Free Republic

A few years ago, a friend of mine was sent to Kiev by the British government to teach Ukrainians about the Western democratic system. His pupils were young reformers from western Ukraine, affiliated to the Conservative party. When they produced a manifesto containing 15 pages of impenetrable waffle, he gently suggested boiling their electoral message down to one salient point. What was it, he wondered? A moment of furrowed brows produced the lapidary and nonchalant reply, 'To expel all Jews from our country.' It is in the west of Ukraine that support is strongest for the man who is being...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A lawyer for former media baron Conrad Black urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to overturn his fraud conviction, and several justices asked whether the federal law at issue was too vague. The Canadian-born Black, a member of Britain's House of Lords, has been in prison since March 2008, when he began serving a 6 1/2-year sentence for fraud and obstruction of justice. Attorney Miguel Estrada, representing Black and two ex-colleagues who were found guilty of defrauding shareholders of one-time newspaper publishing giant Hollinger International Inc, argued before the Supreme Court that all convictions in the...

Just before the case went to the jury, Conrad Black's two lead attorneys sent him a demand for an additional million bucks each. No messing around with billable hours and 15-minute increments and $27.59 for photocopying: just a nice round seven-figure sum by way of supplementary retainer. A day or two before closing arguments to the 12 men and women who'll decide your fate is no time to pick a quarrel with your lawyers. Or, at any rate, yet another quarrel to add to those you're already having, and they're having with each other, and the American lawyer's associates are...

The US Supreme Court agreed yesterday to consider overturning the fraud conviction Conrad Black, the former owner of The Daily Telegraph, who is serving a 6 1/2 year sentence for fraud and obstruction of justice. The court's justices will hear arguments later this year over the convictions of Black, the former chairman and chief executive of Hollinger International, and two other former executives in connection with payments of $5.5 million (£3.6m) they received from a Hollinger subsidiary. The men argued that they did not commit fraud because they did no harm to the company. They turned to the highest US...

CHICAGO (AP) -- Former newspaper mogul Conrad Black was sentenced Monday to 6.5 years in prison for swindling shareholders in his Hollinger International media empire out of millions of dollars. Black, 63, a Canadian-born member of the British House of Lords renowned for his lavish lifestyle and flamboyant way with words, had faced up to slightly more than 8 years in prison under sentencing guidelines determined earlier Monday by U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A U.S. jury on Friday found former media mogul Conrad Black guilty of multiple counts of criminal fraud and a single count of obstruction of justice but acquitted him of racketeering and tax charges. The 62-year-old Canadian-born member of Britain's House of Lords could face up to 35 years in prison and millions of dollars in fines and forfeitures. Black was found guilty of three mail fraud counts and one charge of obstruction of justice out of the 13 counts against him. He and three others in the trial were acquitted of failing to file corporate tax...

So much for Conrad Black as a suit-wearing bank robber. After 10 weeks of testimony and five key witnesses, prosecutors have yet to put one victim on the stand who would tell of being defrauded by this one-time press baron. This, after the government promised the jury in its opening statement to prove Black was nothing more than a bank robber who wore a suit. Prosecutors charged that he and his three co-defendants "betrayed the trust of thousands of public shareholders." Yet the jury hasn't seen a smoking gun - no explicit evidence that Black and his work pals conspired...

Excerpt - In late November 2003, Conrad Black was under siege by Richard Breeden, a former chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) who had been conducting an independent inquiry into Hollinger International, his company. On Saturday, November 23, Hollinger?s new board was united in a telephone conference to discuss Black?s offer to repay $7.2m (?3.8m) to the company and resign as chairman. Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel, were in his Park Avenue apartment in Manhattan. Some words of regret about the circumstances were being uttered when Amiel interrupted. ?Conrad won?t be bound by a kangaroo court,?...

CHICAGO Cook County (Ill.) Circuit Court Judge Bernetta D. Bush signed an order approving the final settlement of the consolidated class action lawsuits brought by advertisers who alleged they had been defrauded by the inflated circulations claimed by the Chicago Sun-Times and its suburban sibling the Daily Southtown, the papers' publishing company, Hollinger International Inc., said Monday. Under the terms of the settlement, which Hollinger disclosed last September, the company willl pay the complaining advertisers $7.7 million in cash plus up to $7.3 million in free or discounted advertising. Hollinger also said it would also pay the legal costs of...

CHICAGO Hollinger International said Thursday it expected 2005 operating income for its Sun-Times Newspaper Group (STNG) -- virtually its only operating unit after the recent sale of its Canadian newspapers -- to be about 15% lower than the $96 million operating income it realized in 2004. At the same time, Hollinger announced a reorganization of its Chicago cluster that it said would eventually shrink the workforce by 10%, or about 300 jobs, largely through voluntary separations. The reorganization will add $16 million to $20 million to annual operating income after 2006, Hollinger said. STNG includes the publishing company's flagship Chicago...

Two former executives and a holding company in the toppled media empire of Conrad Black were charged with fraud for diverting $32 million in fees generated by newspaper sales, prosecutors said on Thursday. David Radler, who was president and chief operating officer of Hollinger International Inc., Hollinger's in-house lawyer Mark Kipnis, and Ravelston Corp. Ltd., Black's insolvent Toronto-based holding company, were charged in a seven-count indictment alleging fraud. In the latest blow to Black's unraveling empire, prosecutors alleged that when newspapers were sold the defendants pocketed payments disguised as non-compete fees. Such agreements prohibit the seller from opening a rival...

Former Chicago Sun-Times publisher David Radler, a lawyer for the newspaper's parent company and a media holding company that was controlled until recently by Conrad Black were indicted on federal fraud charges Thursday for allegedly diverting $32 million through a series of bogus deals. The indictment alleged the three diverted the money through a series of secret deals by disguising it as noncompete fees connected to the sale of newspaper publishing groups. Radler, Mark S. Kipnis, the former top in-house lawyer for Chicago-based Hollinger International, and Toronto-based Ravelston Corp., a private company owned until this spring by Black, were accused...

May 3, 2005 — Shareholders have filed a federal class-action lawsuit against Tribune Co. and some of its officers, alleging circulation fraud that affected the Chicago-based media company's financial results, attorneys announced Tuesday. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, contends Tribune violated the Securities and Exchange Act by intentionally overstating circulation at "numerous" newspapers, including Newsday and Tribune's Spanish-language newspaper Hoy, which meant the papers could charge more for advertising. Also named as defendants were Tribune chairman Dennis J. FitzSimons, senior vice president for finance Donald C. Grenesko and retired president of Tribune Publishing Jack Fuller, according...

Every other day or so, I get an e-mail along the lines of, "Gone pretty quiet on your old buddy Conrad, haven't you, Steyn? I guess now he's no longer worth kissing up to, you've dropped him like everybody else..." Not at all. I did my stirring defense of Conrad and Barbara Black back at the beginning of the year, and all that's changed in the intervening months is that I'm more convinced than ever that 99 percent of the various "charges" against them are a lot of hooey. Of course, I'm a lazy hack and the fine print...

CHICAGO (AP) Though President Bush initially faced the war on terrorism head-on, he has lead the country on a course that ``feels wrong,'' and Sen. John Kerry's leadership could give the United States a fresh start, the Chicago Sun-Times said in its Sunday editions. The newspaper endorsed Kerry and applauded his leadership style, saying he is not a weakling and his moderate views would close the rifts Bush has intensified. (My note: LIES, LIES and LIES) ``The course America is on today feels wrong our attempts to defend ourselves have somehow drawn the contempt of the world, and we think...

Through schemes large and small, top executives fleeced the company that owns the Chicago Sun-Times, pocketing more than $400 million, or 95 percent of the profits over seven years, according to a report made public Tuesday. The company, Hollinger International, sits at the center of a heated battle between controlling shareholder Conrad Black and the board of directors -- in particular, a "special committee" of directors investigating Black. The 513-page report, filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago on Monday, represents the findings of an adviser hired by the committee to probe Black's dealings. The adviser, former U.S. Securities and...

The company (NYSE: HLR) allegedly paid for personal perks that included corporate jets, a $42,000 birthday party, and the refurbishment of a Rolls Royce. Conrad (Lord) Black, Hollinger International’s former chief executive officer, David Radler, its former chief operating officer, and other controlling shareholders and associates constituted a “corporate kleptocracy” which systematically looted the company of more than $400 million, according to a report issued Tuesday. The 513-page report, filed in a Chicago court by a special committee of Hollinger’s board that is probing financial improprieties at the company, alleges that the group stole what amounted to 95.2 percent of...

Attack Iran, US chief ordered British By Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent (Filed: 30/06/2004) America's military commander in Iraq ordered British troops to prepare a full-scale ground offensive against Iranian forces that had crossed the border and grabbed disputed territory, a senior officer has disclosed. An attack would almost certainly have provoked open conflict with Iran. But the British chose instead to resolve the matter through diplomatic channels. Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez "If we had attacked the Iranian positions, all hell would have broken loose," a defence source said yesterday. "We would have had the Iranians to our front and the...

Canada will vote tomorrow, and for the first time since the Free Trade election of 1988 there is a possibility of a party other than the Liberals winning the election. Polls indicate Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberals and his Conservative opponents running closely, with neither likely to have a majority in Parliament. In the 20th century, the Canadian Liberal Party was the most successful of any party in any important democratic country with continuous parties. It governed for 70 years in that century (against 57 years for the British Conservatives and 53 for the U.S. Republicans). Ever since the Conservatives...

<p>Conrad Black is hurling a legal monkey wrench into efforts to strip him of his $900 million newspaper group - but his adversaries are shooting back with poison pills.</p> <p>Black stunned his foes by abruptly rewriting bylaws governing his company yesterday, then running to a Chicago federal court last night to shore up his tactics.</p>