Sun-Times: Black deserves every day he serves

“JUSTICE is served,” jurors in Conrad Black’s fraud case said yesterday.

Mr Black was jailed for six-and-a-half years on Monday after the jury convicted him of three counts of mail fraud and one of obstruction of justice after a four-month trial earlier this year when they heard from more than 40 witnesses.

Yesterday, two jurors told the Chicago Sun-Times — a newspaper owned by the parent group whose shareholders Black swindled out of millions of dollars — it was right for him to serve time behind bars.

Monica Prince, a railway billing clerk in Chicago, said: “Justice is served. He knew he was doing wrong. And it’s only right he serves his time.”

Another juror, Tina Kadisak, a hairdresser from Chicago, told the newspaper she also thought the sentence was fair. “I wasn’t expecting anything more than that,” she said.

She said there had been “moments of yelling and screaming” during the 12 days of jury deliberations at the end of the trial. “Everyone’s got their own breaking point, when no one’s comprehending the points you are trying to make.”

An editorial in the same newspaper said Black “deserves every day he serves. The Sun-Times suffered for years while Black conspired with former Sun-Times publisher David Radler in their money-bleeding schemes”.