Back to regular view     Print this page

Subscribe   •   EasyPay   •   e-paper
Reader Rewards   •   Customer Service

Weather: LETDOWN
Become a member of our community!

Business blogs
Business links
Business
Columnists
 


AddThis Social Bookmark Button

Conrad Black on Trial
Print Article Email Article Share / Bookmark


suntimes.com

Search Classifieds

View Subcategories

Start Building

I want to start
creating my ad right away.

Start Building

Register

I'd like to set up my account first, then create an ad.

Register

Login

I've already registered, and I'm ready to place an ad.

Login

Contests & Sweepstakes

Check out our contests & sweepstakes and find out how to enter for a chance to win great prizes!







TOP STORIES ::
Early shoppers brace for rush of Black Friday deals

Early shoppers brace for rush of Black Friday deals

Swarbrick plans his next big move in eye of Irish storm

Carols in the air: What to watch this season

Early shoppers brace for rush of Black Friday deals







Radler cut 'best deal of his life'

CLOSING ARGUMENTS | Lawyer: Ex-publisher lied to get leniency

June 22, 2007

A defense attorney Thursday suggested that former Chicago Sun-Times publisher David Radler invented a fraud scheme against the media company as a way to avoid jail time for his own crime.

Michael Schachter, an attorney for former Hollinger International executive Peter Atkinson, said Radler knew that controversial payments to former CEO Conrad Black and other officers had been approved by Hollinger board members.

But Radler testified to the contrary in order to win a light jail sentence, Schachter said.

"David Radler believed the audit committee approved each of these payments," Schachter said during closing arguments Thursday in the federal fraud trial against Black, Atkinson and two other former Hollinger International executives.

The former executives are charged with helping to steal about $84 million from Hollinger International, now called Sun-Times Media Group. Radler pleaded guilty to fraud.

The charges focus on non-compete payments that went to the executives and to companies Black controlled, instead of to Hollinger International shareholders.

Schachter claimed that Radler arranged to have a $2 million non-compete payment from the sale of the Hollinger publication called American Trucker to be transferred from International to its parent company, Hollinger Inc. A memo showed Radler knew of the transfer. Black, Radler's partner, controlled Hollinger Inc.

Schachter said that because of a memo, Radler knew he could face five years in prison. So he changed his story and said the audit committee had not approved millions of dollars in non-competes from U.S. sales.

"Knowing he had no answer to that memo, he cut the best deal of his life," Schachter said, referring to the possibility that Radler could spend just six months at a "horse farm" prison in Canada.