The Nation - News from June 23, 1987

U.S. District Judge Pierre Leval in New York sentenced five of the 18 men convicted in the “pizza connection” drug smuggling trial to up to 45 years in prison, fined them a total of $2.5 million and ordered them to pay $2 million in restitution to drug victims. Gaetano Badalamenti, the reputed former chief of the Sicilian Mafia, and Salvatore Catalano, who, prosecutors said, headed the American side of the operation, were among those sentenced in the $1.6-billion smuggling ring, in which the defendants were accused of using pizzerias as fronts to distribute heroin and cocaine from 1975 to 1984.