Conrad Black's back: Disgraced press baron FREED
from U.S. prison after posting $2m bail
By David Gardner- - Daily Mail 21st July 2010
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1296563/Conrad-Black-freed-2million-bail.html
Disgraced former press baron Conrad Black has
been freed from prison this afternoon after posting a $2million bail.
Judge Amy St. Eve of the U.S. District Court in
Chicago has set Black, 65, free while she
considers whether to throw out his 2007
conviction for a multi-million pound fraud.
But he still has to travel from his Florida jail
to her Chicago courtroom before he can be
released from custody - meaning he may not be
seen in public until later tonight or even tomorrow.
The dramatic release came in the wake of a U.S.
Supreme Court ruling that threw a huge question mark over his convictions.
The 65-year-old former Daily Telegraph owner has
served two years and three months of a
six-and-a-half year sentence for raiding the
coffers of his once mighty newspaper empire,
Hollinger, and trying to cover up his crime.
But he was released after his lawyers argued the
ex-newspaper magnate should be granted bail while
waiting for a hearing in Chicago's Court of
Appeal to decide whether to overturn the
convictions in the light of June's Supreme Court decision.
Black applied for his release immediately after
Supreme Court justices ruled on June 24 that the
law used to convict him on three fraud charges was too vague.
Initially, his plea for bail was rejected. But in
a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals, Black's
lawyers argued his time behind bars could
outdistance his ultimate sentence, thus, any
'additional time he spends in prison between now
and a favourable ruling can never be returned to him'.
This week, the appeals court reversed its
decision, issuing an order granting Black's
release from the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex prison in Florida.
Before his fall from grace, Black was the third
biggest newspaper publisher in the world.
As well as the Telegraph, he owned the Chicago
Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post, Canada's National
Post and hundreds of smaller community newspapers in North America.
TIMELINE OF A LORD'S FALL FROM GRACE
1944 - Conrad Black was born in Montreal into a rich Toronto family.
1966 - Black bought his first newspaper, the
Eastern Townships Advertiser in Quebec.
1985 - He makes his first foray into British
press ownership by investing in the struggling Telegraph Media Group.
1990 - Black's companies run over 400 newspaper
titles in North America, the majority of them small community papers.
1992 - Black marries Watford-born journalist
Barbara Amiel. Second wife Barbara Amiel was
widely regarded as having led him into a life of extravagance and opulence.
While married to Amiel he added a luxury Park
Avenue apartment in New York as well as a London
townhouse in Kensington to his existing home in
Palm Beach worth £17.5 million and lavish
inherited home in Toronto. The pair's extravagant
lifestyle led to Black becoming known as the 'Lord of Excess.'
2001 - Black was made Baron Black of Crossharbour
after a two year legal battle. He was recommended
for the peerage by Tony Blair but controversially
had to renounce his Canadian citizenship to take the honour.
2003 - Ranked 238th wealthiest in Britain by the
Sunday Times Rich List 2003, with an estimated
wealth of £136m. But in November he stood down as
Chief Executive of Hollinger international after
suspicions were raised that 95 per cent of the
company's income appeared to be going to a small group of senior managers.
2007 - Black was found guilty of defrauding
£3million from the shareholders of Hollinger
International, the newspaper group he founded and
headed for three decades. He was sentenced in
December. He was convicted in Illinois U.S.
District Court and sentenced to serve 78 months
in federal prison, pay Hollinger $6.1 million and a fine of $125,000.
2008 - Begins six-and-a half-year sentence for fraud and obstructing justice.
2010 - Tax Officials in the USA tried to claim
back £71m. The Internal Revenue Service initiated
a legal proceding in the United States Tax Court
against Black for $71 million in back taxes which
it claims is owed on $120 million in unreported income between 1998 and 2003.
Black, flamboyant in lifestyle and brutal in
business, has always protested his innocence.
He once counted politicians and pop stars among
his entourage and turned his back on his native
Canada to become a British peer - Lord Black of Crossharbour.
But he was forced to quit Hollinger when he was
charged over millions of pounds siphoned off from the firm.
With his company associates, he was accused of
skimming off as much as £40 million from the company between 1999 and 2001.
His fall from grace was punctuated by his 2007
conviction on three counts of mail and wire
fraud, honest services fraud and one count of
obstruction of justice. He started serving his sentence until March, 2008.
In addition to the jail term, he was ordered to
pay back £4 million to Hollinger.
The appeal centres on the legal definition of
'honest services fraud' used in the trial judge's charge to the jury.
Defence lawyers argued successfully to the
supreme court that in Black's case, the definition was too broad.
The supreme court gave a similar ruling in the
case of jailed former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling.
Both men were convicted under the law, passed in
1988, that allows the prosecution of executives
who deprive companies of their honest services.
The clause is a favourite tool for white collar
crime prosecutors precisely because of its broad
language, but the highest U.S. court ruled it
could only be narrowly applied to cases involving bribery or kickbacks.
Critics in the U.S. have long argued that the law
is being used to turn political and business mistakes into crimes.
Following the supreme court ruling in June, Mr
Estrada said: 'We are confident the lower courts
will quickly conclude that the errors that the
Supreme Court has now conclusively found tainted every aspect of this case.
'We look forward to helping Mr Black regain his freedom.'
Black, a former member of the House of Lords,
said last year that he was spending his time
behind bars learning to play the piano and giving lectures to students.
He was convicted of obstruction after jurors saw
a video of him carrying boxes of documents that
were sought by government investigators out of
his Toronto office and loading them into his car before driving off.
The obstruction charge was not part of the appeal.
The new developments bode well for Black's
appeal. In order to win bail, his lawyers had to
establish for the court that the appeal raised 'a
substantial question of law.'
Despite his new-found freedom, Black still faces
legal battles on several other fronts.
He faces a variety of civil actions from
creditors and investors and he has lawsuits
outstanding against some of his early accusers
including Richard Breedan, former chairman of the
Securities and Exchange Commission.
Last week the U.S. Internal Revenue Service added
to his woes by slapping him with a £46 million
tax bill which they alleged he owed for failing
to pay taxes on more than £76 million in income
he received between 1998 and 2003.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1296563/Conrad-Black-freed-2million-bail.html
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"Capitalism is institutionalised bribery."
_________________
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www.public-interest.co.uk
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"The maintenance of secrets acts like a psychic
poison which alienates the possessor from the community" Carl Jung
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--
Please consider seriously the reason why these elite institutions are not discussed in the mainstream press despite the immense financial and political power they wield?
There are sick and evil occultists running the Western World. They are power mad lunatics like something from a kids cartoon with their fingers on the nuclear button! Armageddon is closer than you thought. Only God can save our souls from their clutches, at least that's my considered opinion - Tony
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