Gangster has jail sentence extended for sperm smuggling

A New York gangster who smuggled his semen out of prison to impregnate his wife has had his jail sentence extended by 16 months.

Kevin Granato pleaded guilty in May to charges he used a cryogenic sperm kit to sneak his sperm out of Allenwood Federal Prison, in Pennsylvania.

His wife Regina also pleaded guilty at the same time to helping smuggle the sperm out to a New York fertility clinic. She received nine months probation for her role.

The couple's daughter is now three-years-old. Regina Granato, 40, said the smuggled sperm plot was "made out of pure love."

She added: "We love our daughter and it is her that gives us the only joy and pleasure we have," she wrote in a plea for leniency.

Granato, 43, whose current prison sentence for racketeering and murder runs until 2012, could have been sentenced to another 35 years.

He came under suspicion after he was seen in the visiting room showing off a toddler he called his child, even though he'd been in jail since 1988 and didn't have conjugal visits.