BLACK BAGGED
Dethroned press baron Conrad Black could spend decades behind bars after a jury yesterday found him guilty of looting millions from investors in his Chicago newspaper company and of sneaking documents out of his Toronto office to thwart an investigation into his misdeeds.
About half an hour after learning the jury was ready with a verdict in the four-month trial, a pale and haggard-looking Black, 62, arrived at the downtown Chicago courthouse with his glamorous wife – the conservative columnist Barbara Amiel, 66 – and his 25-year-old daughter Alana from a previous marriage.
The three barely registered any emotion as they learned the jury found the Canadian-born media mogul turned British lord guilty on three fraud charges for inserting phony non-compete payouts into deals to sell newspapers and on a single count of obstruction of justice for removing the records when he knew a probe was underway.
Black was acquitted on nine of the 13 counts against him, including the most serious charge of racketeering, which alone carried a maximum 20-year sentence – and other counts for tax fraud and mail fraud.
The four guilty findings add up to a maximum sentence of 35 years in jail and a fine of $1 million.
But under sentencing guidelines he will likely spend between two and 10 years in the slammer, legal experts said.
“Some observers are calling it a mixed verdict,” John C. Coffee, a securities law professor at Columbia University, said.
“But I would tell you if someone were to fire 13 bullets and miss you nine times, but hit you right between the eyes with four bullets, I don’t think you’d feel like that’s a victory. He’s a felon.”
Black’s legal team, led by his Canadian friend Edward “Fast Eddie” Greenspan, plans to appeal the verdict.
Some legal observers don’t see much basis for a successful appeal, noting that the jury carefully weighed the evidence and only convicted on the counts where the government’s arguments appeared clear cut.
Over 12 days of deliberations, the largely blue-collar panel of nine women and three men weren’t swayed by the government’s attempt to make crimes of Black’s lavish lifestyle.
The jurors acquitted Black of charges he fraudulently bilked his Chicago newspaper company Hollinger International out of money in a Park Avenue apartment swap and for personal expenses, including a holiday to Bora Bora and a surprise birthday party for his wife at Manhattan’s La Grenouille.
Some who know Black, who built the world’s third-largest newspaper empire, blame hubris for his spectacular fall from grace.
Black’s three co-defendants in the case – former CFO Jack Boultbee and in-house lawyers Peter Atkinson and Mark Kipnis – were found guilty on the same fraud counts.
A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Nov. 30.
Black has been seeking to regain his Canadian citizenship, which he abandoned to become a British lord in 2001. Canada’s jails not only are nicer than the bunk-bed, cinder-block cells in the U.S. but felons can get out on parole after serving one-sixth of a sentence.
Black’s turncoat deputy David Radler, who lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, will probably serve as little as six months in a country-club jail for ratting out his old boss.