CHICAGO - Disgraced media tycoon Conrad Black was sentenced to six and half years in jail Monday for raiding his company's coffers and trying to cover up his crime.
Judge Amy St Eve also imposed a fine of 125,000 dollars and forfeiture of 6.1 million dollars.
It was a spectacular fall for the defiant Black, 63, who continues to profess his innocence and vows to return to professional life despite his July conviction on four counts of fraud and one of obstruction of justice.
Some of his supporters have portrayed Black as a man betrayed by his closest allies and victimized by overzealous prosecutors. Others have likened him to Orson Welles's fictive character Citizen Kane, replete with greed, entitlement and a diva-like spouse.
The son of a wealthy brewery executive, Black bought his first newspaper at 23 and rapidly expanded his reach across the globe, buying such prestigious titles as the Daily Telegraph, the Jerusalem Post and the Chicago Sun-Times to enhance his massive roster of smaller papers.
Black's willingness to flaunt his wealth and privilege, his conservative views and his buccaneer business acumen alienated his more self-effacing fellow Canadians long before he renounced his citizenship in order to become a British Lord in 2000.
The ostentatious Lord Black of Crossharbour, a respected biographer and columnist who was known for throwing lavish parties and counted celebrities, cardinals and statesmen among his friends, once famously appeared at a party with his wife dressed as Cardinal Richelieu and Marie Antoinette.
His troubles began after Hollinger International, the US-based holding company which controlled the empire, began divesting its Canadian and US publications.
Black and his associates inserted themselves into non-compete clauses tied to the sales agreements.
While these agreements are typical in media transactions -- they protect the new owners from having Hollinger launch new publications to compete with the ones it had just sold -- they were not all cleared by Hollinger's board and were essentially massive tax-free bonuses for Black and his associates.
Shareholders began to complain about the bonuses in 2002 as Hollinger posted massive losses but Black remained defiant, telling one shareholder to sell his shares and "get out" if he had a problem with the way things were being run.
Black was eventually forced to launch an independent, internal investigation headed by former SEC chairman Richard Breeden, who dubbed Hollinger a "corporate kleptocracy" and claimed that more than 95 percent of the company's net income was lost in bonuses to senior executives between 1997 and 2003.
A criminal investigation soon followed but it was the decision of long-term business associate, David Radler, to cooperate with prosecutors that led to Black's demise.
While Radler proved an ineffectual witness on the stand -- he showed little remorse and was painted as a liar out to betray a friend in exchange for a shorter sentence in a country-club Canadian prison -- he did provide sufficient evidence to help get Black and his associates convicted of four of twelve counts of fraud. They were cleared of tax evasion and racketeering charges.
Black alone was convicted of obstruction of justice charge because he was caught on tape loading 13 boxes of documents from his Toronto office into his car after the US Securities and Exchange Commission notified him he was under investigation.
Also convicted in the case are: Jack Boultbee, the chief financial officer of Hollinger Inc; Peter Atkinson, general counsel for Hollinger Inc; and Mark Kipnis, corporate counsel for Hollinger International. They will be sentenced later Monday.
mso/mac
12/10/2007 19:10 GMT