Conrad Black, once a media mogul whose newspaper empire spanned several continents, is headed back to prison after a federal judge ruled Friday that he had not served enough time for defrauding investors.
Judge Amy St. Eve sentenced Black to 3 1/2 years in prison after berating and then praising him. But prosecutors say he will be given credit for more than two years he already had served, meaning the 66-year-old will go back for a little more than a year.
As St. Eve announced the sentence with Black standing expressionless before her, his 70-year-old wife, Barbara Amiel, fainted on a wooden courtroom bench. As she sprawled across the laps of other spectators, medics rushed in to attend to her.
In a 20-minute statement before he was sentenced, Black spoke confidently and philosophically, citing poetry and maintaining he had been falsely accused. At no point did he apologize.
His final words to St. Eve were to ask for a lesser sentence.
“I never ask for mercy,” he said, standing with his hands on the podium, “but I do ask for avoidance of injustice.”
St. Eve had originally sentenced Black to 6 1/2 years in prison after he was convicted in 2007 of defrauding investors in Hollinger International Inc.
Black, whose empire once included the Chicago Sun-Times, The Daily Telegraph of London, The Jerusalem Post and small papers across the U.S. and Canada, served part of the sentence before being freed on bail to pursue what would be partially successful appeals.
St. Eve said Friday that Black had “violated the trust” of his shareholders.
“As you stand before me today, I still scratch my head as to why you engaged in this conduct,” she said.
The judge said she rejected the option of sending Black back to prison for more than four years in part because of dozens of letters she had received from inmates saying Black had changed their lives through lectures he gave on writing, history, economics and other subjects.
Prosecutor Julie Porter said the government, which had sought a longer sentence, was pleased with the result.
It “sends a very strong message to corporate executives,” she said.
After the hearing, the Blacks walked out of the federal courthouse together, his arm around her. They got into a chauffeured vehicle and drove away.
Eddie Greenspan, Black’s Canadian lawyer, said it’s too early to say if defense attorneys will appeal the new sentence, though he added they will consider all their options.
Black will have to report to prison in about six weeks, though a fixed date hadn’t been set, U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Randall Samborn said instant payday loan.
The former mogul had been in the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in central Florida, and he could return there. But a final decision on where he serves the additional year will be made later.
George Tombs, author of “Robber Baron: Lord Black of Crossharbour,” said another prison stint will be rough for Black, who received his title when he became a member of the British House of Lords.
“He was born with a silver spoon in his mouth,” Tombs said. “He’s a lawmaker in Great Britain for goodness sakes.
Tombs said Black lives in a bubble.
“He doesn’t realize that he did anything wrong,” he said. “He does not acknowledge anything.”
Black’s big chance to squash his convictions arose in June 2010, when the U.S. Supreme Court sharply curtailed the disputed “honest services” laws that underpinned part of his case.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago tossed out two of Black’s fraud convictions last year, citing that landmark ruling.
But it said one conviction for fraud and one for obstruction of justice were not affected by the Supreme Court’s ruling. The fraud conviction, the judges concluded, involved Black and others taking $600,000 and had nothing to do with honest services: It was, they asserted, straightforward theft.
The appeals court said St. Eve would have to sentence Black again for those two standing counts.
Despite the nullified counts, prosecutors had asked St. Eve to hand Black the same sentence she originally meted out.
“He fails to acknowledge his central role in destroying Hollinger International through greed and lies, instead blaming the government and others for what he describes as an unjust persecution,” prosecutors said in a recent filing.
At Friday’s hearing, Black said obliquely that, “It is not the case that I have no remorse.” But he didn’t say those feelings had anything to do with any wrongdoing on his part, rather that he had been too trusting of others.
Black’s lawyers argued that he was a model prisoner who gladly offered advice about business and other matters to prisoners who constantly approached him.
Prosecutors say the defense painted too rosy a picture.
One prison employee, Tammy Padgett, claimed in an affidavit filed by prosecutors that Black had arranged for inmates _ “acting like servants” _ to iron his clothes, mop his floor and perform other chores. Another employee told her Black once insisted she address him as “Lord Black,” Padgett added.
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