Black's bail in tens of millions

Published: Thursday, December 01, 2005


TORONTO - Conrad Black will plead not guilty today in U.S. federal court to criminal charges and is expected to post millions of dollars in bail as one of the conditions that would allow him to return to Canada.

Lord Black will travel to Chicago with Edward Greenspan, a prominent Canadian criminal lawyer, to voluntarily face the charges contained in an 11-count federal grand jury indictment.

"Conrad Black and I and my daughter Julianna, who is a lawyer in my office, will be attending in court tomorrow in Chicago for the purposes of pleading not guilty ... and then we will come back to Canada," Mr. Greenspan said late yesterday.

As part of an agreement with U.S. prosecutors, Lord Black has agreed to post millions of dollars as one of the conditions that he not be remanded into custody or be forced to stay in the United States following his arraignment on fraud charges before U.S. Federal Judge Amy St. Eve this afternoon.

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=9b80a662-a7e4-4b16-b410-abc41cfdfce4&k=31426

Bail conditions deal seems generous.

"Blacks bail in tens of millions"

And if they work really hard, they can keep the streets dry without the pumps.

!

here in Canada. He gave it up so that he could become a British peer. Frankly, I have no idea why he thinks that we'd want him either.

1 December 2005



Media tycoon Lord Black is due to appear in a US court on Thursday to face charges of fraud.

He was indicted last month on eight counts of fraud, accused of taking money from newspaper group Hollinger International for his own use.

The British peer has denied all the charges, calling them "absolute nonsense".

Two other former Hollinger executives charged with fraud failed to appear in court in Chicago on Wednesday.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4487334.stm

WHAT ARE LORD BLACK AND OTHERS ACCUSED OF?

Fraudulently siphoning off $51.8m from the sale of assets by Hollinger International through a series of misleading transactions

Abusing corporate perks by using a company jet for a private holiday and spending $40,000 of company funds on a party for Lord Black's wife

Fraudulently diverting $32m from Hollinger International through unauthorised transactions

Lord Black is accused of lying to shareholders at Hollinger International's AGM and causing false disclosures to be made to the Securities and Exchange Commission

Henry Kissinger
Probe details Hollinger 'looting'
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0409010185sep01,1,7294917.story?coll=chi-news-hed&ctrack=1&cset=true (Sorry, wish I could remember how to make the url smaller)

Here's a snippet from the article

But for the first time since it began its inquiry, the special committee bluntly criticized Hollinger's board of directors. It singled out former Assistant U.S. Defense Secretary Richard Perle and the board's audit committee, led by Thompson.

Perle, a member of the company's executive committee, merited his own chapter in the report, which depicted a number of alleged offenses and conflicts of interest. In one instance, the report accuses Perle of serving as an "independent" member of the board of directors even though he also was drawing a salary as a Hollinger executive.

The conflict of interest prevented Perle from carrying out his duties to represent Hollinger's outside shareholders and now "subjects him to personal liability," the report said. It described his board performance as falling "squarely into the head-in-the-sand behavior that breaches a director's duty of good faith and renders him liable for damages."

Calling Perle a "faithless fiduciary," the report said Hollinger's board and new management team will try to recoup $5.4 million in bonuses and compensation that he received from the company. Perle didn't return phone or e-mail messages Tuesday seeking comment.

Perle is one of those nasty neocons who deserve the 9th level of hell. I hope they nail that war criminal Henry Kissinger too.

I have started having hope again.

Patrick Fitzgerald rocks! Hope he bangs him up in jail for the rest of his life.

down to the depths of hell or jail with him. Whichever one comes first.

By Jamie Coomarasamy
BBC News, Chicago



A short arraignment hearing is usually a tough assignment for a court sketch artist. But in room 1214 of the Chicago district court, there were smiles on the faces of the men and women hovering over their drawing pads.

The star defendant, Lord Black of Crossharbour - the former head of the world's third-largest media empire - arrived nearly half an hour early for his court appearance.

The artists had plenty of time to sketch his dark suit and gold tie as he sat, with a determined look on his face, chatting to his legal team.

They'll be seeing more of him in the future as he fights the charges that he - together with three ex-colleagues - defrauded the shareholders of the media empire he used to run, Hollinger International, of tens of millions of dollars.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4491270.stm

that 20 million is a little more than nothing to him. And even if he were to lose it by not showing up for trial, he didn't work for it anyway so it won't be that big of a loss for him. But I'm glad that they sucked that out of him.

Yesterday there was a thread about Jack Boultbee, a Conrad Black exec. at Hollinger who failed to show up in court. His attorney left a message on the U.S. Attorney's answering machine saying he had "other personal matters to attend to."