Feb. 14, 1962 - Joseph Gallo, Brooklyn racketeer, was ordered today to serve a three-year term at Rikers Island Penitentiary for coercion before returning to Attica Prison for a seven-to-fourteen-year sentence as a convicted extortionist. Kings County Judge Samuel S. Leibowitz directed that Gallo serve the shorter term at the request of District Attorney Edward S. Silver, who brought Gallo down from Attica on a habeas corpus writ. The Brooklyn racketeer had been arrested on the extortion charge while appealing the coercion sentence. “I’m going to put him in the pen on Rikers Island,” Judge Leibowitz said, “so he can’t be sprung and go back to President Street to take up his position as boss man of a murder gang.” “Thank you, Your Honor,” shouted Gallo as he was led out to a courthouse detention cell.
