Conviction For Extortion
On June 6, 1973, Priddy was arrested by the FBI in California and charged with trying to extort $250,000 from a steamship company by threatening to put a bomb aboard one of its vessels, the Island Princess. He was convicted and sentenced to nine months in prison. Phil Rizzuto later said the he could never believe "that whole extortion thing." He said: "That wasn't the Gerry I knew. He was outspoken and hotheaded ... but outside of baseball he was a regular guy. He knew a lot of prominent businesspeople. It just didn't make sense. He called me when he got out of prison and told me if he'd have to spend one more day in there he'd have been a hardened criminal." (Bill Madden, Pride of October, p. 12.)
In 1980, Priddy died of a heart attack at his home in North Hollywood, California.
Read more about this topic: Jerry Priddy
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