Conrad Black ordered to pay $6.1 million to shareholders
BY KIM JANSSEN Federal Courts Reporter kjanssen@suntimes.com October 10, 2012 12:58PM
Conrad Black, former chairman of the company that owned the Chicago Sun-Times, must pay $6.1 million to shareholders, a federal judge has ruled. | Al Podgorski~Chicago Sun-Times
Updated: November 12, 2012 11:52AM
Disgraced former media baron Conrad Black must pay $6.1 million to the shareholders he defrauded, a federal judge has ruled.
In what could be the end of an eight-year legal saga that resulted in Black being sentenced to 42 months in prison, Judge William T. Hart ordered Black to pay back $3.8 million in salary and other compensation that he would not have received if he had not defrauded the company he ran, Hollinger International, former owner of the Chicago Sun-Times.
Black must pay a further $2.3 million in interest that has accumulated over the last 8 years, Hart ruled.
Hart noted that Hollinger ultimately lost more than $200 million as a result of Black’s fraudulent schemes and that he “has advanced no reason to believe that he now has any respect for the securities laws or any regret for the losses or costs his violations have caused.”
But the judge declined to levy an additional $4.4 million fine that the Securities and Exchange Commission had sought against Black, writing that Black has already been ordered to pay shareholders $8.7 million in a separate civil case and was fined $125,000 and ordered to forfeit $600,000 as part of his criminal sentence.
Released from federal prison in May, the Canadian-born 68-year-old is barred from living in the U.S. as a result of his conviction.
An attorney for Black could not be immediately reached for comment.
