Go to Douglas Bell’s new blog, Spectator.

a) There is little or nothing “tragic” in all of this. A bunch of fraudsters who jobbed shareholders out of their money are getting pretty much what they deserve.

b) None of them are likely to lose their heads. Isn’t there a flack at the OBA vetting The Boss’s comments lest he sound like a dunce?

Oh, and Conrad Black weighed in to say, “I don’t know anything about what [Radler] is doing and have no comment about him.” This proves yet again that you can count the number of Lord Black’s unexpressed thoughts on one finger. Beyond that, The Independent in London started what I’m sure will be an avalanche of cheap shots as Lord Black fades from the scene.

“It is understood that Black has been granted his request to be assigned to low-security Coleman correctional facility, 50 miles northwest of Orlando. Despite its reputation as one of the least severe of low-security prisons, visits are strictly limited under a points system that permits up to three weekend or nine weekday visits a month.

“Such visits are likely to be a particular indignity for Lady Black, a right-wing journalist and formerly a formidable figure in high society. A fierce list of rules for visitors at Coleman includes a ban on ‘sleeveless garments, sweat pants, sweat shirts, sun dresses, leotards, wrap-around skirts, crop tops, low-cut blouses or low-cut dresses, low-cut jeans or low-cut shirts, halter tops, bathing suits or backless tops, hats, caps, headbands or headscarves, and Spandex pants.’”

Lady Black likely won’t respond, so I’ll pitch in on her behalf:

“Vermin!”

Radler to begin jail sentence today: Source [Globe and Mail]

Former Conrad Black partner David Radler set to begin jail sentence: Source [CP]

Why the fascination with Conrad Black?: Source [Toronto Star]

‘Professor’ Black to teach fellow inmates: Source [The Independent]

“

“Greenspan felt under siege from a number of quarters…he complained that during the trial not one of his co-counsel lifted a finger to help him and left him to ‘twist in the wind.’”

Moreover, reports Skurka, Greenspan failed to attend occasional group meetings of the defence at Ron Safer’s law firm “because he thought it was the enemy camp.”

The failure among the defendants to make common cause added to the ever-increasing air of desperation that pervaded the defence’s demeanour throughout. And that’s why they’re in the same boat today, circling the drain.

Lord Black in new bid to avoid jail: Source [The Times] Black asks appeal court to delay prison sentence: Source [Financial Post]

“The place I have been assigned to is relatively good and if I do go there, they will ask me to teach. I almost always hated teachers, but I guess it’s an elite occupation in a prison. We are very confident of winning at least part of the appeal, and of sharply reducing time served. My book about this outrage is almost ready, so if I must go, I will not be going quietly. It’s like back to boarding school, without, one dares to assume, the tedium and indignity of corporal punishment.”

To which Ms. Edwards responded approvingly, “I’m looking forward to the noise before he marches through the prison gate.”

I for one can’t wait for a column or two from behind the wire espousing the merits of his “elite occupation”—hello, Mr. Chips!

In other quarters, Black’s dim view of the DOJ received a bucking up from Steve Skurka in the Post—a short excerpt from a book along those same lines titled, appropriately enough, Tilted. And a physician—Dr. Gabor Maté—specializing in addiction claims Black’s greed for fame and power emerged from an unhappy childhood—overcompensation for a lack of unconditional love.

Doc, methinks you’re banging on the wrong door.

Conrad Black: how to go down in style: Source [Irish Independent] Stacked Deck: Source [National Post]Black’s acquisitions compensate for lack of love: Source [Canada.com]

• I consider [Conrad Black’s] positive contributions to our society [to] outweigh the negative ones. This is not to excuse his ‘crimes’ as determined by the Chicago jury, although it is worth noting that he was acquitted on more of the charges than he was convicted. Those crimes, in my opinion, were, however, more the result of greed and bad judgment than criminal intent. I could also convict him of arrogance, pomposity and verbosity!

• One should appreciate him as a talented biographer, e.g., [his writing on] Duplessis, FDR and Nixon (incidentally, all these books are extremely long; it was once said of one of Henry Kissinger’s equally long tomes, ‘I don’t know if Dr. Kissinger is a good writer, but I do know that you have to be a very good reader’) and as the man who rescued the Daily Telegraph, the largest circulation quality daily newspaper in the U.K. Without Black’s courageous investment, this 150-year-old newspaper would not exist today, but it does, and it is successful and a large employer. Black was known as a good owner who did not interfere with editorial policy, but when he had a disagreement with such policy he would write a letter to the editor, which the editor could, and did, publish.

• I always found Black an agreeable and amusing companion with a fount of historical knowledge and political comment that was always entertaining.

• I agree the board of Hollinger—or was it the audit committee?—are culpable for having approved the various non-compete payments to Conrad. (Incidentally, they were in effect bonus payments paid in a tax-effective form. That does not excuse the amounts or the deceit involved in dressing them up as payments required by the purchasers.)

• I have no view on whether Black should remain a member of the House of Lords, although on balance I think it is unlikely he will. Lord Archer (Jeffrey Archer, the novelist) spent about a year in jail having been convicted of perjury. Somehow he has retained his peerage, and I have been told it was because his jail sentence was a year or less. I cannot confirm whether this is correct.

• As to Richard Breeden, it is my understanding that he and his team charged enormous fees to Hollinger over an extended period of time, and I believe there is some evidence that he used his appointment there (which was made by Black himself, I think) to advance his own career, particularly in regard to a sort of corporate governance–oriented hedge fund he was establishing, and of which I have no details. I very much doubt whether his role was in any way helpful to the shareholders of Hollinger.

A senior editor at one of the world’s great publications took time out yesterday to reflect on the peculiar relationship between Maclean’s magazine, its editor-in-chief, Ken Whyte, and Conrad Black. In case you missed it, Whyte admitted in open court to taking a $100,000 bonus from Black long after leaving his employ. Several newspapers—including the New York Times—raised the issue of conflict of interest. But at the end of the day, Whyte remains in his job; Rogers, which owns Maclean’s, has never commented publicly on the matter, and the whole issue is treated rather like the emperor’s new clothes. I found the senior editor’s unsolicited comments on this matter as refreshing as those of the little boy in that fable:

“When I heard about this stuff I thought, God that’s weird. I mean, didn’t anybody at Rogers sit down and say to Ken, ‘You’re not supposed to take six-figure payments from a guy [whose trial you’re supposed to be covering]’? I don’t understand how he—or the magazine, even—could have anything to do with covering Conrad Black. If the mayor of Toronto gave $50,000 to [the editor of Toronto Life], wouldn’t people say, ‘You can’t cover [him] anymore’? You can’t make money on the side in this job…that’s not the business we’re in… If you’re going to cover the circus, don’t fuck the elephants.”

And with that, I promise never to raise this issue again, so long as we all understand that the course of these events is—or ought to be—a searing indictment of Canadian media and its ownership. And that to the rest of the world, in this instance at least, we look no better than the banana republics we condemn.

Conrad Black, Codefendants Seek Delay of March 3 Prison Date: Source [Bloomberg]

In a piece devoted to illustrating her affection for her dogs and her husband (in which order I will leave to minds greater than my own), Lady Black reveals—in something of a digression—that:

My three dogs are in Toronto, bonded for life in the face of my absence with our 70-year-old German houseman. They bark with a distinctly Rhenish sound which even Nobel Prize winner Konrad Lorenz, authority on the language of animals, would have trouble understanding. Werner’s kindness to every living creature from frogs to me is taxed by my insistence on hanging a large portrait of Joseph Goebbels by Toronto artist Tony Scherman in our living room. The picture depicts evil brilliantly, and I’ve renamed it after several people in my husband’s drama. Werner’s late father happened to be the night chauffeur for fellow Rhinelander Reichsminister Doktor Goebbels, and he has a loathing of Nazism supplemented by a pained look whenever I play Wagner.

WHOA.

NO.

WAY.

I open the floor to whatever suggestions our noble readers would care to venture as to whom she is referring when she says “several people in my husband’s drama.” My guesses: “Richard” as in Breeden, “Eric” as in Sussman and “Eddie” as in take your pick.

Further along the spectrum toward sanity (of a sort), his Lordship further sought to ingratiate himself with John McCain over the weekend by picking him in the pages of the National Post to win the U.S. presidential election. Some time ago, I took a jaunt into the Twilight Zone by suggesting that if McCain won, he might put a word in Dubya’s ear regarding a commutation. Black reports this weekend that Tricia Nixon likely won more votes for McCain than the Kennedy clan pulled for Obama. Tricia loved the Nixon book, and she’s definitely got McCain’s ear hence, therefore, ipso facto…

And back on this planet, David Radler is suing Donald Trump for squelching on a condo deal entre les deux. This after Trump once announced publicly at a dinner in Radler’s honour that “when David says something, you can bank on it. His word is his bond…. As for me? He doesn’t seem to think so.” Okay, so I made that last bit up. But you catch my drift.

I lie in bed, the photo of ‘Jonas’ taped to my door: Source [Maclean’s]Vulgar, cynical and Democratic: Source [National Post] Radler sues ex-pal Trump: Source [Chicago Business]

James Morton, president of the Ontario Bar Association and a criminal lawyer in Toronto, said Thursday the move was uncommon but “good for Black.”

“I think maybe Black is doing it because the other two probably have a stronger appeal, and it may be that Black is trying to somehow bolster his position by being heard at the same time as them,” he said.

Atkinson and Boultbee, he added, “seem to have been less the beneficiaries of the wrongful acts and more the corporate servants.”

“I could see why Black may want to get closer to them, but I can’t see why they’d want to get closer to Black, unless it’s a cost issue.”

“Somehow bolster?” “A cost issue?” The ironies here are leaden to say the least. It’s like the last three men on a sinking ship grabbing hold of the anchor for buoyancy.

But infamy has its rewards. One of the four Warhol portraits of Black sold for better than expected at Christie’s this week. The proceeds went to compensate, at least indirectly, Ravelston’s creditors, thereby easing his Lordship’s “regret” at the price his investors had to pay for his persecution.

Black sells portrait: Source [The Province]Court says Black and co-defendants can make a joint request for bail: Source [CP]

Bloomberg reports:

Sun-Times Media Group Inc., publisher of newspapers in the Chicago area, sued former chairman Conrad Black and three associates to recover some of more than $60 million it paid in legal fees to defend them…. The complaint won’t affect legal fees for civil lawsuits in which the four are named. Sun-Times ‘will continue to advance reasonable fees and expenses’ in connection with civil proceedings, according to the complaint.

Sun-Times spokeswoman Tammy Chase said in a statement, ‘Our lawsuit speaks for itself.’ She declined to comment further.

Meantime, that same Sun-Times Media Group Inc.—the successor company to Hollinger International—continues its months of ferocious cost-cutting and has put its remaining assets on the auction block. Presumably, this is an attempt to raise sufficient lucre to fund its latest corporate incarnation as a litigation machine. That is, a litigation machine aiming to extract recompense from the very men who managed the company into this mess in the first place. And all the while paying their continuing legal fees.

Ain’t capitalism grand?

Sun-Times Sues Black, Associates, for $60 Million (Update1): Source [Bloomberg]Black’s old Chicago paper on the blocks: Source [The Guardian]

Further on, Bone—his tongue planted firmly in his cheek—quotes a letter from Black’s lawyers to the Bureau of Prisons:

“Mr. Black has been a very productive member of society, extensively investing in the American economy as a business owner over many years,” his lawyers wrote. “He is not a member of any disruptive group.” They added: “It is hard to [imagine] an inmate less likely to choose to escape.”

To which a reader responded on The Times’ Web site: “‘…extensively investing in the American economy…’ using whose money?”

Bone likely couldn’t have said it better himself.

Lord Black to become prisoner No 18330-424: Source [The Times]

Black is, as always, the model of sang-froid. For her part, Amy St. Eve couldn’t have been clearer. She sees no basis for appeal in a case where the jury concluded that the Hollinger four “knowingly and intentionally misused [Hollinger] International for their very significant private gain.” Thirty days until payback.

Judge denies Conrad Black’s bid to remain free on bail pending appeal: Source [CP] Judge denies Black’s request to remain free while he appeals conviction: Source [Chicago Tribune]Judge denies convicted press lord Conrad Black’s appeal bond: Source [Chicago Sun-Times]Black’s bail plea shot down: Source [Globe and Mail]

Inmate locator: Source [Federal Bureau of Prisons] “

For Conrad Black, a man with teams of lawyers, who was never before seen lifting or carrying boxes at 10 Toronto Street, to walk into a back stairwell of the building after hours—after scanning for security cameras that might catch him in a prohibited act—and remove those boxes himself, knowing that his secretary had been strictly forbidden to take the boxes from the premises earlier in the day, and knowing that the SEC and federal criminal authorities were investigating him and making their own demands for documents and information in order to pursue him… All of that evidence, plus the jury’s evaluation of the credibility of both government and defence witnesses on the topic, supports the jury’s finding.

St. Eve should settle the matter one way or the other before the end of next week.

Also, forthcoming in the National Review is a rundown of Black’s latest book, Richard M. Nixon: A Life in Full. The reviewer is long-time Black ally and fellow neo-con David Frum. The review itself is fluent and praising, though in a passing moment Frum offers a glittering example of fellow feeling trumping common sense. Writes Frum:

Black is a writer of severe restraint and martini-dry wit. Still, he allows himself one personal editorial comment on the meaning and legacy of Watergate, one that expresses his deep—and well-founded—anger at the way in which he was put to trial on the self-serving testimony of his former business partner:

“The American prosecutorial system encourages a system of suborned or intimidated perjury, or at least spontaneous clarity of recollection, to move upwards in the inculpation of officials in any organization where wrongdoing is alleged. Plea bargains are negotiated by threat and financial strangulation and reduction of penalties, as lower echelons roll over in sequence blaming higher-ups.

“It is a questionable system, which [has led] to the installation of the ‘whistleblower’—i.e., the squealer—as one of the central figures in American commerce. This process is topped out with the ‘allocution,’ as the plea-bargainer denounces himself like the tortured victim of Stalin’s show trials. Since the purpose of the plea bargain, for the confessant, is to reduce his sentence, the United States at least avoids the splendid Stalinist flourish of the accused demanding the swiftest possible imposition of the death penalty on himself.”

Much of this is arguably to the good, but to describe Black as a writer of “severe restraint” beggars credulity. This is the same guy who wrote, in fending off a bunch of grouchy shareholders, that he wasn’t “prepared to re-enact the French Revolutionary renunciation of the rights of the nobility.”

Trial by fire: Source [American Enterprise Institute]

Conrad Black shouldn’t get extra time away from jail, U.S. prosecutors say: Source [CP]

Black’s portrait up for bids next week: Source [Globe and Mail]

Lines Written on the Imprisonment of Lord Black of CrossharbourBy William Rees-McGonagall

’Twas nearly in the year two thousand and rightThat Lord Conrad Black learned at last of his fate.Said Amy the Judge, amidst many loud cheers.You will go to prison for six and a half years.

The crowd all applauded this draconian sentenceWhich was given because Lord Black had shown no sign of repentance.Only from one person came the sound of hoos—It was his wife Barbara wearing one of her many pairs of shoes.

So ended the career of the great Canadian tycoon.Whose mighty empire had come crashing doon.Said the judge to the errant British Lord,“You’ve been found guilty of ‘a most wicked fraud’.”

Who could have foreseen such a tragic end,To the career of someone who had once been Mrs Thatcher’s friend.The press baron from Toronto had burst upon the English sceneWhere he quickly met everyone, including Her Majesty the Queen.

The great and the good flocked to his lavish receptions,Quite unaware of their host’s shady financial deceptions.The world all gasped at his astonishing wealth,Little realising that he had acquired it by dishonest stealth.

Jewellery, jets and houses—nothing seemed beyond his reach.Not even a 50-room mansion in Florida’s Palm Beach.Conrad and Barbara did nothing by half.They even acquired London’s mighty Daily Telegraph.

Black was now one of the great figures of the age,Bestriding like a colossus the social and political stage.Appropriately he moved his papers into Canary Wharf,A tower so high that the rest of London it did dwarf.

But he needed even more money to pay for his extravagant life,Not to mention the shopping habits of his extravagant wife.And so Lord Black became more and more rashAs he helped himself to his shareholders’ cash.

To pay for the furs and the shoes and the BollingerHe stole from the unsuspecting shareholders of Hollinger.Until one day these honest US investors began to complainSaying, “Goddammit, it’s us that’s paying for that guy’s champagne!”

But Lord Black looked down his nose at them with an arrogant sneer,Saying “You can’t touch me, I’m a British peer.”Alas, for Lord Black, in his argument there was a flawAnd soon the Chicago cops came knocking at his door.

“We’ve come to give you your comeuppance.For what you have stolen is considerably more than tuppence.”And so to cut a long and sorry story shortThat’s how Conrad ended up in court.

Right to the end, however, he insisted he had done no wrong,Which is why his prison sentence turned out to be so long.And despite the entreaties of Lord Rees-Mogg and Sir Elton JohnBehind bars this arrogant fat crook has finally gone.

U.S. prosecutors charged 11 former federal prison employees and inmates in a bribery and sex probe at the Florida jail where ex-Hollinger International Inc. chief Conrad Black wants to serve his six-and-a-half-year fraud sentence.

Seven former corrections officers, a cook, treatment specialist, inmate and a guard’s girlfriend were charged, Tampa U.S. Attorney Robert O’Neill said today in a statement. The charges are the result of investigations that began in 2005 at the Federal Correctional Complex Coleman, in central Florida.

Well that’s one less thing to worry about.

Mike Miner’s media blog at the Chicago Reader reported on the continuing fallout from cuts at the Chicago Sun-Times:

In all, 14 full-time and three part-time guild employees were laid off (on the basis of seniority) and 12 others took buyouts, says Gerald Minkkinen, executive director of the Chicago Newspaper Guild. ‘In the long run,’ he says, ‘the company worked with us and did as much as they could to lessen the pain. I really have to give them credit.’ So does Elfman [TV critic Doug Elfman], with a cat to feed and a new job to find. ‘It’s not a situation where they’re laying off people unjustly,’ he says, well aware of the fact the company’s bleeding money, ‘and I’m in favour of seniority in theory. It just happened to bite me in the ass.’ I’ve caught Elfman on his way out of the office to get a drink. ‘The Sun-Times has really been great about the way they’ve handled a lot of this,’ he says.

Sounds as though the new management is making a genuine effort to be as humane as possible under trying circumstances. A refreshing change, that.

And finally CP reported on the U.S. government’s probable response to Lord Black’s request to remain free on bail pending appeal:

“The argument will be entirely about the fact that [Black] was convicted, the judge has ordered an incarceration date, there’s a high threshold for winning on appeal,” said Jacob Frenkel, a former U.S. prosecutor who has been following the case.

Even though Black was granted bail during his trial on fraud and obstruction charges, Frenkel said, “there comes a point where the standard changes and is (based on) the likelihood of prevailing on appeal.”

Lord Black’s options, it seems, are growing fewer and farther between.

U.S. Charges Guards, Inmate at Conrad Black’s Prison Choice: Source [Bloomberg]

Prosecutors will point to difficulty of winning appeal to fight longer bail: Source [CP]

Shrinking the Sun-Times: Source [Chicago Reader]