Former media mogul Conrad Black will not be allowed to return to Canada under the conditions of his $2 million bail, a federal judge ruled today.
Black, 65, appeared in front of U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve at the Dirksen Federal Building two days after leaving the Florida prison where he had been serving a six-and-a-half year sentence since March 2008. St. Eve asked Black to return to court August 16 with a complete financial affidavit and she will consider his request to return to Canada again then.
The former CEO of Chicago Sun-Times parent company Hollinger International arrived in court with his wife, Barbara Amiel Black, and gave a thumbs up as he passed reporters.
An appellate court granted Black’s plea for bail after the U.S. Supreme Court set aside his fraud convictions and ordered the lower court to reconsider the case, finding a law used to prosecute him to be too vague. Black was convicted in 2007 of defrauding shareholders. Late last month, the Supreme Court drastically narrowed the federal law that made it illegal to deprive a person or shareholders of the right to honest services.
Black was also convicted of obstruction of justice, after the jury saw videotapes of him removing boxes of documents from his office that had been sought in the investigation.