Free Conrad Black

In my column for The Week I argue against the recent decision to send Conrad Black back to prison:

Of all the ugly aspects of the American prosecutorial system, one of the ugliest is its sheer randomness. For the massive fraud that wrecked the U.S. mortgage industry and plunged the world economy into a near-depression, there has been hardly any legal reckoning.

Yet there is one financier the U.S. government remains determined to hold in prison to the end: Canadian media magnate Conrad Black.

Back in 2004, Black was formally accused of running a "corporate kleptocracy" in his Hollinger companies, which owned hundreds of newspapers, including the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post, Britain's Daily Telegraph, and Canada's National Post. Black was accused of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from shareholders. During the very weeks when the subprime bubble was frothing to its peak in 2007 — when mortgage brokers were forging signatures and rating agencies were sprinkling triple-A ratings on worthless securities — it was upon Conrad Black (and Conrad Black alone) that the weight of American justice fell.

Black’s business was smashed and his life turned upside down. He was sentenced to 78 months in prison, and buried in tens of millions of dollars in fines and restitution payments. All that came even as his business partners — including the man with day-to-day management of the business — were given light sentences.

Since the first fierce accusation against Black, the legal case has progressively unraveled. Of the 13 counts of fraud originally brought against him, a jury rejected nine, and higher courts all the way up to the Supreme Court have vacated three. Only one count remains, and that involves the improper receipt of $285,000 — a pitiful remnant of the corporate kleptocracy accusation.

Click here to read the full column.