Conrad Black cannot go back to Toronto

COURTS | Media baron must await sentencing in U.S.

Grounded.

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that convicted former newspaper baron Conrad Black cannot return to his home in Toronto before his sentencing for fraud and obstruction of justice Nov. 30.

He will have to content himself to commuting between his suite at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Chicago and his $35 million (according to the most recent appraisal) home in Palm Beach, Fla.

Black offered to forfeit that home and any claim on the $10 million sale of his Park Avenue penthouse if he did not return from Canada for his sentencing.

But prosecutors said the homes were not his to offer. All Black's assets are claimed by the government or other people who have sued him, so he really has nothing to offer as collateral to persuade the judge to trust him to return, they argued.

U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve said of Black, "He's not a man to run away and hide," but he could change his mind at the last minute and fight a lengthy battle in the Canadian courts, she said. So he is restricted to northern Illinois and southern Florida.

"Have a nice summer," Black said to journalists with an understated wave as he left court with his wife, Barbara Amiel Black.

St. Eve did not consider a report by a private investigator who said Black transferred 40 million Euro to a secret account in Gibraltar from accounts in Luxembourg, Barbados and the Channel Islands.

Black attorney Edward Greenspan admitted Black had accounts in Barbados and the island of Jersey but said they had been "substantially inactive" since 2005. He denounced the investigator as a "damnable liar."