, a bus driver for mentally retarded children, said in April.

Kevin, who was to be released from Allenwood Prison in 2012, was also charged by the grand jury with an extra count of conspiracy and two further counts of aiding and abetting bribery.

Regina was additionally charged with providing prohibited objects to an inmate, her husband.

After attempting to have a child multiple times using different doctors, Regina, 39, became pregnant in late 1998, the indictment said. Their daughter, Gianna, was born in August 1999.

In October 2000, Regina and Gianna were barred from visiting Kevin after prison officials became aware that Kevin, who isn't allowed to have conjugal visits, had a baby daughter. Regina called the birth "a blessing," and her daughter "a gift."

While Gianna was an infant, Kevin busied himself with criminal activities offering a prison counsellor $15,000 to reclassify two inmates and paying the counsellor to peek at the restricted files of two other inmates, the indictment said.

In Autumn 2000, Kevin told a prison counsellor he'd pay him $5,000 to smuggle out the semen of another inmate, the indictment said.