Black must await sentence in US

[Judi Lynn]

Source: BBC News

Last Updated: Thursday, 2 August 2007, 08:57 GMT 09:57 UK
Black must await sentence in US

Conrad Black cannot leave the US while he awaits sentencing for fraud and obstructing justice, a judge has ruled.
Canadian-born media tycoon Black was found guilty last month in Chicago of swindling shareholders while running newspaper firm Hollinger International.

He had asked to return to his Toronto home until 30 November, when he could be jailed for up to 35 years.

But Judge Amy St Eve said she thought Black would try to stay in his native country and fight extradition.


Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6927260.stm

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All dressed up, nowhere to go.

[sybylla]

1. One media tycoon down...

Too many to go.

Smart judge. Of course he'd fight extradition from his fancy home in Toronto.

[Judi Lynn]

2. One huge RIGHT-WING media tycoon, as well, of course.

How many of these right-wing clowns ARE there, anyway? They control everything.

Here's a look at how unforgiveably far this self-seeking monster has stuck his nose into journalism, which SHOULD be allowed to be clean:

Black was approached in 1985 by Andrew Knight, then the editor of The Economist, and invited to make an investment in the ailing Telegraph Group. By buying into the Telegraph Group, Black made his entry into the British press. Five years following, he bought the Jerusalem Post, and subsequently fired the majority of its staff.<8> By 1990, his companies ran over 400 newspaper titles in North America, the preponderance of them small community papers.

Hollinger bought a minority stake in the Southam newspaper chain in 1993, the same year Black published his first autobiography, A Life in Progress , and acquired the Chicago Sun Times. Hollinger International shares were listed on New York Stock Exchange in 1996, at which time the company boosted its stake in Southam to a control position. Black then launched the National Post in Toronto in 1998, but sold his interest in 2001. From 1999 to 2000 Hollinger International also unloaded several newspapers in five deals worth a total of US$679-million, a total that included millions of dollars in "non-compete agreements" for Hollinger insiders. Later in the year, Hollinger International announced the sale of thirteen major Canadian newspapers, 126 community newspapers, Internet properties and half of the National Post to CanWest Global Communications Corp. Hollinger International sold the rest of the National Post to CanWest in the summer of 2001. By October, fund-management company Tweedy Browne, which owns 12.7% of Hollinger shares, wrote to complain about Black's compensation and management fees paid to Ravelston. To reduce debt, Hollinger sold its 15% stake in CanWest for $271 million.

Despite Black's deep involvement in the media world, he retained a particular disdain for the press. Black was quoted as saying: "a substantial number of journalists are ignorant, lazy, opinionated and intellectually dishonest. The profession is heavily cluttered with aged hacks, toiling through a miasma of mounting decrepitude and often alcoholism." Upon arriving at court in Chicago in 2007, Black gave the finger to the gathered media covering his trial.<9>

Lord Black fostered close ties to certain influential conservative figures and think tanks; Black became a close friend of Henry Kissinger and his wife, both of whom served on Hollinger's board, and Black himself sat on the board of trustees of the Hudson Institute and Nixon Center.<10> Black also associated with Richard Perle, Joan Collins, and Princess Michael of Kent.<3> Using his various media outlets, Black put forward his views on the Canadian establishment: he denounced the country's welfare system as "an overgenerous reinsurance policy for an underachieving people"; blamed brain drain on Canada's high taxes; attacked trade unions; and derided liberal politicians, once calling on Ontario politician the "Salvador Allende of Canada," trying to "strangle, disembowel, and immolate the vestiges of the incentive-based economy."
(snip/...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Black

[Hand]

3. That judge is no fool.

Lord Black (!) would use every possible legal corkscrew to stay here in Canada, and the Harper government wouldn't do a dman thing to get him out of here--even though his Canadian citizenship was revoked years ago when he took his peerage.

Besides, we don't like him. :evilgrin:

[0007]

4. Yikes!

Will junior pardon Conrad Black??

After all, if 30 month for Scooter Libby for obstruction of justice, is excessive, then isn't 30 years for Conrad Black for the same offense is outrageous.