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Date: 2025-02-07 Page is: DBtxt001.php txt00000102
JOURNALISM / PUBLISHING
THE CONRAD BLACK FIASCO

Former media mogul Conrad Black ordered back to jail for
13 months on charges of fraud and obstruction of justice.
Fron AlJazeera English ... Americas


As the sentence was delivered Black showed little emotion,
but his wife, Barbara, collapsed to the floor [Reuters]

Original article: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2011/6/24/ex-media-baron-black-re-sentenced-to-prison
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
I archived this article more than a decade ago. I have come back to the story now (December 2024) as I review how my thinking about the state and the progress of the people of this world has changed over the years.

This also has me asking some consequential questions about deciaion making at the individual level and in the corporate arena. The fall from grace of many corporate icons is mostly brushed off by the media ... but it is fairly clear to me that one of the key issues in the modern world is that too many in corporate leadership are getting a 'free pass' to whatever they want as long as it increase corporate profit and stock price. The impact on society via impact on working staff and impact on customers generally as a result of both pricing and quality simply don't matter as long as profit and stock prices progess nicely.

40 years ago inequality was a lot less of an issue than it has now become. About 50% of the US population was above average in income and wealth and about 50% were below the average in the 1980s, but now 40 years later on the 2020s only about 20% are above the average and 80% are below average. The top 20% are getting richer all the time, and the bottom 80% are getting poorer all the time. This is a dangerous situation ... but there has been an acceptance of this situation and the processes that has enabled it by those with power to change things ever since Reagan was President.

Sadly ... President-Elect Trump and his team of appointees are likely to make the situation even worse rather than better ... but that is for another time!

And political leadership in many other countries is even worse than we have in the United States!
Peter Burgess
Former media mogul Conrad Black ordered back to jail for 13 months on charges of fraud and obstruction of justice.

From AlJazeera English

24th June 2011

Fallen media baron Conrad Black has been ordered back to a US prison for another 13 months on charges of fraud and obstruction of justice while at the helm of his vast newspaper empire.

On Friday, Black's lawyers made an impassioned plea to Judge Amy St. Eve for him to be sentenced to just the 29 months he has already served in jail, arguing that he had already suffered enough.

But the 66-year-old once flamboyant media mogul, who had counted politicians and pop stars among his entourage, was more stoic as he defended his reputation and even quoted a poem by Rudyard Kipling.

'I never ask for mercy. I seek no one's sympathy,' Black told St. Eve. 'I do ask for the avoidance of injustice which now lies exclusively in your hands.'

Black was released on a $2 million bond nearly a year ago after the US Supreme Court tossed out the 'honest services' law that had formed the basis of his 2007 fraud conviction to which he was sentenced to 78 months.

But after a series of appeals, Black was only able to succeed in getting two of the four counts he was convicted of tossed out.

Fraud charges

Black and his associates were originally accused of skimming off some $60 million from his towering newspaper empire between 1999 and 2001.

They were ultimately convicted of stealing $6.1 million by awarding themselves tax-free bonuses from the newspaper sell-offs, without the approval of the board of the Hollinger holding company.

But that figure was reduced to $600,000 after the two fraud counts were thrown out in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.

St. Eve on Friday sentenced Black to 42 months in jail, but he has already been imprisoned for 29 months and is therefore set to serve a further 13 months.

He has also made restitution payments of $30 million.

The judge told Black she was impressed by the testimonials she had received from inmates and prison staff and was also taking into account his age.

However, she said a significant sentence was necessary to serve as a warning to other corporate executives.

'It is a very serious crime,' she noted. 'I still scratch my head as to why you engaged in this conduct.'

It was not immediately clear how three months credit for good behaviour would be factored into Black's remaining term.

The judge ruled he would be released on bond for at least six weeks while the court determined which jail he would be sent to.

'He fails to acknowledge his central role in destroying Hollinger International through greed and lies, instead blaming the government and others for what he describes as an unjust persecution'

US prosecutors' statement

As the sentence was delivered Black showed little emotion, but his wife, Barbara, collapsed to the floor and was quietly helped from the courtroom.

Black's lawyers, urging leniency, argued: 'This case has resulted in eight years of unmitigated agony for Mr. Black and his family.'

'Mr. Black has lost the business that he built and deeply loved, suffered merciless attacks on his reputation, endured the need for significant financial outlays, (and) contended with a morass of litigation in the United States and Canada,' they wrote in a pre-sentencing motion.

They also noted his good behaviour in a Florida prison, saying he tutored an estimated 100 student inmates, gave a popular lecture on African-American history and was actively involved with Catholic religious services.

But prosecutors dismissed those reports of good behaviour, citing two prison workers who said Black often demanded special treatment and lorded over his fellow inmates, even convincing some to cook and clean for him, iron his clothes and generally 'act like servants'.

They had urged St. Eve to send Black back to prison for the full 78-month sentence because of his 'continued refusal to accept responsibility for his crimes'.

'He fails to acknowledge his central role in destroying Hollinger International through greed and lies, instead blaming the government and others for what he describes as an unjust persecution,' they wrote.

Black once ran the world's third largest media empire with such titles as Britain's Daily Telegraph and the Chicago Sun-Times.

Source: Agencies



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