U.S. Supreme Court will review Black's fraud conviction
Last Updated: Monday, May 18, 2009 | 2:38 PM ET
CBC News
In this Dec. 10, 2007 file photo, convicted newspaper baron Conrad Black leaves the federal building in Chicago. (Jerry Lai/Associated Press)Former media tycoon Conrad Black will have the chance to appeal his fraud conviction before the U.S. Supreme Court.
"We are elated by the decision," Black's lawyer, Miguel Estrada, told CBC News Monday after learning that the highest court of the United States agreed Monday to review the case.
The Montreal-born Black, who once ran the fourth-largest newspaper chain in the world, is serving a 6½-year prison sentence. The appeal is Black's last chance after the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld his July 2007 conviction last year.
Black has served 14 months at Florida's Coleman minimum-security prison after being convicted of a $6.1-million fraud and obstruction of justice related to his eight years as head of Hollinger International Inc. In addition to being sentenced to prison time, Black was fined $125,000 US.
Estrada, a partner at the Washington, D.C., office of the law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, said he expects the appeal to be heard in November or December, and that a ruling will be issued by June 2010.
A jury ruled that Black and two other former executives at the media company had committed the fraud when they diverted millions of dollars in non-compete payments from the sale of Hollinger newspapers. Black had also been found guilty of one count of obstruction of justice for removing boxes of documents from his Toronto office.
Black's lawyers argue the men did not commit fraud because they did no harm to the company. The lawyers also allege that the prosecutor defined the word "fraud" in a way that is very different from the criminal definition of fraud.
"If it turns out that none of this was criminal, a jury might take a very different view of whether he was guilty of obstruction," Estrada said, adding that would warrant a new trial "at the very least" on the obstruction of justice charge.
Black was acquitted of nine other charges — including racketeering.
Legal experts had expressed doubts that the Supreme Court would agree to hear Black's case.
Hugh Totten, a business trial lawyer with Valorem Law Group in Chicago, has called Black's grounds for appeal "the pantheon of esoteric legal theories there are on the altar."
He said the chance the country's highest court would review Black's case was "very slim."
"I think the court is so busy with much larger issues," he added.
Jacob Frenkel, a former U.S. prosecutor who has followed the case, had also said Black's bid was unlikely to succeed.
In November 2008, after his unsuccessful federal court appeal, Black asked then president George W. Bush for a pardon. However, Bush didn't grant the request.
With files from The Associated Press
