Well we can count Lord Black as a believer in Friday the 13th

In what can only be described as a surprise to many observers, former Canadian Media Baron, Lord Conrad Black was found guilty of three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice on Friday.

The conclusions of the Jury in Chicago on this Friday the 13th, brings an end to the remarkable trial portion of his dance with American justice.

Up next is an appeal which he no doubt has a cadre of lawyers working on as he ponders his potential imprisonment.

Sentencing of Black is expected to take place in late November.

The Toronto Star provided the details of jury's decision.

For U.S. Feds, Black marks clean sweep
Jul 13, 2007 01:40 PM
David Olive
The Toronto Star
Having already lost his media empire, most of his fortune, and his reputation for business acumen, Conrad Black, 62, now stands to lose his freedom for 20 years.

A Chicago jury today found him guilty of fraud and obstruction of justice in a landmark 15-week trial in which Canada’s best-known business figure was accused of plundering his own flagship company, Hollinger International Inc., of $60 million (U.S.).

The working-class federal court jury of nine women and three men found the fallen Toronto tycoon guilty on three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice, while finding him not guilty on nine additional charges. While the charges carry a maximum sentence of 35 years, Black faces 20 years in a U.S. prison on the most serious guilty counts against him, pending appeal.

The jurors found against Black despite a relatively weak prosecution case. “The government overcame a very shaky start to win this case,” Jacob Frenkel, a former federal prosecutor and former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enforcement officer, told Bloomberg News today. “They were able to pull a rabbit out of the hat.”

The jury also didn’t hear testimony from Richard Breeden, the former SEC commissioner hired by Hollinger International after it ousted Black as CEO in 2003 to examine the company’s compensation practices.

Breeden ultimately reported that Black, former partner David Radler (who pleaded guilty to one count of fraud and testified against Black) and other Black associates had been operating what Breeden called a “corporate kleptocracy” at Hollinger – a term never uttered in the courtroom, as Breeden’s report was deemed inadmissible.

Breeden’s report accused Black and his Hollinger International fellow executives of diverting $400 million (U.S.), or 95 per cent of the firms adjusted net income between 1997 and 2003, to themselves and holding companies Black controlled.

Even without hearing the Breeden report’s condemnatory assertions – which did prove useful to the U.S. Government as a “roadmap” in devising its prosecution strategy – the jurors were convinced that criminal activity had occurred by prosecution witness Radler, who stated at trial that Black had suggested that himself and Radler be “inserted” in non-compete agreements negotiated by Hollinger in the sale of about $3 billion (U.S.) worth of Hollinger newspapers in the late 1990s and 2000.

The prosecution told jurors that those payments by newspaper purchasers not to compete with the buyers in the future belonged to Hollinger, the owner of the papers, and not to Black and the firm’s other executives. Black “systematically stole” from his own company, prosecutors told the jury, at the expense of other shareholders.

The obstruction of justice conviction arises from Black’s having removed more than a dozen boxes of material from the 10 Toronto St. headquarters of his former holding company Hollinger Inc., despite an Ontario court order forbidding him to do so.

Black’s removal of the boxes, which he loaded into a waiting limousine, was captured on Hollinger Inc.’s security cameras, and were shown at trial. While they were deliberating on their verdicts, jurors asked Judge Amy St. Eve for technical assistance with video equipment, suggesting they were studying that incident with special interest.

Jurors were also told Black had cheated Hollinger International by charging it for out-sized perks, including the $500,000 expense of using a company jet to fly to Bora Bora on a vacation with his wife, Barbara Amiel Black. He was also accused of billing Hollinger International for two-thirds of the $62,000 (U.S.) cost of an elaborate birthday party for Amiel, which defense counsel argued was a business event. Other evidence touched on extensive renovations of Black’s Park Avenue apartment at company expense, and his ability to acquire that property from Hollinger International in an alleged sweetheart deal.

Prior to and even during the trial, Black criticized the U.S. criminal justice system, the prosecution and his former closest business associate Radler, using terms of derision and mockery to describe the case against him. At one point, Judge St. Eve told Black’s co-counsel Eddie Greenspan of Toronto and Eddie Genson of Chicago to make Black stop making off-the-cuff criticisms of the proceedings outside the courtroom after each day’s proceedings, or that she would.

Canadians who have observed Black’s long business career might not be surprised at the devastating setback dealt to Black today, after watching the dismantling of his first empire – the Argus collection of Massey-Ferguson, Dominion Stores, radio station CFRB and other assets – and then Black’s abrupt sale of the National Post, which Black dumped only two years after launching it in 1998, and his hundreds of major and small-town North American papers.

And since the 1980s, Black has had many run-ins with securities regulators, aggrieved minority shareholders and champions of higher standards in business conduct – the latter group dubbed by Black as “corporate governance terrorists.”