Fallen media tycoon Conrad Black was convicted on Friday of mail fraud and concealing documents from an official proceeding, but a jury acquitted him of wire fraud, racketeering and several other counts.
Black, the former head of the Hollinger International newspaper empire, had been accused of swindling shareholders out of millions of dollars.
A federal court jury of nine men and three women delivered their verdict after deliberating 11 days following 14 weeks of testimony at the racketeering and fraud trial.
Verdicts on the other charges against Black and three co-defendants — former Hollinger International vice-presidents John Boultbee (64), of Vancouver, and Peter Y Atkinson (60), of Toronto, and attorney Mark Kipnis (59), of Chicago — were still being read aloud in court on Friday.
Black (62), a member of the British House of Lords, was facing a maximum penalty of 101 years in federal prison if convicted on all counts, although lawyers said a sentence anywhere near that stiff was unrealistic.
Hollinger International once owned community papers across the United States and Canada as well as the Chicago Sun-Times, the Toronto-based National Post, the Daily Telegraph of London and Israel’s Jerusalem Post. The Sun-Times is the only large paper remaining and the name of the company has been changed to Sun-Times News Group. — Sapa-AP