Conrad Black | The New York Observer

Conrad Black Overcomes 'Short Leash,' Autographs Books For Canadian Fans Using Computer

Mon, 17 Dec 2007 10:33:25 -0500

Conrad Black can't do much traveling now that he's been convicted on charges of fraud and obstruction of justice. This means he might have to go to jail pretty soon, but it also means that in the meantime, he can't go on tour to promote his recently published biography of Richard Nixon. Ouch! What's a fella to do?

According to The New York Times, he just whips out his trusty LongPen, which is a recent...

Conrad Black to Get Six and a Half to Eight Years

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 12:54:51 -0500

The judge in the trial of Canadian media mogul Conrad Black has announced she will consider a range of between 78 and 97 months (or six and a half to eight years) in sentencing, reports the Chicago Sun-Times. That's seen as good news for Mr. Black, who could have faced 20 years after being convicted in July of fraud and obstruction of justice.

Mr. Black is expected to deliver a lengthy court-room...

Feds Want to Seize Black's Profit from Park Avenue Apartment Sale

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 10:11:44 -0400

The federal government wants to seize the money Conrad Black made from the $8.5 million sale of his Park Avenue apartment.

According to this morning's Financial Times, the seizure would be part of a government effort to get $17 million from Mr. Black and two other executives of his Hollinger International following their fraud convictions in June.

According to documents filed yesterday, the US attorney's office for the northern district of Illinois is requesting that...

Will Lady Black Write Conrad Trial Memoir?

Mon, 16 Jul 2007 10:05:55 -0400

We're a little obsessed with Barbara Amiel, devoted wife of Conrad Black who once said of herself in a Vogue profile: "I have an extravagance that knows no bounds."

So imagine our excitement so see that Richard Siklos had written a short piece about the Lady Black!

Like her husband, Ms. Amiel has had detractors over the years and has shown little interest publicly in portraying herself as a sympathetic character. Mark Steyn, a former columnist...

Conrad Black Found Guilty On Four Counts

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 12:40:34 -0400

A Chicago jury has found Conrad Black guilty on four of thirteen chages, three days after a judge ordered them back into deliberation. The jury had said it could not reach a consensus on all of the 16 charges being brought against four executives of Hollinger, Inc.

However, in the mixed jury verdict, Black was acquitted of nine counts that included wire fraud and racketeering.

The former Hollinger chief once presided over an empire that included...

Nixon’s Still the One

Tue, 22 May 2007 14:29:15 -0400

THE INVINCIBLE QUEST: THE LIFE OF RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON By Conrad Black McClelland & Stewart, 1,152 pages, $45 NIXON AND KISSINGER: PARTNERS IN POWER By Robert Dallek HarperCollins, 740 pages, $32.50 VERY STRANGE BEDFELLOWS: THE SHORT AND UNHAPPY MARRIAGE OF RICHARD NIXON AND SPIRO AGNEW By Jules Witcover PublicAffairs, 412 pages, $27.95 RICHARD M. NIXON By Elizabeth Drew Times Books, 187 pages, $22

There are not-crooks, and then there are not-crooks. ...

Oh, Canada! Conrad Black’s Pub Date Pushed for Trial-Glamour Timing

Wed, 09 May 2007 11:04:06 -0400

“Conrad Black is no dummy when it comes to promotion,” said Douglas Pepper.

Mr. Pepper, the president of the Canadian book-publishing company McClelland & Stewart, was on the phone from Toronto. He was explaining the timing of his client Mr. Black’s new book, The Invincible Quest: The Life of Richard Milhous Nixon, which is scheduled to hit the shelves in bookstores throughout Canada on May 22.

Mr. Black already...

Jay-Z Rents and Big Deals

Mon, 26 Sep 2005 04:34:01 -0400

Jay-Z is heading over to the celebrity-filled Time Warner Center, according to the New York Post. The rapper and music and clothing entrepreneur will be renting a four-room apartment for $40,000 a month. Embattled media mogul Conrad Black recently sold his co-op at 635 Park Avenue to developer Marty Berman for $10.5 million, according to New York magazine. And Hugh Jackman has been looking around some pricey properties lately, most recently in Harvey Weinstein’s...

The Wannabes: Giuliani and Pataki

Sun, 12 Sep 2004 20:00:00 -0400

The first-ever Republican convention in New York was supposed to be a showcase for a pair of New Yorkers who are said to have national ambitions: former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and three-term Governor George Pataki. Both were given key assignments-Mr. Giuliani gave a tone-setting first-night address, while Mr. Pataki had the honor of introducing President George W. Bush on the convention's climactic evening.

Many commentators have declared that both men took full advantage of the...

Lord Conrad Black's Hollinger: A Rat's Nest

Sun, 08 Feb 2004 19:00:00 -0500

It seems that rarely a week goes by without another revelation about the financial shenanigans of Conrad Black, the former Canadian press mogul whose dishonorable business career has captured the undivided attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the angry shareholders of Hollinger International, the publicly traded newspaper conglomerate that Lord Black ran until resigning as C.E.O. last summer. But whereas the initial picture was of a narcissistic windbag with few qualms about...

Journalists or Hired Flacks?

Sun, 11 Jan 2004 19:00:00 -0500

How much does it cost to buy good will from George Will? And what's the going rate to get a bucking-up from William F. Buckley? Ask Lord Conrad Black, the embattled media magnate under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney's office, whose recently published, long-winded, pedantic biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt bears fulsome blurbs from the above two journalists on its dust jacket. As Jacques Steinberg and Geraldine Fabrikant...

Lord Conrad Black: Arrogance, Pretense and Sleaze

Sun, 14 Dec 2003 19:00:00 -0500

In his tumescent 1,280-page doorstop-worthy biography of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Lord Black, a.k.a. Conrad Black, the former Canadian press magnate, member of the House of Lords and recent C.E.O. of Hollinger International, the disintegrating newspaper conglomerate, gives a little less than one page to the establishment of the Securities and Exchange Commission. "The securities bill," writes Lord Black of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, required "timely reporting on financial performance of listed...

Central Park Turns 150

Sun, 11 May 2003 20:00:00 -0400

On July 21, 1853, New York City made the wisest move it has ever made and purchased over 700 acres of swampland. Over the next 16 years, under the guidance of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, the swamp was transformed into the magnificent pastoral oasis we know today.

As Central Park celebrates its 150th anniversary, there are several public events planned, but surely the true glory of the park rests in the private,...

Lord Black Starts Climb; Plus: Gifts for Our Time

Sun, 16 Dec 2001 19:00:00 -0500

"Ho, ho, ho! Why, thank'ee, guv'nor!" cried the red-clad figure

as I slipped him a five-spot. Tugging a wintry forelock, he pressed a bit of paper into my hand. This surprised me. In 50 years of adding my mite to the Salvation Army's Christmas haul, I had never before been given a receipt. As I continued on my way, I looked at it and saw that what I was holding was in fact a coupon entitling me to a...