Conrad Black returns to prison to finish sentence

Conrad Black returns to prison to finish sentence

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06/09/2011

Conrad Black has returned to prison to serve out the remaining 13-months of his sentence for fraud and obstruction of justice after being free on bail for the past year.

Black will serve out his final 13 months at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Miami, a low security prison about 50 kilometres from the city's downtown.

The return to jail was ordered by Judge Amy St. Eve, who ruled in a hearing earlier this summer that Black had not finished his sentence.

But Black, who had been living in a five-star hotel in New York City, believes he will be released from prison in as little as six to eight months.

"I think that he's putting the bravest face on it that he possibly can," George Tombs, author of Robber Baron: Lord Black of Crossharbour, told CTV's Canada AM.

"To be going back to prison at the age of 67 for a 13-month stretch, especially in a federal penitentiary in the United States, is obviously very difficult."

Manuel Noriega, the former dictator of Panama, had been held at FCI Miami before being released last year.

Prisoners often work in the facility and common roles include cooking, working as medical orderlies, tutoring and doing legal work.

Lord Black of Crossharbour was convicted for obstruction of justice and three counts of fraud in a trial that ended in 2007. He was released last summer on US$2-million bail after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the "honest services" law used in his trial put his convictions into question.

However, St. Eve ruled in June that Black still has to serve 42 months less the 29 months he had already served, for a total of 13 months.

Black's wife Barbara Amiel, 70, who suffers from an autoimmune condition, collapsed in court when St. Eve handed down the decision.

Tombs said another stretch in prison will be difficult for the couple who will likely be permitted only one visit per week.

It isn't clear what will happen once Black's sentence is complete. He is no longer a Canadian citizen after former prime minister Jean Chretien enforced an archaic law that said no Canadian citizen could become a British lord while also retaining their Canadian citizenship.

Black chose to give up his Canadian citizenship as a result of the high-profile battle. However, he recently told CTV's Lisa LaFlamme that he hopes to return to Canada once his sentence is complete.

Tombs said Black faces two years probation in the U.S. following his release from jail. But since he isn't a citizen there either -- but rather is considered a non-resident alien scheduled for eventual deportation -- it isn't clear whether he'll be required to remain in the U.S. for his probation, or be allowed to serve it elsewhere.

While Black's reputation has no doubt suffered during his legal battles, former securities lawyer Jacob Frenkel predicted that Black would make a public comeback.

"He's not going to vanish off the public stage," Frenkel told The Canadian Press.

"Our western society tends to applaud those who have been broken and rebound."

Frenkel pointed to the example of Martha Stewart, who has overcome an insider trading conviction, jail time and public scorn.

Still, Frenkel said that Black's criminal record will stick with him, unless he gets a presidential pardon.

"He cannot rewrite the history of what occurred in the courts," Frenkel said.

Black still maintains his British citizenship and can return to the U.K. once his sentence is complete, if he chooses to do so.

In Black's interview with CTV last week, he also spoke about his new book, "A Matter of Principle," and reflected on his controversial decision to give up his citizenship.

In fact, Black suggested that ditching his citizenship may have been a misstep.

"If I'd known the extent of the ill will it stirred up in Canada, I supposed it might have been."

At one time Black's media empire included the Chicago Sun-Times, The Daily Telegraph of London, the National Post and papers across the U.S. and Canada

Conrad M. Black is going back to prison after nearly a year of fighting to remain free

After nearly a year of fighting to remain free, Conrad M. Black is going back to prison.


Mr. Black, the onetime newspaper baron, received a new jail sentence on Friday from a federal judge in Chicago for his remaining convictions on charges that he defrauded his investors. Judge Amy St. Eve imposed a three-and-a-half-year sentence on Mr. Black, although prosecutors say he will get credit for the more than two years that he has already served in federal prison.

The resentencing of Mr. Black stems from a federal appeals court decision in October that upheld two of Mr. Black’s 2007 convictions, for mail fraud and obstruction of justice, even though it reversed two other convictions for fraud. Mr. Black had been out on bail since last summer pending the appeal.

Mr. Black’s wife, Barbara Amiel Black, appeared to faint in the courtroom after the prison sentence was announced on Friday, according to news reports.

Prior to his sentencing, Mr. Black addressed Judge St. Eve for about 20 minutes but did not concede any guilt. “I never ask for mercy,” he said, according to The Associated Press, “but I do ask for avoidance of injustice.”

In his 2007 trial, Mr. Black and three other executives from his company, Hollinger International, were convicted of defrauding Hollinger shareholders out of $6.1 million. At the time, Judge St. Eve sentenced Mr. Black to six and a half years in prison.

The convictions were appealed, however, after the Supreme Court ruled last year that the broad interpretation of the “honest services” law used to prosecute Mr. Black and Jeffrey K. Skilling, the former chief executive of Enron, was unconstitutionally vague.

In their unanimous ruling on Oct. 29, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago threw out two fraud charges tied to the honest-services law. But the appeals court affirmed the two other convictions, which it concluded were not rooted in the honest-services law, and returned Mr. Black to Judge St. Eve’s courtroom for resentencing.

The date of Mr. Black’s return to prison has not yet been set.