Conrad Black arrives for fraud sentencing

Fallen media mogul Conrad Black will be sentenced for his role in a £3m (€4.1m) fraud, a judge ruled today.

Lord Black of Crossharbour and other Hollinger International executives swindled shareholders out of $6.1m (€4.1m) of their money, judge Amy St Eve ruled.

The jury found Black illegally received $3.5m (€2.3m) of this as they convicted him of three counts of fraud and one of obstruction in the $60m (€40.7m) fraud trial at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago, Illinois, in July.

Prosecutors argued the 63-year-old former Daily Telegraph owner and once-powerful chief executive of the Hollinger newspaper empire should be held responsible for his role in the entire $32m (€21.7m) fraud scheme and are seeking a sentence of 24-30 years.

The judge said the jury paid “close attention” to the trial and acquitted Black of the charges involving the higher amounts of money.

The difference could lead to Black being sentenced to just five years in prison.

Black, wearing a blue pin-stripe suit and gold tie, was wished “good luck” by his defence lawyer Edward Greenspan as he arrived in the 12th floor courtroom for the hearing.

He was accompanied by his British wife Barbara Amiel, wearing a black jacket and beige scarf, and his daughter Alana, also wearing a black jacket.

The two women took their seats in the front row of the public gallery, around 10 feet behind where Black was sat with his legal team.

During the highly-complex four-month trial, the court was given details of Black’s lavish lifestyle, which the jury heard was partly funded through fraud.

Defence lawyers said the US government was trying to sow prejudice among the middle-class Chicago jurors by stressing the wealthy newspaper executive’s “champagne and caviar” lifestyle.

The jury had to consider 42 counts against Black and his three co-defendants - John Boultbee, of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and Peter Atkinson, of Oakville, Ontario, who are both former Hollinger International vice presidents, and former corporate counsel Mark Kipnis, of Northbrook, Illinois – in the trial.

The prosecution said the $60m (40.7m) came mainly from the sale of hundreds of Hollinger-owned US and Canadian regional newspapers between 1998 and 2001, in which the buyers paid large sums in return for agreements that Hollinger would not compete with the new owners.

The jurors heard more than 40 witnesses during 14 weeks of evidence before they retired to consider their verdicts and deliberated for 12 days.

Later, jurors said there was “no smoking gun” in the trial and no single key piece of evidence pointing to the former media mogul’s guilt.

Black was also accused, among other things, of cheating Hollinger International by taking the company plane on a holiday to Bora Bora in French Polynesia and billing shareholders $40,000 (€27,187) for his wife’s surprise birthday party.

He was cleared of the charges relating to these allegations.

The case reflected the US government’s efforts to crack down on corporate malpractice in recent years, following the Enron, Natwest Three, Tyco and WorldCom scandals.