Video: '60 Minutes' report (Jan. 16, 1972)

(Friday, June 16, 1972) — Clifford Irving, pleading for leniency and on the verge of tears, was sentenced today to 2.5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine on federal conspiracy and grand larceny charges for selling McGraw-Hill Inc. a faked autobiography of industrialist Howard Hughes for $750,000.

U.S. District Court Judge John M. Cannella imposed a two-year suspended sentence and two months in jail on Irving’s wife Edith, who posed as “Helga R. Hughes” to cash checks meant for the billionaire recluse Hughes.