Conrad Black shouldn't win conviction reversal, prosecutors say
Conrad Black, convicted of stealing $6.1 million from Hollinger International Inc. with three other former executives, relied on sham non-competition agreements to commit ``straight-forward'' thefts and shouldn't have the jury verdict against him set aside, U.S. prosecutors said.
A jury on July 13 found Black and his co-defendants guilty of stealing the money as they steered the publisher's sale of $3 billion in assets from 1998 to 2001. Yesterday, prosecutors submitted a 127-page brief arguing against the defendants' claim that there wasn't sufficient proof to support their convictions.
``The evidence at trial showed that these thefts were part of a pattern of payments for purported non-competition agreements that buyers of the newspapers did not ask for and did not care about,'' Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's staff said in court filings.
A three-judge federal appeals court panel in Chicago is scheduled to hear arguments on June 5 from attorneys for Black and the other men that their convictions should be overturned.
Hollinger International, once the third-largest publisher of English language newspapers, is now known as the Sun-Times Media Group Inc.
Black, 63, was the Chicago-based company's chairman and chief executive officer from 1995 to 2003. On March 3 he began a 6 1/2-year prison sentence for mail fraud and obstruction of justice.
His co-defendants, former Chief Financial Officer John Boultbee and Peter Atkinson, a former vice president, won stays of their sentences pending the outcome of the appeal.
Aided by the fourth defendant, former Hollinger General Counsel Mark Kipnis, the men were found to have taken the money from the company by disguising it as two payments for bogus noncompete agreements.
Black, Boultbee and Atkinson attributed a $600,000 payment to agreements never procured while the bulk of the money, $5.5 million, was taken in exchange for their promise to not compete with a Hollinger unit for three years after they left the parent company.
``The agreements themselves were a sham,'' the prosecutors' brief said.
The three defendants said in court papers filed March 13 that they were owed the money as part of a contractually mandated management fee.
`No Evidence'
``There was no evidence that could have permitted the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that defendants schemed to defraud'' the company, their defense attorneys said in court filings.
Black's lawyers, Ed Genson and Andy Frey, didn't immediately return calls seeking comment after business hours yesterday.
Kipnis, who took no money but prepared documents supporting the payments, was acquitted by U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve after the trial on one count related to the $600,000, which was taken soon after he joined the company.
He is serving a six-month sentence of home confinement and is appealing his remaining convictions.
The case is U.S. v. Black, 05cr727, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division (Chicago).