Jury 'hearts went out' to 'St. Mark'

CONRAD BLACK TRIAL | Attorney didn't get non-compete money, but still convicted

The Conrad Black jury had endured 15 wearying weeks of trial, hours of often-dull testimony and thousands of pages of dry documents.

They even felt sorry for one of the defendants, dubbing Black's corporate counsel Mark Kipnis "St. Mark.''

Now, while mired in a deadlock, a juror mentioned that he had been told that some foreign press suggested they were too stupid to understand the complicated case against Black, the onetime media tycoon charged with looting the Chicago Sun-Times' parent company.

Juror Margaret Williams, a Chicago schoolteacher, stood up and gave her fellow deliberators a pep talk, reminding them that they were not a bunch of "country bumpkins.''

It was a galvanizing moment.

"I felt that if we did not come up with a verdict . . . [some people] would think we're just idiots from the United States,'' Williams, of the Ashburn neighborhood, told the Sun-Times on Sunday. "We were deadlocked, and we needed something to break us out of that.''

"She said we were all intelligent people. She was really great,'' juror Monica Prince said of Williams. "That kept us together."

Williams couldn't recall Sunday which juror mentioned the "bumpkin" report but that the juror had heard it from a relative. The jury of nine men and three women included a real estate broker, an accountant, an engineer, a postal worker and a hair stylist. Those who were confused got help from the others, jurors said.

And some of them needed it when it came to Kipnis, a Northbrook attorney who was corporate counsel for Hollinger International.

He received no non-compete funds -- millions improperly paid by other newspapers to Black and former Sun-Times publisher David Radler -- but was accused of helping to misdirect payments. He -- like Black and former Hollinger executives John Boultbee and Peter Atkinson -- was convicted Friday of three counts of fraud.

"Our hearts went out to him. I think he wanted to impress'' Radler and Black and "hold on to his job," said Prince. Still, "at the end of the day, he had to go down with the rest'' because he had helped execute the fraud, she said.

The jurors, though puzzled about his motivation, finally asked themselves, "Did this person knowingly break the law?" explained Williams. "Ultimately, he did it knowingly.''

"I think people thought if Conrad Black, the 'Lord Almighty,' can pull this off, then we can do it [too,]" added Prince, who works as a railroad billing clerk.

Kipnis' lawyer, Ronald Safer, said his client was the victim of an "extremely complex" case.

"I don't believe the jury was able to differentiate between the defendants,'' Safer said after the verdict was announced.

Jurors praised U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve, a mother of three young children. The judge regularly fortified the jury with pizza, corned beef sandwiches and doughnuts -- and encouragement.

"She's a great judge . . . very professional,'' said jury foreman Jonathan Keag.

"She knew it was hard, and she made us feel appreciated,'' said Prince. Williams described St. Eve as "very caring ... truly understanding.''

St. Eve arranged for them to slip past the media using a private elevator. The jurors had planned to meet after the verdict for a drink at a local pub -- an idea delayed when St. Eve explained that journalists, who ranked in the hundreds at times during the trial, would be aggressive in trying to interview them.

Indeed, Prince said she found a Canadian reporter on the steps of her South Shore home at 1:30 a.m. Saturday. Prince said the reporter had taken a bus, so Prince drove the journalist back downtown.

The jurors are looking forward to resuming their normal lives.

Williams said her husband died about a year ago and that the trial had hindered her settling matters related to his death.

"It's been very hard to get my life back on track,'' she said.

Prince called the trial "a wonderful experience" that taught her about the legal system and corporate governance.

But, she said, "I'd never do it again.''

"It was four months of [my] life,'' said Prince.