Black Monday
SENTENCING TODAY | Fallen media baron is as defiant as ever, even in the face of what could be a 30-year prison term
Conrad Black, the media mogul who once ran the company that owns the Chicago Sun-Times, is facing sentencing today on fraud and obstruction of justice convictions.
True to form, he is approaching his day of legal reckoning with a defiant attitude, calling a prison sentence "a badge of honor" that will "help expose prosecutorial excesses.''
(AP)
PHOTO GALLERY
Black guilty
Federal prosecutors say the sentence could be as much as 24 to 30 years, though he could get a more lenient term.
Either way, Black told the Canadian Broadcasting Co. last week: "Prison would be a bore, but quite endurable."
"I can get on with anyone and adjust to almost anything, and I don't consider [prison] shaming,'' Black said in an e-mail.
In another e-mail exchange, Black said the prospect of going to prison "does not terrify me at all," telling Bloomberg News that he's "ready for anything."
The 63-year-old British baron known as Lord Black of Crossharbour was convicted July 13 of siphoning off millions of dollars through a sell-off of papers owned by Hollinger International Inc., a newspaper company, and other related deals.
Under Black, Hollinger was a major media player that owned the Sun-Times, the Daily Telegraph in London, the Jerusalem Post, plus hundreds of community newspapers across the United States and Canada.
George Tombs, author of a Black biography titled Robber Baron, said Black is on a collision course with the reality of federal prison.
''He doesn't want to be learning new skills in a machine shop and wearing a prison uniform at his age,'' Tombs said. ''And he may have a cellmate who will tell him, do this, don't do that or even to shut up.''
Longtime friend and Canadian writer George Jonas said there is another side to Black that could help him adjust to the shock of life as an inmate.
Black is possessed of ''a strong equilibrium. He is quite judicious. He is extremely polite and considerate of other people,'' Jonas said.
Black told the Canadian Press news agency that he would not "presume to predict" what his sentence will be nor ask for mercy from federal Judge Amy St. Eve.
"Since I am in fact, not guilty, and the evidence is so flimsy, I assume reasonable people understand that it would be neither believable nor sensible if I suddenly started spouting false remorse for acts I did not commit," Black told the Canadian Press.