US court rejects Conrad Black's appeal against fraud conviction
CHICAGO (AFP) — A US federal court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by disgraced media baron Conrad Black against his conviction for fraud and obstruction of justice.
Black, who once ran the world's third largest media empire, is currently serving a six-and-a-half year jail term.
The Canadian-born British lord, who once counted politicians and pop stars among his entourage, reported to a low security federal jail in Coleman, Florida on March 3.
It marked the climax to a spectacular fall which began when Black was charged with raiding the coffers of his once mighty newspaper empire and trying to cover up his crime.
Black continues to maintain his innocence and is reportedly teaching weekly history seminars as part of his duties in the prison library.
"We're very disappointed with the decision and we're carefully reviewing our options to take the case forward," Andrew Frey, the lawyer who presented Black's appeal in Chicago earlier this month, told AFP.
Frey said he has not yet had a chance to speak with his client.
"As far as I know he's doing alright but I'm sure he was hoping for something different," he added.
Black and three other Hollinger executives were found guilty in July of four counts of fraud for skimming millions from the sales of newspapers being offloaded by Hollinger International.
In a 16-page opinion, Judge Richard Posner at the federal appeals court in Chicago wrote that there was "compelling evidence" of this fraud presented at trial.
Black's conviction of obstruction of justice was based on a surveillance videotape that caught him loading 13 boxes of documents from his Toronto office into his car after the Securities and Exchange Commission notified him he was under investigation.
"All that needed to be proved is that the document was concealed in order to make it unavailable in an official proceeding," Posner wrote. "The evidence of that was ample."
Prosecutors applauded the court's decision.
"The Court found clear evidence that all four defendants engaged in a brazen, multi-million dollar corporate fraud scheme and deprived the public shareholders of Hollinger International of their right to the executives' honest services," US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said in a statement.
"This decision vindicates the rights of shareholders to expect that corporate officers will safeguard their assets, and put the shareholders' interests before their own."
The son of a wealthy brewery executive, Black bought his first newspaper in his 20s and rapidly expanded his reach across the globe, buying such prestigious titles as London's Daily Telegraph, the Jerusalem Post and the Chicago Sun-Times.
Hollinger has subsequently sold off nearly all its titles and been renamed the Sun-Times Media Group.
It said in statement that it intends to proceed with its civil suits against Black and "we continue to be very confident that the Company will prevail."
On Wednesday, a United States federal appeals court upheld convictions of fraud and obstruction of justice against media mogul , along with three other executives from his former press corporation, Hollinger International.

Black, born in Canada and bearer of the title Baron Black of Crossharbour in the United Kingdom, was found guilty in July 2007 of three counts of wire and mail fraud for giving himself and others millions of dollars in illegal bonuses taken from Hollinger holdings, and for obstruction of justice based on surveillance footage of his moving 13 boxes of documents out of his Toronto office to his home the day after he was informed that he was being investigated. He was sentenced, and from March this year he began a 6 1/2-year prison term. Peter Atkinson and John Boultbee were convicted on the same fraud charges, and were sentenced to terms of 24 and 27 months respectively, while Mark Kipnis, who was implicated in the fraud, was given probation with 6 months of home detention.

The appeals panel from the , who heard the defence attorneys' oral arguments, presented its opinion in a 16-page document in which they rejected arguments against the fraud and obstruction charges. They noted that while the defence had presented a "no harm-no foul argument", in which it was argued that the accused were owed the money appropriated, "such arguments usually fare badly in criminal cases". They also dismissed claims that instructions given to the jury by the judge had been incomplete, or unclear, stating that "the defendants proposed a misleading statement as an alternative", and that in such situations the judge is allowed to stay with the original instruction, and in particular is not required "that a submitted charge be technically perfect to alert the court to the need for a particular charge".

The appeals judges also discounted arguments from the defence regarding the defendants being unaware of the illegality of the transactions, making reference to an "ostrich argument", based on the urban legend that  sensing danger stick their heads in the sand. It was noted that choosing not to investigate the suspicious nature of the payments was equivalent to accepting their illegality. An argument from Black's defence regarding the obstruction charge, that in moving the documents he was not in fact escaping scrutiny, was similarly rejected, as "all that needed to be proved is that the document was concealed in order to make it unavailable in an official proceeding," according to the ruling as written by Judge Richard Posner.

Andrew Frey, the defence attorney for Conrad Black, said that the court's decision was based on "a number of factual misunderstandings", and that the defendants were considering a request for a rehearing of the appeal.