Lord Black's Friday the Thirteenth

 

I know it is in poor taste to gloat about another's misfortune, but when it is one so arrogant as Conrad Black and the misfortune so self engineered .......well, I can feel a bit of satisfaction without hating myself.

According to the New York Times at 12:04 ET today (registration required):

CHICAGO (AP) -- A federal jury convicted fallen media tycoon Conrad Black and three of his former executives at Hollinger International Inc. Friday of illegally pocketing money that should have gone to stockholders.

Black, 62, was convicted of three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice. He faces a maximum of 35 years in prison for the offenses, plus a maximum penalty of $1 million

After thirteen weeks of trial and 75 pages of jury instructions the Chicago jury came back with guilty verdicts on four felonies against Lord Black of Cross Harbour. The Obstruction of Justice charge was pretty much a gimme as Conrad was so arrogantly confident that he was doing no wrong, and even if he was, he was above (or below) the law to such a degree he could blatantly allow himself to be video taped by a surveilance camera as he violated court orders from two countries.

The immediate questions remaining are whether his Peerness will be allowed to roam free until sentencing in November on the current convictions, and the general consensus is probably, although he has had to surrender his British Passport. Then of course, will he get jail time? I would think so as Radler his former partner who turned states evidence got thirty months or so. Speculation is that His Lordship will most likely be given 3 to 8 years, unfortunately (for justice), most likely at Club Fed rather than a real jail full of gang members and Neo-Nazi Aryan Nation types.

Next Thursday is his next court date regarding whether he has to wait for sentencing in jail or not and he is supposed to stay in the Chicago area until then. Of course we know already how much respect Mr. Black has for court orders and he apparently still refuses to entertain the notion that he did anything wrong.

To me this is the question I would ask his Mucky-Muckness: Con(how appropriate that the word Con is in his name)rad, will you be a man like Martha Stewart and Paris Hilton and do your time? Or will you be a wimp like Scooter Libby and weasel out of it somehow? Dana over at the Galloping Beaver put it better than I could without thinking about it for a couple weeks in Conrad Black To Be Pardoned:

George Bush's pardon list acquired another name today.

Black's lawyers will file the appeals and the motion to avoid jail pending the process and then string things out long enough so that the formerly Canadian fascist bastard can be pardoned by the skinny fascist American prick on January 20, 2009.

snip.....

Another day another reason for cynicism.

Even if His Lardship manages to avoid jail, or much jailtime, it appears he may well be in court for the rest of his life - a fate almost as bad as the big house and maybe worse than Club Fed. It is certainly more expensive than jail, and depending on the outcome of the billions of dollars worth of outstanding suits against him, he may need a cell to have a place off of the street to sleep at night. According to the Canadian Press some of the pending actions against Black include:

-Sun-Times Media Group Inc., formerly Hollinger International, is suing Black for US$542 million, accusing him and other former executives of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from the company. Suit alleges they engaged in racketeering, allowing the company to seek triple damages under U.S. anti-corruption laws.

-Toronto-based Hollinger Inc. (TSX:HLG.C) is suing Black, claiming damages of more than US$700 million, including breach of contract, conspiracy, unjust enrichment and unlawful interference with Hollinger's economic interest.

-Sotheby's International Realty Inc. claims Black owes US$557,000 in commission on the sale of his Park Avenue apartment.

-U.S. institutional investor Cardinal Capital is involved in several suits against Black's companies, including a Chicago-based lawsuit alleging federal securities violations filed by a group including a Louisiana teachers' pension fund.

-Canadian investors have launched $4-billion class-action lawsuit against Black, his wife Barbara Amiel Black, David Radler and others, alleging they suffered market losses that may have been caused by the controversies surrounding Black's management.

As well Lardbutt Black is suing pretty much everyone he and his lawyers can think of including, Hollinger International, the US Government and British author Tom Bower, author of Conrad & Lady Black: Dancing on the Edge. So Lord Black can pretty well delete "good-bye" and "see ya later" from his vocabulary of 35 cent words and just tell everyone "See you in Court" as he takes his leave.

So one word of advice Conrad, in stir, don't dress like this,

even at Club Fed. But if you could bring your high maintenance harridan, Lady (cough, cough) Black with you to the joint, she might scare the mean guys more than you could.....just looking out for your fat, greedy, arrogant ass, dude.

Not So Glorious Fourth

Below is what Americans are supposed to celebrate on the Fourth of July. The Declaration of Independence, signed this day in 1776, which led to the creation of the United States of America.

 

I am posting a reproduction of the original rather than the William Stone engraving of 1823, the most common version seen these days as it is more legible. Somehow though on this Fourth the illegible almost decayed original seems more in keeping with the state of the ideals of the Founding Fathers in the New American Empire under the not so benign rule of a new King George - the Pretender and his Boss - Big Dick.

 

Under the mal-Administration of the Bu$h Crime Family the goals and dreams of liberty and equality that the great men who signed this document staked their lives on are as faded and almost dust just like the parchment and ink of this once proud and relevant document.

This Fourth of July, rather than a symbol of what you have to celebrate, this document should perhaps serve as instructions for how to get back what is being lost........

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

Source Paragraph II of the Declaration of Independence - bolding rHk