Defraud
Prosecutors demand $17m from Black and allies.
US prosecutors have asked a judge to force Conrad Black and two former colleagues to surrender $17 million.
Lord Black of Crossharbour and two former Hollinger colleagues convicted of defrauding the newspaper group should be forced to forfeit $16.95 million (£8.5 million) according to a petition from US prosecutors.
Prosecutors, who secured fraud convictions against Black, 62, Peter Atkinson, 60, and John Boultbee, 65, last month, want the three men to surrender the money on top of any fines they receive when they are sentenced on November 30.
They made the request in a court filing to US District Judge Amy St. Eve, who freed Black on £21 million bail last month but confined the Canadian native to the Chicago area or his estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Black, who built Hollinger into one of the world’s leading newspaper groups, was convicted on July 13 of three counts of fraud and one of obstruction of justice.
Prosecutors have said that he faces up to 20 years in prison, although his defence lawyers predict that the sentence will be substantially lower.
Black, who denies all charges and is planning an appeal, was acquitted of racketeering — the single most serious charge against him — and of illegally abusing corporate perks such as taking his company aircraft on a vacation to Bora Bora and billing shareholders $42,000 for his wife’s lavish 60th birthday party.
Atkinson and Boultbee, and a third defendant, Mark Kipnis, a 59-year-old Chicago lawyer, were all convicted of three counts of mail fraud for illegally siphoning money away from Hollinger shareholders.
Yesterday’s court filing said that prosecutors would file further papers outlining how much money Kipnis, who was convicted of helping the others with the fraudulent scheme but not accused of personally profiting from it, should be made to forfeit.
Black and his fellow executives, including David Radler, Hollinger’s second in command who is now a witness for the US Government, received millions of dollars in so-called non-compete payments from companies that bought Hollinger-owned newspapers across the US.
In return for the money, the defendants promised that they would not return to the circulation areas of the newspapers and compete with the new owners.
Such payments are common in the industry but prosecutors said that the money should have gone to Hollinger shareholders.
(Published by Times Online, August 14, 2007)
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