Popcorn! Getcher popcorn raight here!
(a merging of the NY Times Business and Entertainment sections)
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/21/business/media/21black.html
The trial really hasn't sparked a lot of interest around here, as far as I can tell. Black was never really a presence in Chicago, and so most people here view it as a trial against some foreign guy who happened to own a business here. It will get far more interesting when the witnesses start testifying. Former governor Jim Thompson, who is still a big player in Chicago legal circles and in the Illinois GOP (or what's left of it) was on the Hollinger board and chairman of the audit committee. His testimony will be especially interesting for the locals. Also on the Hollinger board: Henry Kissinger and Richard Pearle. It will be interesting to see whether they defend themselves by claiming they were stupid, duped, or just not there.
Mr B was traveling in Edmonton last week and was bombarded with questions about the trial. The media coverage of the trial in Edmonton was extensive, showing swarms of media types crushing to catch Black's words. As it turns out, most of the folks doing the crushing were Canadian journalists. There's very little interest here so far.
JPB wrote: As it turns out, most of the folks doing the crushing were Canadian journalists. There's very little interest here so far.
lots of British journalists covering the trial - much of the Canadian coverage is by Brit reporters. Fleet Street's loving the downfall of Connie.
Apparently Barbara's been referring to the local media as slime.
Gotta love that gal.
joe
Pleased you are on the beat. Any interest in personally watching some of this trial?
ehBeth wrote:JPB wrote: As it turns out, most of the folks doing the crushing were Canadian journalists. There's very little interest here so far.
lots of British journalists covering the trial - much of the Canadian coverage is by Brit reporters. Fleet Street's loving the downfall of Connie.
Apparently Barbara's been referring to the local media as slime.
Gotta love that gal.
Babs in the witness box would be something for the ages.
blatham wrote:joe
Pleased you are on the beat. Any interest in personally watching some of this trial?
That would be something like a busman's holiday for me. I suppose it would be interesting, but my day job keeps me busy enough in other courts.
Interesting to learn that King James of Illinois was involved with Hollinger. You say he was on the audits board, Joe--did he fail to uncover the skulduggery? Was he perhaps not in a position to have learned? Does anyone suggest Big Jim's skirts are soiled?
Setanta wrote:Interesting to learn that King James of Illinois was involved with Hollinger. You say he was on the audits board, Joe--did he fail to uncover the skulduggery? Was he perhaps not in a position to have learned? Does anyone suggest Big Jim's skirts are soiled?
Thompson, it appears, is actually
being sued by Black, under the theory that, if Black has to pay back the money that he stole, then the audit committee that was headed by Thompson was also negligent in failing to stop Black from stealing all that money. That's a rather ... shall we say "imaginative" theory, but I give Black credit for this display of some genuine Episcopalian
chutzpah.
In general, there has been a lot of low-level criticism of Thompson -- no one has, as far as I know, accused "Big Jim" of putting his own hands in the cookie jar, but the criticism has been more along the lines of: "he should have known more, he should have been more active,
he should have at least asked some questions." Given that Thompson is a former federal prosecutor, famous for his investigations into corruption, it is especially damning to his reputation that he apparently didn't have the slightest inkling of the grotesque financial chicanery at Hollinger.
As I mentioned before, it will be very interesting to see what he has to say if he is called to testify.
I was never a big fan of King James, especially as i was a state employee during his reign, when he sabotaged the civil service system. I didn't know about Thompson's involvement, and i suspect i'm really going to enjoy this.
It's early days of course...still a long way to go, but
this is a blow for the prosecution.
Quote:Some of the payments at the center of Conrad Black's criminal fraud trial were reported to U.S. government regulators in a timely fashion and not hidden as prosecutors have suggested, jurors were told on Thursday.
Under cross examination, Fred Creasey, a former comptroller at Black's Canadian holding company Hollinger Inc., was shown a document bearing his name by defense lawyer Patrick Tuite.
Creasey had testified on Wednesday that some of the money paid to Black and his associates from newspaper property sales in 2000 did not show up in regulatory filings that Hollinger's U.S. subsidiary, Chicago-based Hollinger International, had made until May 2001.
These next two weeks should be interesting:
Radler's testimony begins...
Place your bets.
Will Conrad testify?
I'm not so sure he'll be able to resist himself.
Now the defense team is accusing Radler of lying and being a habitual liar. What it displays is Black's character. If Radler is a liar why did black keep him all these years? Was Black using Radler i.e. doing the lying bit for Black? Radler therefore was a hit man for Black. Radler was lying for Black so it is Black who is lying. Question for Black would be if he knew Radler is a liar and untrustworthy why did he not fire Radler? Or was Radler really a trustworthy person but doing the lying for Black?
thanks bethie.
I surely much overestimated interest in this case (even my own, actually). I feel a bit like Rip Van Winkle waking up and finding his wife even more beautiful than when he fell off to sleep.
Oh, you smoothie.
Lord Black was not too popular over here, either (do you guys get to see Private Eye ?) and so I personally am looking forward to the sentencing process.
McT
(knitting by the tumbril)
Fade to Black: Jurors Explain Split Decision in Trial
Fade to Black: Jurors Explain Split Decision in Trial
Published: July 14, 2007
E & P
CHICAGO - Jurors who convicted former media baron Conrad Black say the complicated corporate fraud case became easier to understand as prosecutors laid out their evidence, and camera images showing the British lord carrying boxes out to his car were key to his conviction on one charge.
Black, 62, who once renounced his Canadian citizenship to become a member of the British House of Lords, was found guilty Friday by a federal jury of three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice for moving documents out of his Toronto office in defiance of a court order. He was acquitted of nine other counts, including the most serious charge -- racketeering.
At the outset of the trial, it was difficult to keep track of the different companies involved, said juror Tina Kadisak. But eventually, "you began to understand."
The jury grappled with some of the counts during deliberations but said the prosecution came up short in its argument for the racketeering charge. Juror Monica Prince told the Chicago Sun-Times that there wasn't enough "paper evidence" to support a conviction on that count.
Kadisak, meanwhile, said the allegations of racketeering were credible but not supported by the evidence.
"There wasn't enough evidence there," the 32-year-old hairdresser said to the Chicago Tribune. "Could I see that it happened? Yes ... but there wasn't proof of it."
Black was convicted of swindling the Hollinger International newspaper empire he once ran out of millions of dollars. When he was indicted in 2005, prosecutors accused him of bilking shareholders out of $84 million. But during bond discussions that followed the verdict, Black's defense attorneys said he was convicted of stealing $3.5 million.
Three other former Hollinger executives -- John Boultbee, 65, of Victoria, British Columbia, Peter Y. Atkinson, 60, of Oakville, Ontario, and Mark Kipnis, 59, of Northbrook, Ill. -- also were convicted of fraud charges.
Hollinger International, based in Chicago and renamed Sun-Times Media Group Inc. last year, was at one time one of the world's largest publishers of community newspapers as well as the Chicago Sun-Times, the Daily Telegraph of London and Israel's Jerusalem Post.
Jurors said they placed little weight in testimony from the government's star witness, F. David Radler.
Radler, the Sun-Times' former publisher and Black's partner in building the Hollinger empire over three decades, pleaded guilty to mail fraud and agreed to testify in exchange for a lenient 29-month sentence and a $250,000 fine.
Black had said he was busy with newspaper interests in Britain and eastern Canada and left most of the sales of community newspapers and non-compete arrangements to Radler. Radler, however, said Black was well aware of how and why the money was being paid.
Prince said Radler seemed to be looking out for Black while on the witness stand.
"He was covering up for his buddy," the juror said. "He didn't really say much. He kept contradicting himself. He was trying to fool the jury. He was just trying to get through it. He was trying to confuse the jury to cover for Black. We reached the verdict in spite of what he said."
Jurors delivered their verdict early on the 12th day of deliberations. Among the evidence they considered was surveillance camera pictures of the husky Black hauling documents out of his offices and loading them in his car. His attorneys argued that there were other copies of the documents in the hands of regulators and that he eventually gave them back.
The photos were key to his conviction on the obstruction of justice charge, jurors said.
"That definitely showed he took them out," Kadisak said.
Reaching a consensus on some of the other counts was not as easy, though.
Jurors struggled with a wire fraud count stemming from a $4.3 million payment to Radler from the sale of some U.S. newspapers. Prince said the jury was "pretty well split" on the issue. Ultimately, Black was aquitted on that count.
Kadisak said the deliberations were made more difficult by the excellent work done by attorneys on both sides of the case.
"One day you would be believing 'Oh, they're so guilty.' The next day you would be believing 'No, they didn't"' break the law, she said
