Former Hollinger International chairman and CEO Conrad Black (previous posts here) was sentenced on Monday to six and a half years in prison as a result of his conviction on three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice stemming from Black and his associates’ taking of $2.9 million in non-compete compensation from the sale of Hollinger assets that the prosecution contended should have gone to Hollinger. Lord Black was ordered to report to prison on March 3rd.
Given the severity of the trial penalty (see also here) in criminal cases against wealthy businesspeople these days, Black’s sentence could have turned out much worse under the circumstances (sentencing expert Doug Berman had set the over/under on Black’s sentence at 8 years). Let’s face it — the American criminal justice system is stacked against defendants such as Lord Black, Jeff Skilling, Jamie Olis or any number of other recently-convicted businesspersons who elect to protest their innocence at trial. The now common practice of the prosecution loading indictments with multiple charges for the same acts (and the judiciary’s reluctance to dismiss duplicative charges) virtually ensures that juries will throw a bone to the government and convict on at least some of the counts (Lord Black was acquitted on 9 of the 13 counts against him).
Meanwhile, it’s interesting to note the impact that all of this has had on Hollinger. The stock of Sun-Times Media — which is all of what is left of Hollinger — is down to about $1 a share, which is a quarter of the share price when the Black trial began and a fraction of its value during the time that Black ran the company. Black himself expressed “deep regret” during the sentencing hearing for the $1.2 billion in shareholder value that has been lost during the tenure of the company management team that succeeded Black’s team.
In a very real sense, the government destroyed Hollinger in order to make a statement in destroying Conrad Black. Sound familiar?