Conrad Black – I « Evidentia

Conrad Black – I

Conrad Black during his Chicago trial

Three years ago, I wrote an unauthorized biography of Conrad Black (Robber Baron: Lord Black of Crossharbour, ECW Press 2007). People often ask me what I think his chances are, either of being acquitted or of getting out of prison before his current sentence runs out in October 2013. (He has already done two years and four months of his sentence.) For example, I was asked these questions recently on Canada’s French all-news channel RDI as well as on CBC-TV.

Even now, I have a hard time picturing Conrad Black as inmate 18-330-424, in Coleman Low Security Prison in Florida, surrounded by some 1000 inmates, most of them incarcerated for drug trafficking and firearms offences (possession of short-barrelled shotguns, machine-guns mounted on tripods, or pistols with silencers). I try to imagine him sharing a tiny cell (2.4m x 2.7m, or 8 feet x 9 feet) with a fellow inmate, in an endless network of cells arrayed like a beehive, with no ceilings (and therefore no privacy). Video cameras maintain all inmates under 24 hour surveillance.

Coleman penitentiary, in central Florida

21% of inmates in prisons in the Midwest say they have been pressured to have sexual relations with fellow inmates, while 7% say they have been raped behind bars. Prison is a terrible place where the warden and guards are no better than the inmates.

I try to imagine Mr. Black going through a typical day, getting up at 6:00 am, taking breakfast in the mess hall, going to the prison courtyard seven times a day, as guards bearing shotguns do the inmate count. He has to work from 7:30 am to 3:00 pm. His visits, phone calls and correspondence are tightly monitored. Of course he keeps up to date on what his lawyers are doing. Occasionally, he writes a column for the National Post of Toronto, or for other right-wing publications in the United States or Britain. Once in awhile he attacks the American justice system in print, for being corrupt, unfair, wasteful, etc. He is not a typical prisoner.

The Big House

I got to know Mr. Black quite well, interviewing him in his offices and residences in New York, Toronto and London, and also at his hotel during the Chicago trial. At the high point (around 2000), he controlled a worldwide media empire with four million daily readers, prestigious titles like the Daily Telegraph in Britain, and wielded considerable financial and political clout. After all, in October 2001, he became a baron and took up his seat in the Upper Chamber of the British Parliament, the House of Lords. According to Rupert Murdoch, Mr. Black was a billionaire in dollar terms towards the end of the 1980s.

What a downfall since then! How can someone who had it all, end up in prison for fraud and obstruction of justice? I see Mr. Black as a very complex, driven man, charming, cunning, ruthless, manipulative and inordinately proud. It was very challenging for me to write his biography while maintaining access, and also keep my own editorial independence. It has also been a challenge since then for me to comment on my book in television interviews on 18 different networks, since I have been by turns infuriated and saddened to see that he is the author of his own destruction.

Conrad Black at the sentencing hearing in Chicago

But the hardest thing about covering Mr. Black is sorting out the facts from his own claims, since he is still intent on controlling the narrative of his life.

Consider that he penned another 200,000 word manuscript (the equivalent of an 800-page printed book), shortly before reaching prison. The manuscript is currently awaiting publication in Toronto. The subject? Everything he has lived since the previous volume of his autobiography came out, in 1993. I also see that he is still managing to influence what is being written about him in the Toronto press. For example, just this week, a columnist in the Globe and Mail called for Mr. Black’s rehabilitation and early release from prison. Shortly before that, a columnist in the National Post said it was time for Mr. Black to take up his position once again in the Canadian Establishment. CBC-TV asked me last week what awaited Mr. Black outside of prison, as if he were just about to be released. My jaw dropped open, and for ten seconds I simply didn’t know what to say. I asked the interviewer to repeat the question.

The real question is: how do you rehabilitate someone who shows no signs of acknowledging that he did anything wrong, who portrays himself as the wronged victim? Listening to him, one could imagine a romantic hero, unjustly accused, a stag brought down by wolves.

A stag attacked by wolves

The Appeals Court in Chicago will review Black’s case and consider whether the prosecution’s case was fatally flawed because it used the honest services theory, or whether there was sufficient evidence of fraud and appropriate use of other legal theories, to keep him behind bars.

In my opinion very little of what is said about Conrad Black in Toronto will have any impact on the outcome in Chicago. Mr. Black probably has one chance in 20 of getting out of prison before the end of his sentence. Things look different from the Chicago perspective.

After all, Mr. Black is not American; he is not a celebrity in the United States, nor is he considered an admirable man let alone a victim; no-one there is rooting for Mr. Black; no-one is particularly interested (i.e. he does not have a constituency behind him); Mr. Black’s former newspaper the Chicago Sun-Times has fronted over $100 million in legal fees for him, and if his conviction is finally, utterly upheld, he will have to refund this money (actually, I suspect he would sue the Sun-Times to avoid refunding them), whereas if he is acquitted the Sun-Times is left with this bill; the Sun-Times has a significant American power base with many political and economic allies…

In its recent ruling on Mr. Black, the United States Supreme Court referred readers to its longer and more detailed ruling on former Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling. I suspect that if Mr. Skilling were let out of prison before his 24 years are up, there would be riots in the streets. The legal reasoning is the same in Mr. Black’s case, so why would the outcome on appeal be different?

Which leaves me wondering why there is this regular outpouring of sympathy for Mr. Black in the conservative Toronto press.