Prosecutor Fitzgerald is cleaning out the Augean Stable of Right-Wing Corruption. Let's hope that he goes after even bigger sharks soon. Woodward is nothing more than a smelt swimming in this sea of corruption, but Conrad Black is the Moby Dick of right-wing news moguls.
Conrad Black, the conservative media mogul who has headed some of the world's largest papers, was charged Thursday with a $51.8 million fraud.
The 11-count indictment against Black and three fellow former executives were unsealed in Chicago, bringing to a head several years of legal entanglements over his allegedly fraudulent behavior.
Prosecutors issued a warrant for Black's arrest and offered him a chance to turn himself in. U.S. attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who is also handling the high-profile CIA leak case involving the White House, said the U.S. would seek extradition if Black does not comply.
The indictment alleges that Black used an elaborate money-making scheme to pay for lavish trips to the South Pacific.
At one time, Black's Hollinger International empire included London's Daily Telegraph, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post and 60 percent of Canada's dailies, prompting comparisons between Black and Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch.
Black, 61, made headlines five years ago when he gave up his Canadian citizenship to become a British citizen and join the House of Lords. He was ousted as chairman and chief executive officer of Hollinger International, the company he built and then helped dismantle, in 2003, following allegations that he helped loot the company.
The $51.8 million fraud charges follow a separate August indictment for $32 million in fraud, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.
Black's prosecution is the highest-profile criminal case against a former CEO since the arrests last year of WorldCom Inc.'s Bernard Ebbers and Enron Corp.'s Kenneth Lay, who were entangled in two of the largest corporate fraud scandals in U.S. history.
After his 2003 ouster from Hollinger International, Black last year quit as chairman and chief executive of another of his network of companies - Hollinger Inc. - as a Canadian court was about to consider a shareholder's request to remove him from both posts.
Last year, a special report filed with the U.S. stock regulatory agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), accused Black and his chief operating officer F. David Radler - who was not charged Thursday - of running a "corporate kleptocracy" to pocket $400 million over seven years.
Black and three other former top Hollinger executives -Ravelston Corp. chief financial officer John Boultbee; Hollinger Inc. general counsel Peter Atkinson; and Hollinger International corporate counsel Mark Kipnis -were charged with cheating public shareholders in the United States and Canada, and dodging Canada's tax authorities, an official statement said.
Ravelston is yet another of the companies involved in the shell game.
"Insiders at Hollinger - all the way to the top of the corporate ladder - whose job it was to safeguard the shareholders, made it their job to steal and conceal," Fitzgerald said in the statement.
Black and Boultbee are each charged with eight counts of mail and wire fraud. Atkinson faces six counts of mail and wire fraud. Kipnis is charged with nine counts of mail and wire fraud.
Each fraud count carries a prison term of five years and a $250,000 fine.
The indictments describe two schemes allegedly carried out by the defendants. The first involved the diversion of $51.8 million from Hollinger International's $2.1 billion sale of assets to CanWest Global Communications Corp. in 2000.
The second alleged that Black abused corporate perks provided by Hollinger International, including $40,000 to pay for his wife's surprise birthday party in 2000, and the use of the company's corporate jet for a personal vacation to the South Pacific.
Last year's report to the SEC said Black and his wife once spent $530,000 in corporate funds on a 33-hour trip to Bora Bora.
The charges allege that the four men engaged in a series of "either secret or false and misleading transactions" in the sale of newspaper publishing groups in the U.S. and Canada.
After Black's ouster, U.S.-based Hollinger International sold Britain's Daily and Sunday Telegraph and the Jerusalem Post.