Toronto Life: The Trial of Conrad Black

July 2007 Archive

With Friends Like These...

Posted on July 31, 2007 by Douglas Bell

Last Friday, we reported on Mark Steyn’s assertion, published in Maclean’s, that the Eddies had asked Lord Black for an additional million bucks each, a day or so before summary arguments. At that time, we somewhat coyly suggested that we’d been unable to confirm the allegation. Of course, what we meant was that we’d asked Eddie Greenspan to comment and hadn’t yet heard back. Late this afternoon, the following arrived via e-mail from the offices of Greenspan, White:

Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

Posted on July 31, 2007 by Douglas Bell

While we await what will surely be the last public act of the post-trial period (before sentencing, that is), I offer the following from The Independent as the best summary of the Nixon-Black axis of psychological analogy. Reviewing the bio, Cal McCrystal writes:

Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

Posted on July 30, 2007 by Douglas Bell

However optimistic Lord Black may feel now that he’s settled on A-list appellate lawyer Andrew Frey to carry on his fight at the circuit court, Friday’s sentencing of former Qwest CEO and convicted inside trader Joseph Nacchio must have sent a current of trepidation down his spine. District Judge Edward Nottingham, while crediting the various extenuating circumstances in Nacchio’s life, still moved forward with a six-year sentence. The judge’s reasoning, as reported in The New York Times, was prudent, sympathetic, and yet ultimately chilling:

Collateral Damage

Posted on July 27, 2007 by Douglas Bell

As the long days in Room 1241 stretch out behind him, and the immediacy of the trial gives way to the ambiguities of appeal and the awful possibility of punishment, Conrad Black continues to trail a rough wake behind his juddering juggernaut.

Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

Posted on July 26, 2007 by Douglas Bell

In reading Black’s staunchest media allies you get the feeling they’re still fighting the last battle, while the war has moved on in, how to say, rather a new direction. Take Barbara Shecter’s piece in this morning’s National Post cataloguing the corporate collapse of Hollinger since the investigation, indictment, trial and conviction of its founder. We learn that the Warhol is in storage—the subject of an ongoing legal wrangle—and that if the company continues to burn cash by paying everybody’s legal fees, the cupboard will soon be bare. We hear a shareholder lamenting this in an it’s-all-so-unnecessary tone that suggests everyone’s missed the “real” crime here. Finally, we’re told, “Lord Black has publicly lamented conditions at the company. Last year, when Hollinger Inc. sold the company’s landmark headquarters, he said he hoped the proceeds would help keep the company afloat 'long enough for us to start to restore the business.' That prospect grew dimmer with his convictions in a Chicago courtroom a couple of weeks ago.”

Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

Posted on July 25, 2007 by Douglas Bell

One of the more bizarre spectacles in the Black debacle has been the revolving door in the executive offices of the Hollinger Empire. Lawyer Wes Voorheis is the latest in a string of CEOs (remember Gordon Paris and his fabulous hair?) to take the helm at one of the beleaguered companies. Whereas his predecessors may have been more focused on the day-to-day operations, Voorheis makes no bones about his task. In this morning’s Globe, Jacquie McNish reports that under his direction “…the company is transforming into a virtual litigation machine. A former Bay Street mergers and acquisitions specialist, Mr. Voorheis has earned a reputation as a legal attack dog for activist shareholders.

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Black Watch: Today's Top Stories

Posted on July 24, 2007 by Douglas Bell

Only a couple of items of note in the press this morning. The Chicago Tribune reports that Black has added sentencing expert Jeffrey Steinback to the team. His job is to gussy up Black’s image and make him a sympathetic figure before Judge St. Eve—a Herculean task. And the Montreal Gazette has the first of what I’m sure will be an avalanche of opinion pieces aimed in the same direction—hate the sin not the sinner.

Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

Posted on July 23, 2007 by Douglas Bell

With the verdict behind us and Conrad Black’s freedom (restricted though it may be) assured until his sentencing four months hence, the practical question facing journalists is how best to move the story forward. For the moment, this seems to be a variant on an old Soviet tactic aimed at ensuring the obedience of soldiers on the battlefield. Whether advancing or retreating, state security formed the rearguard, and if anyone strayed from formation they were shot, no questions asked. This, in turn, led to a chilling description of the Soviet military mindset: “In the Red Army, it takes a brave man to be a coward.”

Conversations With a Juror

Posted on July 20, 2007 by Douglas Bell

What follows is an e-mail string over the past couple of days between Douglas Bell and Jean Kelly, a juror in the trial of Conrad Black. It’s a loose shorthand exchange, and while there are sections that may be difficult to follow due to dodgy syntax and leaps of logic, it’s our view that the readers of this blog will benefit from a relatively unmediated view inside the reasoning of a juror in this case.

All About Eve

Posted on July 19, 2007 by Douglas Bell

Lawyers like to argue and judges like to adjudicate, and in Room 1241 this afternoon, there was a whole lot more of one than the other. It was Amy St. Eve’s courtroom and those who sought her ear were reduced to something of a sideshow. First we had Eddie Greenspan and Dave Roebuck trying to explain how it is that a secret agreement between the Blacks and Hollinger Inc. restricts the disclosure of assets that might be available to post for bail and/or forfeit. This went over more or less like a lead balloon. Roebuck, who swore up and down at the airport this morning that he wouldn’t say a word in court, ended up having to explain the ins and outs of the deal, to which you could almost hear Her Honour thrumming her fingers. Finally, after much back and forth, St. Eve piped up with one of those questions that allows the world to turn for at least one more day: “Is there anything that would preclude Mr. Black from going back to the parties to free up assets so that they might be posted for bond?” To which the two Canadians shrugged their shoulders and agreed to look into it.

Travelling Circus

Posted on July 19, 2007 by Douglas Bell

The waiting area at Pearson’s gate 61 wasn’t a far cry from the alcoves of the Dirksen building this morning. Paul Waldie and Eddie Greenspan took a leisurely stroll to pass the time. A few feet away, David Roebuck, a frizzy haired civil litigator from Heenan Blaikie, held court for a bleary-eyed journo. Roebuck’s advising Eddie on the whys and wherefores of the so-called Mareva injunction freezing the Blacks’ worldwide assets—a subject of some interest to the court at Conrad’s bail hearing this afternoon (2:30 Chicago time). He explained the history of the term Mareva, borne of some arcane corner of British maritime law. Stopping for a moment, he advised that of course everything he was saying was off the record, which, had the journo had the faintest idea what he was talking about might have had some application. Eventually Eddie, looking vaguely like Clarence Darrow—tie-less in a white shirt, sleeves rolled up and wearing suspenders—sidled by. He allowed that he wouldn’t be having much to do with the appeal: “Don’t really know the American law. On the facts, that’s another story. My job today is to get him home, and we’ll move on from there.” Then the group divided (Eddie and Roebuck into business class; the journos in steerage), all of them ready to reacquaint themselves with that fragment of Conrad Black’s harsh reality spinning away in Room 1241.

Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

Posted on July 18, 2007 by Douglas Bell

If there’s one thing that distinguishes British journalists, it’s their willingness—hell, their eagerness—to gouge out a blind man’s eyes, preferably while he’s down. To wit, Hugo Rifkind in yesterday’s Times of London:

Black Watch: Today's Top Stories

Posted on July 17, 2007 by Douglas Bell

“Hell,” said Sartre, “is other opinions.” (Actually, he said hell was other people, but six of one, half a dozen of the other.) Despite the lull in hard news: They. Just. Keep. Coming. Proselytizing, admonishing, ridiculing, empathizing, satirizing, analyzing, contextualizing, and on and bloody on.

Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

Posted on July 16, 2007 by Douglas Bell

A couple more thoughts on the weekend’s coverage before I turn my attention to today and the run-up to the bail hearing on Thursday. Richard Siklos’ sensitive and intelligent backgrounder backing up his front-page report in The New York Times contained a quote that as much as any I’ve read captures the strange contrary fascination that Black holds for the press and the public:

Black Watch: The Weekend’s Top Stories

Posted on July 16, 2007 by Douglas Bell

The barrage of Conrad Black stories over the weekend makes the ink spilled on VE Day look like coverage of the 48th Highlander Tattoo. And by this I mean nearly 10 pages in the weekend Globe, 12 and a half in the Post and seven in the Star for both Saturday and Sunday. (I threw in the towel before I could get to the Sun.)

Black Day in July

Posted on July 13, 2007 by Douglas Bell

It was the sort of bracing gust of reality that leaves hardly any room for description. At 9:30 this morning, Amy St. Eve marched toward the media hordes camped out on the 12th floor and announced, “We have a verdict.” You could actually hear the air being sucked from the wide hallway as scores of journalists rushed to the courtroom door, only to fall back like a heaving beast when marshals forced them into another queue further away. The fellowship of semi-cooperation had now given way to a more primal competitiveness: TV producers yelled down cell phones at cowed underlings; reporters, suddenly working at warp speed, muttered and murmured about the course of a story yet to unfold. Tom Bower, fearful that his editor in London might miss a word, covered his mouth and nose with his hands as he dictated the precious news.

Guilty

Posted on July 13, 2007 by Douglas Bell

Conrad Black has been found guilty on four charges, including mail fraud and obstruction of justice. Peter Atkinson, Mark Kipnis and Jack Boultbee were each found guilty on three charges of mail fraud.

More to come...

"We have a verdict"

Posted on July 13, 2007 by Douglas Bell

Came the announcement from Amy St. Eve this morning. Conrad Black—beleaguered and beloafered though he may be—is on the verge of freedom or exile. The verdict is half an hour away and the fates, in the guise of 12 "ordinary Americans," will have their say.

A Whole Lot of Nothing

Posted on July 12, 2007 by Douglas Bell

Things are really turning upside down here: the Brits have started playing euchre, and I had a pleasant chat with Judge Amy St. Eve. After leaving my notebook in court reporter Joe Rickhoff’s office earlier in the day, I set off to retrieve it, eventually finding Rickhoff at his appointed spot below the bench in Room 1241. I ventured forward, waving to catch his eye, and in the next moment was aware of a woman in a black robe waving back. I froze. “C’mon in,” said St. Eve, her vowels opening like barn doors. “What’s going on out there?” she asked. I murmured something about a lot of waiting. She kept a happily quizzical look on her face. “Lots of gin rummy,” I offered. “Gin rummy! Don’t tell Joe Rickhoff that. He’ll be out there playing for an hour.” We carried on like regular pals and I backed out feeling rather at the centre of things.

Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

Posted on July 12, 2007 by Douglas Bell

This morning, it was the same old same old. Speculation abounds: there’s the one-angry-white-guy theory (a male juror who always looks peeved getting on the elevator) and the black solidarity theory (if the three black female jurors stick together, His Lordship is going down or getting off, depending on which side you’re on), and journos argue strategies for the next trial, should there be one. The Toronto Sun's Joe Warmington pointed out this morning that one of the jurors knelt down and tied her shoelace before getting on the elevator. “Who knows what it means?” he asks. Joe, a lonely nation turns its eyes to you. On a more serious note, the Law Blog on The Wall Street Journal’s Web site gives the best summary to date as to what the jury’s note might indicate and what it implies for the verdict.

No News is Annoying

Posted on July 11, 2007 by Douglas Bell

This afternoon, the jury headed home 10 minutes early without so much as a backwards glance, leaving a general air of confusion and ennui in their wake. Tomorrow, we'll drag our sorry asses back to the courthouse for another day in the void.

All Hands on Decks

Posted on July 11, 2007 by Douglas Bell

After yesterday’s sudden whirl of activity, the journos were back in the second floor canteen using the free WiFi or camped out in the twelfth floor alcoves; the jury is back deliberating; Amy St. Eve took half a day to sentence a Chicago area grocer/terrorist to 21 months in jail. Brit biographer Tom Bower is speculating as to which of Black’s London clubs might expel him if he’s convicted: “They can’t pitch him out for simple criminality. I suppose if he stops paying his fees that might do it.” Where last week the Canadians played euchre in the halls today the Brits engaged in a spirited game of gin rummy. In the meantime, after having reported on an imaginary note from the jury, Mark Steyn bravely admitted he was actually blogging from Spain. Hasta la vista, baby.

Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

Posted on July 11, 2007 by Douglas Bell

If nothing else, today’s coverage demonstrates many different ways of saying the jury can’t make up its mind. “Stalemate,” “stumped” and “struggling” were all employed, but the clear winner was “deadlock,” which led the vast majority of pieces. Meanwhile, everyone is guessing at the outcome of a situation the Chicago Sun-Times has suggested was more difficult to read than a passage by James Joyce.

Cut Off at the Impasse

Posted on July 10, 2007 by Douglas Bell

High drama as the defendants gathered before Amy St. Eve to hear a note from the jury. In a voice perhaps better suited to a PTA meeting than a hushed federal district courtroom, the judge read the following: “We have discussed and deliberated on all of the evidence and are still unable to reach a unanimous verdict on one or more counts. Please advise. P.S. We have read the jury instruction very carefully. (75)” The 75 refers to the final page of the judge’s instructions. It tells them, in essence, that they must make every reasonable effort to reach a unanimous verdict, and that they must “consult with one another, express their own views, and listen to the opinions of their fellow jurors,” etc., etc. Immediately after the reading, the government asked for a break, and then beetled out to consult. They returned about five minutes later, this time with Elliott Ness, er, Patrick Fitzgerald, in tow—thus ratcheting an already dramatic situation up to an almost unbearable crescendo. You could hear the various cell phones and BlackBerrys buzzing like angry bees against the wooden benches.

A Cry For Help

Posted on July 10, 2007 by Douglas Bell

The jury, now into its ninth day of deliberations, sent Amy St. Eve a note this afternoon saying they were at an impasse.

Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

Posted on July 9, 2007 by Douglas Bell

Whatever else there might be to say about Conrad Black (and sometime over the next week to 10 days or so there will be rather a lot), this weekend’s coverage ran the gamut of opinion and interest, pointing up yet again that anyone who claims no concern for Crossharbour’s comings and goings is either a knave or a liar. Reviews of his mammoth Richard Nixon biography played up the drama inherent in Black—at the most testing, tumultuous moment of his life—taking on the 20th century’s most tumultuous and tested president. Writing in The Guardian, Peter Preston observed:

The Suspense Mounts

Posted on July 6, 2007 by Douglas Bell

After all the “excitement” this morning, something of an anticlimax as the jury beetled out at two this afternoon without a backward glance. “At a time like this, there’s always a few sweaty palms,” observed a BBC producer to no one in particular. Standing by the elevators was the usual horde of journos, balefully appraising their prey and made slightly more feverish by their need to get away for the weekend. As deliberations move well into their second week, one senses a building anxiety, or fear, or just plain existential impatience. Whatever it is, a lot of wired-up scribes and lawyers under pressure and at the same time powerless is a combustible mix.

Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

Posted on July 6, 2007 by Douglas Bell

This morning, word has it that Times man James Bone is offering even money that there will be a verdict today. This is based on a note sent from the jury at the end of yesterday’s deliberations, which suggested that there was a natural break in the proceedings and that they would sit from nine till two today, tidying up loose ends. It’s as good a theory as any. Yesterday, one nudnik among us announced that a particular juror, upon exiting the scene, looked as though “she’d been through hell.” This, in turn, led to much theorizing as to the jury’s state of mind, based on a perceived juxtaposition with happier exits earlier in the week. (Friction? Hung jury?) Broadly speaking, these are known as Elevator Theories, as the only time the assembled tribe actually sees the jury en masse is when they get on the elevator at the end of the day. There are, of course, other random sightings—some intentional, some not—each to a degree fraught with possibility. This morning, for instance, as I sat typing at the Intelligentsia coffee shop, I noted the arrival and departure of both Mr. and Mrs. Boultbee, and prosecutor Julie Ruder. Each knew the other was there and yet they passed with about as much outward notice as the intersecting orbits of Neptune and Pluto. What could it mean? Nothing, really, but there’s little else to hold anyone’s imagination in this particular production inspired by Beckett.

Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

Posted on July 5, 2007 by Douglas Bell

It was a surreal scene this morning as the lawyers met before Amy St. Eve to argue the potentially moot point of what Black et al. would forfeit—besides their freedom—should they be convicted of their alleged crimes. Even weirder was the sight of defence attorney Marc Martin arguing on behalf of Crossharbour, having shuttled down from the 25th floor where he’s presently acting for James “Little Jimmy” Marcello in the Family Secrets mob trial. Edward Siskel, the prosecution’s soft-spoken Harpo Marx character, argued for the government. The various sides seemed mostly to agree to disagree pending new language in a series of potential instructions, with the issue of joint and several vs. individual liability unresolved. As to who will ultimately determine the size of the forfeiture—the jury or St. Eve—that too remained unresolved, though Martin seemed to indicate that Black was leaning toward letting St. Eve decide.

Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

Posted on July 4, 2007 by Douglas Bell

These are the days of tea leaves and shamans. While upward of a million Chicagoans wandered through Grant Park last night, staring out over the lake, wondering at the stunning Fourth of July fireworks, the limbo-locked press sought to divine the unknowable: the fate of its quarry and to some degree itself.

Waiting Game

Posted on July 3, 2007 by Douglas Bell

While we await a verdict in Conrad Black et al. v. the United States, the 12th floor of the Everett McKinley Dirksen Building (home to Courtroom 1241) looks like the grounds of the Glastonbury rock festival. Amid the spare elegance of Mies van der Rohe’s furnishings, journalists and their gear are strewn along hallways and in alcoves. The judge has decreed that all parties have only half an hour to gather should a verdict come down, and 15 minutes should there be a need to discuss a communication from the jury. The lawyers and at least some of the defendants are holed up in a nearby office building. The journalists, playing out a scene somewhere between Waiting for Godot and the final episode of Seinfeld, have only the courthouse itself as their refuge. On a day when absolutely nothing of any consequence happened, some tapped away at more or less meaningless updates, while others, assigned by editors anxious to keep their charges occupied, wrote unrelated stories. Still others lounged, reading novels and chewing over the old wars in the hopes that a note from the jury would break the tedium. The fear of missing the great event was palpable. At one stage, a small group motored out for lunch, constantly checking and rechecking their various CrackBerrys in case the word came down. The court has appointed four journalists to inform the rest should a decision be imminent. This in turn has led to a debate: would any or all of them feel a greater obligation to e-mail their respective news organizations first, before their inky colleagues, thereby seizing a tiny advantage in the 24/7 Vimy that constitutes the modern news wars?

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