Trial imminent for beleaguered former press lord Conrad Black

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"As chairman of the far-flung Hollinger newspaper empire, tall, silver-haired, magnificently tailored Conrad M. Black reigned supreme as one of the world's most powerful media moguls. His lifestyle included $60,000-plus birthday parties for his wife, dinners with the rich and famous and jaw-dropping renovations of a Park Avenue apartment.

Black, however, will spend much of this spring in a federal courtroom in Chicago facing charges that he scammed Hollinger International Inc. stockholders out of $80 million while he sold off company assets.

Federal prosecutors say he brazenly — and illegally — billed those same people for a vacation on the Pacific island of Bora Bora, dinners with Henry Kissinger at Le Cirque in New York and a $90,000 restoration of his antique Rolls Royce.

With jury selection set to begin Wednesday, the 62-year-old Lord Black of Crossharbour — born in Canada but now a full-fledged British baron — is digging in for the fight of his life."

more

Meanwhile...

Hollinger shares plummet on reports

<snip>

"Shares of Hollinger Inc. plunged yesterday, a day after the company filed a slew of financial reports and said it might not be able to continue as a going concern.

Hollinger, once the centre of Conrad Black's publishing empire, saw its stock fall 49 per cent or 53 cents to close at 55 cents on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The shares have traded thinly in recent months, but yesterday more than 400,000 changed hands.

On Thursday, the company filed audited annual financial statements going back to 2003, and unaudited quarterly statements up to Dec, 31, 2006, the end of the third quarter of the current fiscal year. In that nine-month period, Hollinger lost $68.1-million or $1.95 a share on revenue of $7.1-million.

Hollinger said its "ability to continue as a going concern is uncertain" because of its continuing losses, the fact it is not in compliance with covenants on a series of notes, and the decline in value of its 19.7-per-cent equity interest in Sun-Times Media Group Inc. -- its main remaining asset."

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20070310.RHOLLINGER10/TPStory/Business

[bobthedrummer]

1. A direct connect to former Defense Policy Board Chair Richard Perle

and Perle's Hollinger Digital can be seen in Schedule B of this onecle.com intellectual property section contact doc
http://contracts.onecle.com/hollinger/ip.sec.2002.12.23.shtml

Then that leads to Trireme Partners Richard Perle, Henry Kissinger and Gerald P. Hillman et al.

Fair use cited

[salin]

11. would be very happy to see Black take Perle down with him.

[Canuckistanian]

2. Where are your friends now, Conrad?

Kissinger, Thatcher, Perle, Wolfowitz. I'm sure they're all rushing to your side.

Oh, I forgot, they're all from the "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" old school.

And you've got no friends in Canada now that you loudly and arrogantly abandoned your Canadian citizenship in order to be a Lord.

Hope you and your gold-digging wife are going to enjoy life in the poor lane.

That is, when you get out of prison.

[Robbien]

4. This could get very interesting.

It is surprising the case is actually getting into court. Hopefully the media actually reports on what happens.

[UpInArms]

5. Conrad Black's U.S. trial hinges on executive graft

http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN1121625720070311

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Fallen press baron Conrad Black goes on trial this week in Chicago, insisting that charges of pilfering $84 million in proceeds from his crumbling media empire represent the persecution of the powerful.

Jury selection begins on Wednesday in U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve's courtroom in what promises to be a lengthy and complex federal trial packed with financial details that could test even Black's famously prodigious memory.

"A lot of people see Conrad Black as a martyr and a victim of an overzealous legal system," said lawyer Andrew Stoltmann, an expert on investment fraud who plans to watch portions of the anticipated four-month trial.

If convicted on fraud, racketeering and other charges, the 62-year-old Black, a member of Britain's House of Lords, could spend the rest of his life in prison.

<snip>

Upon buying newspapers, Black and his former partner David Radler would cut costs and put Black's neoconservative stamp on the publications' editorials. Radler has pleaded guilty and will likely be the prosecution's star witness.

...more...

[AlCzervik]

3. if any of you are interested Sundance had a really well done documentary on Black.

http://www.sundancechannel.com/films/500062854
Really informative.

[Kagemusha]

6. I just remembered, this is part of Fitz' day job.

So this is what he's going back to his day job to do...

[Spazito]

7. Good! I am now hoping for a second home-run from....

Fitzgerald! I want to see Black convicted so bad I can taste it, he is lower than pond scum.

[bobthedrummer]

8. kick

[bobthedrummer]

9. one more kick

[Scurrilous]

10. Black Is Going To His Trial In Style

<snip>

"Dethroned media baron Conrad Black, who's set to appear in a downtown Chicago courthouse this morning for the start of a trial accusing him of plundering mega-millions from his newspaper company, is staying at a ritzy hotel, believed to be the Ritz-Carlton, sources told The Post.

"He prefers that and the Four Seasons," one source said.

The five-star Ritz-Carlton - where Oprah Winfrey is said to own two floors and rooms dripping with opulence can run into thousands of dollars a night - is about a 10-minute drive from the courthouse where Black, 62, will spend the next three to four months.

The hotel, right next to the affluent shopping district known as the Magnificent Mile, could prove a test of wills for Black's wife, the glamorous conservative columnist Barbara Amiel, who once famously quipped, "My extravagance knows no bounds."

Phone clerks said no one had registered under Black's name or under his wife's.

Doormen outside the Ritz claimed yesterday they'd never heard of Black."

http://www.nypost.com/seven/03142007/business/black_is_going_to_his_trial_in_style_business_janet_whitman.htm


Who's who in the Hollinger fraud trial

http://www.hemscott.com/news/latest-news/item.do?newsId=40460739415577