Conrad Black Asks For New Trial

By: E&P Staff One month after his conviction on federal fraud and obstruction of justice charges, deposed newspaper mogul Conrad Black wants his trial judge to order an acquittal or a new trial.

In motions filed late Monday in U.S. District Court in Chicago, attorneys for Black argue it would be a "miscarriage of justice to let the verdict stand."

Judge Amy St. Eve should consider the credibility of the witnesses against Black, the attorneys argue -- especially the testimony of his longtime business partner turned star witness for the prosecution, former Chicago Sun-Times Publisher F. David Radler.

Radler was the chief operating officer at the Sun-Times parent company then known as Hollinger International, and a partner with Black in other companies in the complicated corporate web used to control a newspaper empire that extended to three continents. As part of plea bargain that will allow him to serve a shorter prison sentence in his native Canada, Radler testified in support of the government's allegations that Black and other top Hollinger officials schemed to pocket phony non-compete fees on the sell-off the chain's newspapers. In eight days of testimony, Radler also came under withering cross-examination by defense lawyers who repeatedly called him a liar.

"The only evidence linking Mr. Black to the payments ... is the unsupported, incredible testimony of the government's co-operating witness, F. David Radler," the defense filing said. "The alleged telephone call on which the government's case rests were undocumented, and even Radler himself could not remember them in detail."

The motions for a new trial or directed acquittal were first reported by the Canadian Press.

Also filing for new trials or acquittals were two of Black's three co-defendants, former Hollinger CFO John "Jack" Boultbee and former company Vice President Peter Atkinson. They and Black, along with former Hollinger General Counsel Mark Kipnis, were convicted of three counts of fraud relating to non-compete fees from the sale of a newspaper group. They were acquitted of seven additional charges of fraud, and Black was also acquitted of racketeering and income tax fraud charges.

Defense lawyers for Boultbee said the government never tied the former executive to a conspiracy to loot Hollinger, as prosecutors said they would in opening statements.

"The government represented to the court that it would prove a conspiracy of which Boultbee was a member and, on the basis of that representation, the court admitted an enormous amount of otherwise inadmissible and highly prejudicial hearsay evidence against Boultbee," the filing said. "The government not only failed to prove such a conspiracy; it never tried."

Black's lawyers said the government had not proved its case of obstruction of justice -- which stemmed videotape from a security camera showing Black removing boxes from his Toronto office despite a court order -- and that the charge improperly allowed the jury to hear about a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the newspaper baron.

Black is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 30. Radler?s sentencing has been set for Dec. 10.