Friday, July 13, 2007

Grand Old Police Blotter: Back In Black Edition

Lord Conrad Black has been convicted on four three counts of fraud and one count of Scooter Libby:

July 13 (Bloomberg) -- Conrad Black, former chief executive officer of Hollinger International Inc., was found guilty of defrauding the newspaper publisher, becoming the last CEO convicted in a five-year U.S. crackdown on corporate crime.

Black, 62, was found guilty of three fraud charges and obstruction of justice. Jurors found him not guilty of nine charges. All three codefendants were convicted of the same fraud counts.

Black and two other men were accused of stealing $60 million from Hollinger, once the world's third-largest publisher of English-language newspapers. Prosecutors said the money was disguised as fees the men got for not competing with buyers of about $3 billion of newspapers Hollinger sold.

For those who don't know the convicted neo-con conman, he's sort of a rich man's Jeffrey Archer:

Black, 6 feet, 1 inch tall, silver-haired and barrel- chested, was raised in Toronto's wealthy Bridle Path neighborhood and owned homes in Toronto, London, New York and Palm Beach. He wielded power as a wealthy media owner and member of Britain's House of Lords as Lord Black of Crossharbour. He renounced his Canadian citizenship to become a British peer.

Black, who holds a master's degree in history from Montreal's McGill University and a law degree from Laval University in Quebec, wrote well-reviewed biographies of former U.S. presidents Nixon and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

I imagine David Frum's Diary will be particularly tear-stained in the coming weeks. Others will just be shit-steyned.

Update:

Yes, I'm in a bang
With a gang
They've got to catch me if they want me to hang
Cause I'm back on the track
And I'm beatin' the flack
Nobody's gonna get me on another rap
So look at me now
I'm just makin' my play
Don't try to push your luck, just get out of my way

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