US court frees Conrad Black on bail

The former Telegraph owner Conrad Black is to be released on bail from jail in the US after serving less than three years of his sentence, an appeals court in Chicago ruled yesterday.

The release date for the prisoner, now known as inmate 18330-424, has not yet been announced, after the Illinois appeals court agreed to bail pending the outcome of his appeal.

The Canadian-born Black, a British peer and former media mogul, whose empire included the Daily Telegraph, Jerusalem Post, Canada’s National Post and the Chicago Sun-Times, was convicted in 2007 of fraud and obstruction of justice and sentenced to six-and-a-half years in jail.

He was also ordered to pay $6.1m (£4m) to his old company, Hollinger, whose shareholders he was found guilty of defrauding. The terms for his bail have not yet been set.

He has been serving out his sentence at Coleman prison in Florida. A federal bureau of prisons spokesman said yesterday Black was still in jail and he could not say when he would be released.

Although the appeals court could still rule against him and send him back to jail, the fact that it agreed to release him on bail suggests his chances of avoiding serving the remainder of his sentence are high.

His lawyer, Miguel Estrada, after leaving court said: “Yes, I am pleased, of course.”

Black appealed for bail after the US supreme court ruled in favour of an argument by Estrada that the law used to jail the media mogul had been too vague. The supreme court ordered the Illinois appeals court to review the conviction.

Estrada had argued, in his plea for bail, that Black was unlikely to flee the country or to pose a danger to the community.

Ron Safer, an attorney who represented Hollinger’s in-house lawyer who was convicted along with Black, said: “I am delighted by the ruling … I think it’s the right ruling and it bodes well for proving in court that this was not a matter of harmless error.”

Black, who is a member of the House of Lords as Lord Black of Crossharbour, lived in London and he and his wife, Barbara Amiel, became regulars on the party set. He was famously pictured at a fancy dress party looking like Cardinal Richelieu, although he later said that he was not Richelieu but just a cardinal “because it was the last costume available at the place I went to rent one, and my wife wasn’t Marie Antoinette, only a barmaid”.

The judge told him before sending him to jail in 2007: “You have committed a serious offence, a very serious offence. You have violated your duty to Hollinger International and to your shareholders”.

Black claimed to be undismayed about the prospect of jail time.

“I can cope with it if it comes, and it will … only compound the injustice of this entire vendetta.

“I can get on with anyone and adjust to almost anything, and I don’t consider prison shaming,” he said.

In prison, he has apparently not succumbed to self-pity and has spent part of his time teaching other inmates US history and English.

He was found guilty of diverting funds from the company for his own use. He was also found guilty of obstruction of justice after being seen disappearing with a load of paperwork when the US government was seeking information about his dealings.

The appeals court will have to decide whether the original convictions will stand or whether there should be a new trial.

Even if the conviction is quashed, Black could still be trouble. Forbes magazine reported that the US internal revenue service has opened proceedings to recover $71m in alleged back taxes. Black claims he was not a citizen or resident of the US and, therefore, not eligible to pay US taxes.

Black appealed against his conviction in 2008 and also asked for bail at that time. The court refused both.

Estrada, in the latest appeal for bail, argued that the circumstances surrounding Black’s request for bail “differ quite substantially from those that existed when the appeal court denied application for bail pending his original appeal.”

Black was 25 when he bought his first newspaper title, the Sherbrooke Record, a small Canadian weekly. After two years he had added about 20 newspapers in the Sterling company chain. He took control of the Daily Telegraph in 1985, beating Rupert Murdoch to the title.