Besides the verdict, Conrad Blacks’ hearing in a Chicago federal court today was marked by the usual incivility that’s marred this case from the beginning. The government having taken what can only be described as a royal shit-kicking when compared to what they set out to prove at trial ($60 million fraud knocked down to six hundred grand), was left trying to prove that Conrad Black wasn’t exactly Mr. Chips in his stint as a prison tutor (an image that Black had done his best to fashion, claiming that on his release students had asked to accompany him to the prison gate).
The affidavits solicited by the prosecution from prison managers beggar credulity. In it they accuse Black of “reading newspapers, reading novels, and writing what appeared to be a book…”and electing “to take a piano class,” rather than attending to his duties as a tutor. Moreover, “he projected the attitude that he was better than others in the class both faculty and students. A lot of the students looked up to him, and there were some who saluted him each day in class.” Imagine Conrad Black behaving in such a manner as to elicit admiration. The gall.
At any rate, in the end Black quoted Kipling before the court to good effect: “If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you…” The judge, Amy St. Eve, dismissed the contradictory BS from the prison staff, and as she invariably does split the difference and punted Black back inside for another year (he’ll likely do even less than that). Oh yeah, and as a last circus act Black’s wife Barbara Amiel, upon the reading of the sentence, displaying her usual sang froid, suddenly collapsed in a heap and had to be attended to by medical staff.
Black’s got two weeks to appeal. Though after all this I doubt he’s holding his breath.
