FBI seizes €7.3m proceeds from media baron's apartment

FBI agents seized nearly €7.3m in proceeds from the sale of embattled media baron Conrad Black's apartment on New York’s Park Avenue.

The agents arrived at the real estate closing in New York last night and immediately seized about €6.4m. Earlier yesterday, they seized more than €813,000 that had been held in escrow as part of the sale.

A civil warrant signed by a Chicago judge authorised the seizure saying that former Daily Telegraph publisher Black had derived the money as part of a fraud scheme involving the Park Avenue co-operative apartment. Black has not been charged with any criminal wrongdoing.

A spokesman for Black, Jim Badenhausen, did not return a message left at his office.

Black stepped down as chairman of the newspaper publishing company Hollinger International Inc in 2003 after an internal investigation accused him and others of looting the Chicago-based company.

Federal prosecutors in Chicago say their investigation of hundreds of millions of dollars allegedly taken from Hollinger International coffers is continuing.

Former Chicago Sun-Times publisher David Radler pleaded guilty on September 20 to mail fraud in a scheme to siphon €25.4m from Hollinger International.

Charges are pending against Mark Kipnis, former top in-house counsel of Hollinger International, and the Ravelston Corporation, a bankrupt Canadian company once run by Black. Kipnis has pleaded not guilty.

Federal officials described the complex real estate scheme.

They said American Publishing Services Inc, a Hollinger subsidiary, purchased a second-floor apartment in December 1994 for £1.6 million. Black was allowed to live there.

Black purchased a ground-floor apartment in the same building in January 1998 for €399,000, federal officials said. They said that in December 2000, Black bought the second-floor apartment from American Publishing Services for €2.3m.

He paid nearly €1.7m in cash and transferred to Hollinger International the ground-floor apartment, which he then valued at €683,000, according to federal officials.

In making the real estate deal, Black claimed the second-floor apartment had not appreciated at all in the years that American Publishing Services had owned it, officials said.

Authorities alleged Black also said the ground-floor apartment appreciated by 70% in less than three years.

They said property indexes suggested the second-floor apartment was worth €4.3m, rather than the €2.3m Black paid, and the ground-floor apartment was worth at most €639,000.

Federal officials said Black agreed in June to sell the second-floor apartment for €8.4m. The balance left over from the seized €6.4m in proceeds was distributed to other parties at the closing, including more than €813,000 to the Internal Revenue Service for taxes, officials said.

The unnamed buyers of the apartment had nothing to do with the scheme, the officials said.