Conrad Black: not just another number

By Nicholas Köhler - Monday, September 12, 2011 at 10:35 AM - 2 Comments

Phil Snel

That a man whose baronic title remains Lord Black of Crossharbour should have written a book so redolent of his abhorrence of hierarchy, and of authority in general, must tell us something about our enduring fascination with Conrad Black, who returned to prison this week after a 13-month reprieve. During that period of freedom he saw an appeal of his 2007 fraud conviction fail and, because he could do himself no further harm, arranged publication of A Matter of Principle, as subversive a treatise on American justice as has likely ever been written by someone who also boasts of having received correspondence “from every U.S. president from Lyndon Johnson to George W. Bush, the last four while in office.”

In total, the story represents “the ludicrous demise of my great love affair with America.” It’s as much a tale of lost fortune, influence and reputation, one that should have been foreseen: “My pride and haughty spirit were of the nature that often leads to a fall,” he allows. “My prison number, 18330-424, is stamped on my clothes and mandatory on all correspondence. I am 65 years old. I entered these walls a baron of the United Kingdom.”

He and his wife, Barbara Amiel, first arrive at Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Florida and are ignored. “Barbara, thinking I had been struck dumb, said, ‘My husband, Conrad Black, is here to self-surrender.’ ” Soon, a “beefy correctional officer, unarmed but heavy-laden with gadgetry, surged into the room and pointed at me with well-rehearsed purposefulness.” He and Amiel prepare to separate: “A kiss, a searching look, a very few words, and I walked forward, not turning back to wave lest I be reproved in front of her and add to the distress of us both. She departed.” Long before, Amiel had quoted from the Book of Ruth—“Whither thou goest, I will go.” The night before, “We had held each other during the night.” Within a few paragraphs Black is handcuffed and prison officials are probing “the approaches to my rectum.”

Continue…

In conversation: Conrad Black

By Kenneth Whyte - Monday, September 12, 2011 at 10:25 AM - 5 Comments

Photograph by Steve Simon

Q: I want to go back to something near the start of your troubles. Peter C. Newman predicted that you would get 15 years in jail, that you would be raped in prison, and that your wife Barbara Amiel would leave you and return to London for her fifth husband. Did he hit the mark on any of that?

A: No, he was rather wide of the mark on all of those. He missed completely on the last two. Where I was—there is practically no violence in this particular prison, and there certainly wasn’t anywhere around me or with anyone that I dealt with. The only homosexual activity is voluntary, and however much of it there is, it isn’t oppressive, and is not otherwise unconsensual. But on the first point, as you know there were 17 counts and four of them were not proceeded with; nine were rejected by the jurors, and the remaining four were vacated unanimously by the U.S. Supreme Court. Two of them were spuriously retrieved by the appellant panel that the Supreme Court excoriated, but in the perverse American manner had been sent back to the same panel for the assessment of the gravity of their own errors. So the grand total that I ultimately will have served is three years, even though anyone reading the relevant transcripts and filings can see that nobody amongst my co-defendants—including myself—broke any laws at all, and none of us would have dreamt of such a thing.

Q: You admit in the book to having missed a shift in the zeitgeist toward higher standards of corporate governance, and I was wondering if that was something you missed as much as didn’t agree with.

A: Well, the two I’m afraid run somewhat together. We had a very long and unbroken record—or practically unbroken—of taking distressed properties and fixing them up, both in quality and in profit level, and that was what our business was, producing quality products profitably. So my objection was this attempt to shunt the discussion with the shareholders into these issues of secondary relevance. On the other hand I must admit—as I did admit in my book—that I should have been more aware of how much shareholder and financial community and financial press attention was at that time already being focused on things like that.

Q: You were extremely worried during this time—it comes out in the book—about your personal financial position. It was the key to your survival and your ability to fight. I had no idea that your access to your wealth really was what was keeping you afloat.

A: Yes. Well, you see, the way the system works is that there are freezes on any trades in securities in companies under the kind of scrutiny that ours were, so you couldn’t realize on that if you wanted to. And then because of the publicity, I couldn’t find anyone to whom I could sell anything, other than a bottom-feeder or a vulture who would try to take advantage of me. All of a sudden, for my purposes, if I was trying to realize any money, nothing had much value, you see? Now, I managed to get ’round that eventually, but it requires a lot of setting things up carefully and moving with less speed and less liquidity than would normally be available, and yet the legal profession in these kinds of things is terribly expensive.

Q: On that note, tell me about Brendan Sullivan.

A: [He was] chairman of the Washington law firm Williams & Conway, and they’ve had a great many famous cases, including the defence of [Bill] Clinton in his impeachment case, and the civil complaints of the Democratic party after the Watergate affair.

Q: And you hired him, paid him about $9 million in fees, and in the end didn’t get a hell of a lot in return for it.

A: I’m afraid that is substantially true.

Q: But how could he charge you so much without really producing anything? He didn’t take your case in the end, did he?

A: No. No, he did not. He’d requested a large retainer of at least $15 million, and in order to be sure that I had that cash ready I sold the co-operative unit that I owned in New York City on Park Avenue. I sold it at quite a respectable profit, and the government was aware of that through, in fact, illegal telephone intercept, as the devices were all discovered when we moved the furniture out of the apartment. Then they, on the basis of a completely spurious FBI affidavit, they represented that I had paid an insufficient amount of money to the company—the company I was chairman of—to buy this apartment. But they got an ex parte proceeding in which a magistrate authorized the seizure of the proceeds of the sale with no notice to me. So the closing came, my counsel were there with the buyer’s counsel, and the FBI did an elephant walk through the room, picked up the cheque. The buyer had my apartment, the government had my money, and I didn’t have anything. And they knew perfectly well that would prevent me paying the retainer to Brendan Sullivan promptly.

Q: Normally I wouldn’t ask somebody about their personal financial position, but you wrote about it, so I was surprised at two or three things. One, most of your assets were in real estate. Why?

A: The largest asset by far was the control position in the company we directed, but that was frozen, and it rapidly deteriorated in value as these vandals with court protection destroyed the companies, wiping out $2 billion of shareholder value. Only about 15 per cent of that was mine.

CLICK HERE TO READ AN EXCERPT FROM CONRAD BLACK’S NEW BOOK, A MATTER OF PRINCIPLE

Q: Is it common for people who build their own companies to have most of their wealth invested in those companies?

A: Yeah, sure, it’s quite common. When people are controlling shareholders that’s often how things are.

Q: At one point in this whole mess, because of your inability to access your wealth you were down to your last hundred thousand dollars. Had you ever, in your adult life, been that strapped before?

A: No. No, and not my last hundred thousand dollars in terms of assets, but everything had to be paid right away. You had no access to credit other than loan sharks, so it was a constant battle to keep enough liquid money around, to pay counsel and, since I had some fairly large homes, they did require some money to operate them. I got through it all, you know. I’m not a poor person today. I certainly am a less well-to-do person than I was, but it’s all right, it’s only money and I can build back from where I am if that’s what I want to do.

Q: By most people’s standards you’re still a wealthy man.

A: By the standards of contemporary fortunes I was never a tremendously wealthy man at the best of times, but I was a wealthy man and I am a less wealthy man now.

Q: So we go through the trial, most of the government’s case is knocked away, but you are convicted on three charges of fraud and one of obstruction of justice, and the latter—the obstruction charge—centres around that video of you coming out of your office with boxes, caught on a security camera, looking furtive, red-handed. What was going on there?

A: The famous picture of my pointing at the camera was that I was saying to my assistant and my driver that I certainly wanted to make sure this was all captured on film because I didn’t want any suggestion of anything surreptitious happening. Even though I technically owned the building where I had had my office for 27 years, one of the Toronto courts said I had to leave the building. We had six business days left, my assistant put some things in boxes, and had asked them to be moved, and then there was an intervention asking that they not be moved from the representative of the court-appointed inspector. So when I arrived later on in the day I spoke to the acting president of the company who said, “That’s fine to move it,” after questioning my assistant about the contents. I knew nothing about the contents, I just asked her if they contravened the order that we were under, and they didn’t. And in fact, everything in there was either totally personal or it was business-related and had already been handed over in complete compliance to five different subpoenas for documents from the United States. Every page we had in there had already been copied and sent away, and so it was a totally innocuous act.

Q: How would you explain, then, the court’s logic convicting you?

A: I think even the defence counsel who represented me on that particular item acknowledged they could have put up a better defence. The film, as you say—I mean, you’ve described it yourself, I suppose, quite accurately—that I appeared to be furtive and red-handed. And the jurors, as they acknowledged in post-trial interviews, did not always follow the judge’s instruction to be sure beyond a reasonable doubt. They got to the point, where one of the jurors was told by a relative that the speculation in the press was that they were just a bunch of yokels who would never be able to reach a verdict in such a complicated case, and this juror said, “So we really got to reach a verdict.”

Q: Tell me what it was like walking into prison for the first time.

A: Well, by the time it finally happened, my attitude was, “This has gone on so long and been so horrifying it can’t be worse than what’s happening now.” So to the extent that it is apparently survivable, I can start to develop a comfort level that I will in fact survive it and have a life after this appalling nightmare. And I had spoken with someone who had been in that particular facility, a low-security prison, who assured me there was no violence other than the occasional scuffles between people that didn’t amount to much and just occurred because individuals were ill-tempered, and that it, while sometimes quite tedious, was eminently survivable.

Q: What does it mean to be processed?

A: You, first of all, have to take off all your clothes and you’re searched . . .

Q: Thoroughly searched.

A: Thorough search, yeah. Intrusively, I think is the usual description. Then you answer medical questions and a lot of other questions, and they give you a card with your number on it, they issue some sort of basic clothing, and then they tell you where you’re supposed to go to live and approximately how to get there.

Q: And you were never handcuffed at any time during this, were you? I don’t ever remember you being in those pictures that you see on TV.

A: No. I was handcuffed when there was a move—that proved to be mistaken—to move me to another location because they thought I was being called as a witness in a civil proceeding in which I was in fact the plaintiff . . . fortunately the judge’s order arrived before I had to get on the bus, but in the meantime you have that very elaborate form of having manacles on your feet—chains, you know—as well as being handcuffed.

Q: What’s that sensation like?

A: It’s interesting in that it is so restrictive and demeaning, you feel intensely vulnerable. I knew that they were making a mistake and—incompetent though the Bureau of Prisons often is—this would come to light and it wouldn’t go very far, so I could look at it in a more relaxed manner than I would if I thought I would have to travel across the country in that condition.

Q: I don’t want to suggest that the time at Coleman was leisurely, but you weren’t busting big rocks into little rocks. I was kind of surprised at how much free time you had.

A: I don’t think in federal prisons in the U.S. you have them out breaking stones, I think that may be state prisons. In a low-security federal prison, everybody is supposed to have a job. In my case, some people in the library, who were aware of the book on [Franklin Delano] Roosevelt that I had written, got the head of the education section to engage me as a tutor, and I had a very satisfying job there. I worked quite hard at it.

Q: And you write in the book about your enormous pride in some of the progress that your students made.

A: Enormous in the sense of pride in them, not in myself.

Q: Yes.

A: This is true. I mean, some of them were very surly and terribly under-educated in formal terms when we started. Once they could see that there was a purpose to it, and that it was a way of getting something useful out of this unpleasant experience, they applied themselves. It was very heartening to see how hard they worked, how people who had been told all their lives they couldn’t possibly succeed at anything were so excited—and justly excited—because it was a great achievement for them.

Q: On one occasion you speak about cleaning a shower stall, and you attracted a crowd. What was going on there?

A: Well, apparently I was slightly late leaving in the morning, so the counsellor said, “All right, well then you can’t leave for an hour,” which is when the next opportunity was, “and so in the meantime you go and work with the men in the shower room.” And so I cleaned the shower stall that I normally used, and I cleaned it very thoroughly. And I didn’t attract the audience in the sense of there was any great merit to how I did it—I mean, cleaning a shower stall is an important activity but not an especially stylish one—but the counsellor and some of his chums who were correctional officers thought it was so uproariously humorous that a man of my alleged means would be cleaning a shower stall that they turned it into a spectator sport. I must say it was all quite good-natured, it wasn’t nasty.

Q: And you gave them a good show?

A: No one disputed that the stall was clean!

Q: How sophisticated is the economy within the prison? I imagine, especially in the kind of facility that you were in, that there are some pretty cagey operators.

A: Extremely so. It’s very sophisticated in the sense that you have tremendously talented craftsmen. I mean, if there’s a problem with your eyeglasses, or a problem with your radio, there are people who can fix them. And it’s also sophisticated in the upper ranges of what you might want in terms of consumer value, because there is some degree of smuggling there, and because all inmates who receive visitors are strip-searched at the end of the visit, really none of the smuggling is through prisoners’ families or other visitors, it’s all through corrupted correctional officers. If you really wanted to, you could get a cellphone—which is forbidden. You could get a bottle of good whisky—which is forbidden. Now, I never touched any of that because I conducted my battle with the U.S. authorities and this unjust prosecution entirely through the courts, and the last thing in the world I wanted was any needless dispute with the officials of the Bureau of Prisons.

Q: What was the worst moment for you in prison?

A: The worst was when the Court of Appeal in Chicago so cavalierly treated our case. We had a very strong appeal, as was ultimately demonstrated by the Supreme Court of the United States, and the chairman of the appellant panel would not allow my counsel to finish a sentence. It was the most disgraceful thing I have seen in a court in a serious country. I didn’t actually see it, but I heard the audio and I read the transcript. And it reminded me—not to be tendentious here—but it reminded me of these news films of the Nazi People’s Court after the attempt on Hitler’s life in July of 1944, where Judge Freisler shouted at the prisoner. It was a fantastic spectacle in what is generally a distinguished jurisdiction in Chicago and it was obvious that we had no chance in that court.

Q: Through the whole of this process, Conrad, you had some friends who left you and some who stuck beside you. I’m just going to give you some names. Henry Kissinger.

A: I’ve had a great reconciliation with him. I’d been here in New York for four months, and he went to some lengths to see me, and I told him what my objections were to what he’d done, and he . . .

Q: He failed to defend you after having called you on several occasions an indispensable pillar of his existence, I think that was the phrase.

A: Pillar of my life, but he said that and wrote that a number of times. And in fairness, unknown to me he wrote that to the trial judge. I didn’t ask him to write a letter, and I did not know until years later that he did write a letter.

Q: So you say in the book that his failure to stand up for you was a wound that wouldn’t heal. That’s no longer the case?

A: No. In fact I altered the wording in the final version of the book. I did say the litmus test was if he thought I had committed crimes, and he said immediately, “I do not think you’ve committed crimes, and I never did.” And I said, “In that case I suggest that we put it all behind us and never speak of it again,” and that’s what’s happened. I see him quite often. I’m having dinner with him tomorrow.

Q: Elton John continued to be a great friend.

A: Magnificent, absolutely magnificent.

Q: David Radler was an associate for more than a quarter century, and then he turns on you and gives evidence against you. Surely you had to know what he was capable of.

A: So one would think, and I reproach myself for not having known. But I must say, in his defence, that for almost all of that time there was never the slightest sign that he was capable of either committing illegalities himself or inventing untruths to level against his associates as part of an activity to try and transfer blame from himself to others in order to get a reduced sentence for himself.

Q: Rupert Murdoch: do you still consider him the greatest media proprietor of all time, given his recent troubles?

A: Yes, but I’ve made it clear that my admiration for his talents as a media proprietor are not on either the standards that he has in presenting news or his own ethics. I was referring to his tremendous boldness in breaking the primitive print unions in Britain, and in breaking the triopoly of the three American television networks, and vertically integrating a film studio with a television network and then being a pioneer in satellite television. But he’s always been a tabloid man, he personally is a complete cynic. I’ve often said that his political philosophy is in that cartoon show that his company produces, The Simpsons. I mean, the people are idiots and all politicians are crooks, and that’s how Rupert sees the world.

Q: Have you changed as a result of all of this? What has changed about Conrad Black?

A: I’m not the best person to judge. It is fair to say very few people would go through as prolonged and arduous an experience as this without changing in some way, and I believe that I probably have. I hope that I have a greater recognition about the numbers and dire conditions of disadvantaged people even in a rich country like the United States. I’m of course much more aware of how imperfectly the justice system functions.

Q: Do you feel remorse about anything you yourself did?

A: Well, I feel remorse about anything I did that helped bring this upon me. I certainly feel no remorse at all about the honesty of what I did, because I didn’t do anything dishonest. I have remorse about any errors that I made that contributed to the vaporization of $2 billion of shareholders’ equity, 85 per cent in the hands of average people throughout the United States and Canada.

Q: Less than a year from now you will be a free man. What is the next act?

A: Well, one of the few positive results of this difficult time is that my career as a writer has flourished. I was fortunate to be in a prison where there was email access so I could file columns for the National Post, the National Review in the United States, and various publications in other countries. I often wrote book reviews, including of your book about William Randolph Hearst, and so I hope to go on with that.

Q: It’s a hard way to make a living.

A: I wasn’t suggesting I had to do it for a living, although I think I could get a fairly respectable income out of it, but in the terms you mean I think I shall return to being an investor. I don’t want to say this in a way that’s inappropriate, but I had some success in that field and I think it can be done in a way that’s completely private, totally unobtrusive, and will furnish quite a decent living.

Q: And do you expect to return to Canada? Do you want to return to Canada?

A: I want to divide my time between Canada and Great Britain, but I certainly would like to come to Canada if only as a temporary resident.

Q: When you were in prison, what was the one material thing you missed most?

A: Probably good food, but I have to emphasize that far above material things was the companionship of my wife. There is no substitute, in the middle of the night, for moving your knee and hitting a cinderblock wall instead of connecting with a person you’re happy to share the bed with. I don’t mean that in a prurient sense, it’s just something that one feels acutely.

Q: How is the food in prison?

A: It’s the lower end of institutional food. There are microwaves in the units and you can buy food from the commissary and put together something a little better in the microwaves, if you want to. What’s offered in the dining hall is certainly enough to keep body and soul together, but it’s not very tasty.

Q: Is that what you spent your stamps on?

A: No, we had—to use Lenin’s phrase—a division of labour: I would do some things for some of the inmates, and in return they would do some things for me, and there were better cooks in that place than I am.

Q: Conrad Black, thanks very much, and good luck with the rest of your journey.

A: Thank you so much, Ken.

Conrad Black to sue Radler

By macleans.ca - Wednesday, September 7, 2011 at 4:37 PM - 0 Comments

One day after returning to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence for fraud, Conrad Black has launched a lawsuit against his former business partner, David Radler, CTV News reports. Black is suing his former business partner at Hollinger International on the grounds that Radler illegally added shareholders and debt to Horizon Publications, a U.S. newspaper chain, which devalued Black’s stake in the company. Radler, who pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud in exchange for testifying against Black in 2007, says he has not yet seen the legal documents and will not comment.

CTV News

Conrad Black prepared for second prison stint

By macleans.ca - Thursday, September 1, 2011 at 12:23 PM - 0 Comments

Former media baron Conrad Black is “pretty relaxed” about returning to prison but he continues to insist he never broke the law. Black was convicted of obstruction of justice and fraud in 2007. He served 29 months of a more than six-year sentence before being released on appeal last year. He is scheduled to return to prison September 6 to complete the remaining 13 months of a reduced term. In an interview with CBC taped in early August, Black said he can see the end of his ordeal “looming larger every day.” He called prison life “Spartan,” but said it isn’t “physically dangerous.” Black gave the interview to promote an upcoming memoir, which will be released September 15. The main point of the book, he said, was to “to assault, in as violent and persuasive a manner as possible, this absolute fraud that I would ever, or did, break the law.”

CBC News

This week: Good news, bad news

By macleans.ca - Monday, July 4, 2011 at 9:00 AM - 0 Comments

Good news

Winnipeggers celebrate news that their NHL team will carry the Jets name.

A royal welcome

When William and Kate arrive in Canada this week, those planning to greet the royal couple will find them pleasantly open to interacting with the common folk. Stuffy etiquette rules have relaxed so much of late that even the official royal website says curtsies and bows are optional. Now it’s all about simple courtesy: handshakes and chit-chat are fine. In fact, even cellphone photos are appropriate. The couple, meanwhile, are reportedly looking forward to attending the Calgary Stampede undeterred by animal rights activists who’ve been trying to deter them from attending.

Out with the evil

The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Moammar Gadhafi, stating there is reason to believe he is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians during protests this year. Libya’s future now clearly lies with the rebels, who this week received a visit from Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird. Canada has played a leading role in NATO raids in Libya, and Baird’s trip shows Canada remains committed to seeing a stable democracy replace Gadhafi’s regime.

Continue…

Conrad Black back in jail for up to 13 months

By macleans.ca - Friday, June 24, 2011 at 2:36 PM - 0 Comments

Conrad Black has been resentenced to 42 months in jail on fraud and obstruction charges by a U.S. federal court judge in Chicago, but will only face up to 13 months in prison because of time already served. The former media baron must also pay a $125,000 fine. Black’s jail time could be reduced to just 6 months if he displays good behaviour. If he remains in the U.S. after his release, Black must spend two years under “supervised release.” However, he has reportedly indicated a desire to be deported to Canada. During Friday’s sentencing, Black’s wife Barbara Amiel collapsed and had to be escorted out of courtroom by paramedics. Upon exiting the building with her husband, Amiel told the CBC that she had had “too little sleep.” Black, 66, previously served 29 months of a six-and-a-half year sentence in a Florida prison before the U.S. Supreme Court stuck down the law under which he was originally convicted. The Judge Amy St. Eve, who served the resentencing, is the same judge that handed Black his original convictions in 2007. Black has two weeks to appeal the decision, but his lawyer is asking for six.

CBC News

More Conrad Black

France: Land of Conrad Black's dreams

By Paul Wells - Thursday, March 10, 2011 at 7:01 AM - 66 Comments

“And there is something Canada can do, which would be noticed by our allies: We should recognize the provisional government of Libya as legitimate, and make contact with it. This could have a catalytic effect, inspirit the rebels, nudge the Americans and Europeans into doing something, and generally start a rockslide around Gaddafi…. A gangster and terrorist regime is slaughtering its own population, which is fighting back gallantly. We owe them our support, and every day’s delay is shameful and could make a benign outcome more doubtful.

“For once, Canada could make a difference and be seen by the world to do so. There is no excuse for waiting.”

— Conrad Black, Saturday

 

“PARIS — Moving ahead of its allies, France said on Thursday that it would become the first country to recognize Libya’s rebel leadership in the eastern city of Benghazi and would soon exchange ambassadors with the insurgents.”

— New York Times, this morning

Sorry, boss. Waiting is all Canada does any more.

'An important one'

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, January 17, 2011 at 2:46 PM - 17 Comments

Conrad Black considers the first five years of Prime Minister Harper.

Stephen Harper’s stature as a prime minister will depend on the extent to which he emphasizes his gift for tactical skill in pursuit of desirable goals over his occasional weakness for combining unacceptable severity with unleavened cynicism. I believe the probability is that he will be a durable and distinguished leader. He is already an important one.

Will freedom for Conrad Black be short-lived?

By macleans.ca - Thursday, January 13, 2011 at 1:48 PM - 5 Comments

Former media mogul Conrad Black could eventually go back to prison, or a judge could set him free for good: a status hearing Thursday in Chicago could provide clues about actions U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve may take. Black is returning to court after losing his latest appeal against conviction on fraud and obstruction charges. He was released last year from a Florida prison while he appealed his conviction for defrauding Hollinger International Inc. investors. An appeals court in October reversed two of his fraud convictions, citing a ruling on “honest services” laws. At the same time, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals let stand one fraud and one obstruction of justice conviction. The fraud conviction, the judges found, involved Black and others taking $600,000 and had nothing to do with honest services: It was, they said, theft. In light of these mixed successes, Judge St. Eve could either resentence Black on the retained convictions or allow him to stay free based on time served. Just what St. Eve will do Thursday isn’t clear.

Toronto Star

The problem with prisons

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 10:29 AM - 33 Comments

John Ivison refers to the writings of Newt Gingrich to find fault with the government’s prison expansion.

The “hanging’s too good for them” brigade should read an eye-opening piece from last Friday’s Washington Post, co-written by Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, and Pat Nolan, former Republican leader of the California State Assembly. They pointed out that the U.S. currently spends US$68-billion on corrections — 300% more than 25 years ago — and the prison population is growing at 13 times faster than the general population.

“Our prisons might be worth the current cost if the recidivism rate were not so high but, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, half of the prisoners released this year are expected to be back in prison within three years. If your prison policies are failing half the time, and we know there are more humane, effective alternatives, it is time to fundamentally rethink how we treat and rehabilitate our prisoners,” they concluded.

Conrad Black is equally unimpressed.

Conrad Black loses bid for full re-hearing

By macleans.ca - Friday, December 17, 2010 at 2:17 PM - 7 Comments

Conrad Black lost his bid on Friday for a full re-hearing of his case. The former media mogul saw two of his three fraud convictions tossed out last October after the U.S. Supreme Court imposed new restrictions on fraud prosecutions. Black’s lawyers were seeking to have the remaining convictions of fraud and obstruction of justice subject to a new trial. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit denied the request in a one-paragraph ruling that did not elaborate on their motives. Black is currently free on bail after spending nearly 2.5 years of his 6.5 year sentence in a Florida prison; his next hearing is scheduled for Jan. 13.

Financial Post

Idea alert

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 14, 2010 at 10:36 AM - 28 Comments

In the midst of ruminating on a number of fronts, Conrad Black proposes prison reform.

Having recently inexplicably spent 29 months in one of the kindest and gentlest of American federal prisons, I must emphasize that imprisonment is an insane, archaic and self-defeating treatment of non-violent offenders (especially when many other convicted people are in fact, by the nature of the system, as innocent as I). Apart from those with a propensity to violence, and those who have committed other crimes on a Madoff-scale, felons should receive a government insurance bond for their employers, and contribute work to society pro bono but with, where their circumstances require it, basic non-custodial shelter and meal vouchers, and treatment for substance abuse. Recidivists would have to be confined, but in prison or workshop facilities. Disused prison facilities could then be spruced up and reconfigured as housing for the indigent.

A year of new faces, returning heroes, and that golden goal

By macleans.ca - Thursday, December 9, 2010 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

Chris O'Meara/AP

How long does it take to be named Maclean’s Newsmaker of the Year?

For Sidney Crosby, it took about four seconds. That was all Crosby needed to beat Team U.S.A. defenceman Brian Rafalski to the puck along the boards, poke it to Team Canada teammate Jarome Iginla, break for the net, corral the give-and-go back from Iginla and shoot the puck underneath goaltender Ryan Miller’s outstretched stick and between his legs.

Crosby’s gold-medal-winning overtime goal was the perfect ending to a tremendously successful 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics—itself an event 14 years in the making, as Games organizing committee CEO John Furlong notes in this week’s Maclean’s Interview. The Games brought all Canadians together and were the capstone event of the year. We celebrated our ability to put on a show and proved we could compete against the best that the world has to offer. We demonstrated our organizational skills and hosting talents, as well as a fiercely competitive streak that, as a nation, we often keep under wraps. We mourned as a nation with figure skater Joannie Rochette over the death of her mother, Thérèse, and marvelled at her courageous bronze-medal performance, the epitome of grace under pressure.

Continue…

A Lord resurrected

By Jason Kirby - Wednesday, December 8, 2010 at 10:20 AM - 14 Comments

Ryan Remiorz/CP

At the end of October, just before a Chicago appeals court tossed out two of Conrad Black’s four convictions, BBC Radio Four’s The Media Show aired an interview with the former newspaper baron.
In the 15-minute spot Black was asked about the state of the media today—“It’s slowly collapsing under the weight of its own substandards”—his take on the proper role of newspaper owners—“The buck stops with the proprietor”—and finally, whether he would ever get back into the news business, to which question he laid down his conditions: “Not as a chief occupation and not in a public company but it might happen.” Black’s response triggered speculation about his eventual return to the industry. But what really stood out was that Black, until recently scorned and easily dismissed as just another white-collar villain, was being asked such questions at all. It was a stunning reversal from a time when it seemed the only thing the world wanted to hear from Conrad Black’s lips was: “I did it.”

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Conrad Black’s partial victory

By Chris Sorensen - Friday, October 29, 2010 at 4:26 PM - 0 Comments

Conrad Black has scored another partial victory before the U.S. criminal justice system, but it’s not clear whether it will be enough to prevent him from going back to jail.

A U.S. appeals court on Friday reversed two counts of fraud against the former chairman of Hollinger International Inc., who was once accused of masterminding a “corporate kleptocracy” that defrauded shareholders of millions. But the court also upheld Black’s more serious obstruction of justice charge, which stemmed from security camera footage that caught him removing 13 boxes of documents from his Toronto offices while under investigation. “No reasonable jury could have acquitted Black of obstruction,” wrote Judge Richard Posner of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in his ruling.

As well, the court upheld a single count of fraud relating to a $600,000 payment to Black and his co-defendants as part of deal struck by Hollinger to sell newspapers to two companies in 2007. Continue…

Appeals court overturns two counts against Conrad Black

By macleans.ca - Friday, October 29, 2010 at 1:38 PM - 0 Comments

Conrad Black’s criminal convictions in the United States have been whittled down to just one count of fraud and another of obstruction of justice. A U.S. appeals court today reversed two counts of fraud against the former CEO of Hollinger International Inc. Black, who was accused along with other executives of defrauding shareholders of the newspaper company, has already served more than two years in a Florida prison in relation to the charges. The appeals court was tasked with determining whether Black’s original fraud charges should still stand after the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year significantly narrowed the definition of so-called “honest services” fraud that prosecutors had used in their arguments against him. It’s now up to prosecutors to decide whether he should be retried on the reversed charges—an eventuality that several legal experts have suggested is unlikely. Although Black will now have to be re-sentenced on the remaining charges, it’s not clear whether he will need to go back to jail.

CBC News

U.S. judges grill lawyers in Conrad Black case

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at 5:11 PM - 0 Comments

This morning’s oral hearing at the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago brought together two top American legal minds, conservative Judge Richard Posner and lawyer Miguel Estrada (whose own nomination to a federal appeals court by George W. Bush was blocked by Democrats). The hard-charging U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald had his name on the government’s briefs but did not argue the government’s case in person. The question before them was whether the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June to dramatically narrow the definition of “honest services” fraud meant that the conviction of Black and his associates should be reversed because the jury could have convicted them based on a legal definition of fraud that was no longer valid.

Because Posner was so aggressive in his questioning of the lawyers, it is hard to say what the other two judges on the panel might have been thinking. Were they silent at times because Posner was already asking the questions they wanted answered, or because they accepted the lawyer’s position? In a nutshell, Posner seemed to resist the argument that Black and the others should be cleared of one count of fraud for pocketing $600,000 from the sales of Hollinger properties to newspaper-buyers Paxton and Forum that were not authorized by the Hollinger board. But both he and Judge Diane Sykes seemed to have more sympathy for the defendants’ case that they should be cleared of two counts of fraud for taking $5.5 million payments relating of a sale of other Hollinger properties to American Publishing Company. Finally, Posner and Sykes seemed skeptical of Black’s argument that his obstruction of justice conviction (for improperly removing 13 boxes of documents from his office) should be reversed.

Here is how the hearing unfolded: Continue…

Conrad Black case goes back to court (UPDATED)

By Luiza Ch. Savage - Wednesday, September 29, 2010 at 8:09 AM - 0 Comments

Lawyers for Conrad Black return to court today in Chicago in what could be the climax of his long legal battle for his freedom.

They have already achieved the improbable – persuading the United States Supreme Court to take up Black’s appeal (the court grants only about four percent of petitions that come its way) – and the more unlikely still, getting a 7-2 decision in their favour. Today they are seeking to use the new precedent from the top court to have the convictions reversed. Black is has been out of prison on bail pending the decision. He has served more than two years of a six and a half year sentence.

On June 24, the US Supreme Court ruled that part of the law used to convict Black, along with other Hollinger executives, Peter Atkinson, John Boultbee and Mark Kipnis, of fraud, was so broad as to be unconstitutionally vague. The court remanded the case back to the appeals court to decide whether a jury instructed on the narrower definition of fraud, and faced with more limited evidence, would have still convicted Black and the others, or whether the legal error was merely “harmless.”

The case comes down to this: the jury had been instructed that fraud had two aspects to it: the theft of money from the corporation and the denial to the corporation of the “honest services” of its executives. The Supreme Court said that the honest services theory of fraud had come to be defined too broadly in American law. In a June opinion, the Supreme Court said that to be convicted of honest services fraud there has to be evidence of a bribery or kickback scheme – neither of which were alleged in the case of Black and his associates.

The jury that convicted the defendants did not explain what theory of fraud it based its convictions on: theft, denial of honest services, or both. Black’s lawyers have asked the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeal to reverse the convictions of the executives’ on the grounds that it is possible that the jury found them guilty on the theory of fraud that the Supreme Court has now said was incorrect. Federal prosecutors argue that the evidence of theft was “overwhelming” and that the legal error in the jury instruction on honest services would not have made a difference. In other words, that the error was “harmless.”

Below are several of the basic disagreements presented in the legal briefs that the court will have to sort out:

1. What does the government have to prove to show the error was “harmless”?

• a. The government says it needs to show that “rational jury would have found the defendant guilty absent the error.”
• b. Black’s lawyers argue that the government must prove that not even one juror voted to convict based on the incorrect theory of fraud. The court must reverse the convictions “if there is a reasonable possibility that the error complained of might have contributed to the conviction.”

2. Was the jury told that they could convict for a denial of “honest services” even if they did not find evidence of theft?

• a. Black’s lawyers argues that prosecutors incorrectly led the jury to believe that they could convict of honest services fraud if the defendants had failed to make proper disclosures to the Board and its Audit Committee, thus “permitting a guilty verdict even if no juror through that the defendants schemed to steal money.” They argued that rather than stealing money, the defendants falsely categorized millions of dollars in management fees (that were rightfully owed the defendants) as non-compete payments in order to escape Canadian taxes, but that this did not defraud shareholders.
• b. The government responds that it never told the jury that they could convict in the absence of theft. The government had argued that “defendants stole Hollinger International’s money by making false representations, that is, by disguising money they stole as non-competition payments.” Prosecutors say they never argued that there was an “independent, stand-alone honest services violation that the jury should use to convict defendants.”

3. Was the jury so persuaded by the government’s evidence of theft that they would have convicted regardless of the definition of honest services?

• a. Blacks’ lawyers argue no.
  • i. The fact that the jury acquitted the defendants on 9 fraud counts, two tax counts, and (Black only) a racketeering charge that “turned on theft” shows that “the jury in this case was deeply skeptical of the government’s witnesses and theories.” The jury’s “sweeping rejection of the government’s theft theories” implies that the jurors convicted on the basis that the defendants violated “honest services” by failing to make purportedly required disclosures or by not placing corporate interest above all else.
  • ii. The government’s “own star witness,” David Radler, said there was no theft in the transaction at issue. Payments that the government argues were fraudulent non-compete payments were merely management fees disguised as non-compete payments because such payments had recently been made tax-free by Revenue Canada.

• b. The government makes the case that there was strong evidence that executives pocketed millions in fake non-compete payments from a company that owned only a tiny paper called the Mammoth Times and lied about it to the company. (The defense argues that the non-competes covered all affiliated newspapers, which numbered in the hundreds.)
  Further, prosecutors told the jurors they could only convict if they found “unfair dealing” or an “unfair price” in the transaction. Therefore, if the jurors believed that the money was merely mis-labeled management fees owed to the defendants, there was no unfair dealing or unfair price and they would not have found fraud. The convictions therefore imply that the jurors did not believe the defendants explanations regarding the payments and must have considered them to be stolen money.
  The government responds that Radler was hardly their star witness and that the jury was told they could conclude he was lying and still convict.

4. Did the evidence on honest services make the jury more likely to view Black’s removal of 13 boxes from his Toronto office as an attempt to obstruct justice?

• a. Black has maintained all along that he was removing the boxes because he was being evicted from the premises. He had no criminal intent, he argues. He had already complied with five document requests, producing more than 112,000 pages of documents. Lawyers had already spent weeks photocopying everything in the office. His lawyers had not told him that a new document request had been made by the Securities and Exchange Commission so he could not have been trying to hide the documents.
• b. The jury’s view of his actions was tainted by the reams of evidence that established his non-disclosure which now is not a crime.
• c. If the fraud convictions are struck down, his lawyers ask for the 78-month sentence to be lowered.
  The government argues that the evidence of obstruction is “strong”: “Everything the defendant did in sneaking out the boxes was evidence of corrupt intent.”

UPDATE:

First impressions….

It was a mixed bag for Conrad Black’s legal case this morning judging by the questions asked by the three judges in a rapid-fire oral argument that lasted just over 40 minutes.

• The judges seemed skeptical that his obstruction of justice conviction should be overturned. In one instance Judge Posner said bluntly, “I don’t see a connection” between honest services fraud and the obstruction conviction.
• Judge Posner repeatedly expressed doubts about overturning a fraud conviction relating to $600,000 in payments pocketed by the defendants in deals with Paxton and Forum.
• Judges Posner and Sykes seemed more sympathetic to reversing the fraud conviction relating to $5.5 million in fees paid to the defendants in the deal with APC.

More to come…

Judging the judge in Conrad Black’s appeal

By Nancy Macdonald - Monday, August 30, 2010 at 12:20 PM - 0 Comments

Robyn Twomey/Corbis/ John Gress/Reuters

Richard Posner is famous, in legal circles, for a rare act of judicial insolence. In an antitrust ruling more than a decade ago, the appeals court judge wrote an opinion mocking a controlling U.S. Supreme Court precedent as “wobbly,” “moth-eaten,” and “unsound.” The high court’s response was even more surprising: they rolled over and unanimously struck the precedent. They even congratulated him.

Until recently, few in Canada had heard of Posner, a judge who has written some 53 books and who is widely considered one of America’s top legal minds. But from his perch at the U.S. Federal Court’s Seventh Circuit, Posner is once again considering Conrad Black’s case, after the Supreme Court returned it to the appellate panel. Black’s fate now rests largely with a man who has shown him no sympathy in the past—a judge who once described himself as “cold, furtive, callous,” with a cruel streak.

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Conrad Black’s appeal to be heard September 29

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 27, 2010 at 11:51 AM - 0 Comments

On September 29, a three-judge panel will hear Conrad Black’s appeal of his 2007 convictions on three counts of fraud. The U.S. Supreme Court recently narrowed the scope of “honest services” provisions, saying the rules should only apply to bribes or kickbacks. The broad interpretation of honest services guarantees convinced a Chicago jury they were justified in convicting the media baron. Black recently dropped his request to return to Canada, but will be free to return after next month’s court date if he wins his appeal.

CBC News

Another victory for Conrad Black

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 13, 2010 at 1:54 PM - 0 Comments

The appeal by a group of directors, advisers and a vice president of Hollinger International against six libel suits filed by Conrad Black has been dismissed by the Ontario Court of Appeal. Black alleged in the suits that press releases and reports posted on the company’s website, and later reprinted in the Canadian media, defamed him. The defendants said there was no connection between the reports and Ontario, and that the trial should be held in Illinois or New York. The presiding judge dismissed the appeal because she found the reports were directed to Canadian media, and that Black’s established reputation in Ontario had been damaged. Black is currently out on bail in the U.S. while waiting to hear whether his 2007 conviction for defrauding Hollinger investors will be overturned.

Toronto Sun

Conrad Black drops bid to return to Canada

By macleans.ca - Friday, August 6, 2010 at 12:52 PM - 0 Comments

Sources have told the National Post former media baron Conrad Black has dropped his appeal to return from Canada after being released from prison on bail two weeks ago. U.S. Federal District Court Judge Amy St. Eve required financial disclosure as a precondition to letting Black return to Canada, but his lawyers said there will be no more such submissions, essentially killing his request to leave the U.S. Black said he isn’t ready to file a sworn affidavit that would lay out all of the details of his financial status and relationships. His next court appearance, where he could choose make an appeal to leave the country, is Sept. 20.

National Post

Conrad Black on life in the "bondage of the U.S. government"

By macleans.ca - Saturday, July 31, 2010 at 10:21 AM - 0 Comments

In his first dispatch to the media since leaving a Florida prison, Conrad Black describes the more than two years he spent in the “bondage of the U.S. government” as “an interesting experience.” ”Of course, I was glad, jubilant, to leave, (though a return is not an impossible result of the pending rehearing),” the former press baron writes of the day of his departure in Saturday’s National Post, “but also grateful for many of the relationships I had formed; enlightened by my observation of American justice on the other side of the wall; and happy to have got on well in an environment very foreign to any I had known before.” But along with the reminiscences of his time behind bars, Black mixes in some damning indictments of U.S. justice. The prison system, Black contends, is home to an “ostracized, voiceless legion of the walking dead,” many of whom have been “grossly over-sentenced” as a result of ”the failure of the U.S. War on Drugs.” And the public defenders paid to represent them, “it is universally and plausibly alleged, are more often than not stooges of the prosecutors.” It’s well worth the read.

National Post

Previously on The Country I Live In

By Scott Feschuk - Tuesday, July 27, 2010 at 6:06 AM - 0 Comments

I’ve been away from Canada for four of the past five weeks, and it’s always fun to return and see what’s been missed. A comprehensive review:

1. The dominant domestic news story of the past month hinges on the intricacies of statistical analysis.

2. Finally demonstrating a populist touch, Michael Ignatieff has started production on his own Speed sequel: If his party’s popularity in opinion polls falls below 25 per cent, the Liberal Express explodes! (Subplot: If the bus keeps stopping for Timbits, the occupants of the Liberal Express explode!)

3. Conrad Black has apparently tunneled out of prison and escaped.

4. Upon being informed of No. 3, David Radler has soiled himself.*

* Not reported, but a safe assumption.

Don’t ever change, Canada.

Personally, I don’t understand what all the fuss is about with the census. On one hand, the Harper government’s move to scrap the mandatory long form has been condemned by Continue…