Prosecutors, defense rest at Black trial

Prosecutors at former media mogul Conrad Black's fraud and racketeering trial rested their case Tuesday and the judge told jurors to be ready for closing arguments on Monday.

''Ladies and gentlemen, we are done with the evidentiary portion of this case,'' U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve told jurors who have heard more than a dozen weeks of evidence in the trial that began March 14.

She said closing arguments were likely to take all of next week and jury deliberations probably would not start until the following week.

Defense attorneys for the Canadian-born former press lord and three co-defendants already had rested their case. After the government's final rebuttal witness was excused, lead prosecutor Eric H. Sussman turned to St. Eve and said: ''Your Honor, at this time the government rests.''

Black, 62, and three other former Hollinger International executives are accused of swindling the company out of $60 million through the sale of hundreds of the company's community newspapers across the United States and Canada.

Millions of dollars were paid in exchange for promises from Hollinger that it would not return to the circulation areas of the newspapers to compete with the new owners. Such payments are common in the industry.

But some of the money found its way to two smaller Toronto-based companies controlled by Black and directly into the pockets of Black and two former Hollinger vice presidents, John Boultbee and Peter Y. Atkinson.

Atkinson and Boultbee also are on trial along with Chicago attorney Mark Kipnis, who served as Hollinger International's corporate secretary and is accused of drawing up paperwork that made the payments possible.

Prosecutors say Black deceived Hollinger International's board of directors and its key audit committee about the non-compete payments.

All four defendants deny that they deceived the board or the audit committee and say nothing they did was against the law.

Black also is charged with defrauding Hollinger through his purchase from the company of a Park Avenue apartment, billing the company for two-thirds of a $62,000 birthday party for his wife at fashionable restaurant La Grenouille and taking the company plane on a two-week vacation for himself and his wife to the island of Bora Bora in French Polynesia.

The company paid $3 million for the apartment and Black lived in it rent free about 60 days a year for six years. With shareholders grumbling about his lavish lifestyle at company expense, Black later bought the unit that took up an entire floor of the building near Central Park for $3 million.

Prosecutors say with appreciation and improvements the apartment should have sold for more than $8 million. Black says the improvements he paid for were worth more than $4 million, which brought the total that he paid for the apartment to close to that figure.

As for the trip to Bora Bora, one witness testified that it cost Hollinger International in the neighborhood of $500,000. But Black defense attorneys argue that figure is far beyond the trip's actual cost.

They say the birthday party for Barbara Amiel Black was partly a business affair designed to promote the interests of Hollinger International with Wall Street movers and shakers and big names in the world of journalism.