A federal judge on Friday postponed the start of Conrad Black’s trial by one week, to March 14, after defense attorneys said they are hopelessly swamped with hundreds of thousands of pages of documents in the fraud case.
Defense attorneys for Black and co-defendants Mark Kipnis, Peter Atkinson and John Boultbee said they cannot possibly hope to be prepared for trial after receiving voluminous files from prosecutors over the last three months.
The men are charged in a complex financial scheme that prosecutors allege defrauded the newspaper company formerly known as Hollinger International Inc. of tens of millions of dollars.
At its height, the company’s holdings included the Chicago Sun-Times, the London Daily Telegraph and the Jerusalem Post. Now known as Sun-Times Media Group Inc., the company owns the Sun-Times and a group of suburban papers.
U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve rejected a request from Black lawyer Edward Genson that the defense have until mid-May to begin trial.
“I’m frankly not convinced you can’t get ready for trial in time,” St. Eve said.
Prosecutors argued that many of the documents recently provided to the defense are duplicates of material provided last year.
They also told St. Eve they are awaiting a decision from a Canadian court that would permit Black’s holding company, Ravelston Corp., to plead guilty to fraud in the case.
Ravelston, a Canadian company, is under receivership and is seeking to plead guilty to one count of fraud in the case and pay a $7 million fine.
If the other defendants are found guilty at trial, St. Eve will decide what portion of nearly $83 million in restitution would fall to Ravelston and what portion would fall to the other defendants.
Black remains Ravelston’s majority shareholder and opposes the company’s request to plead guilty, said Edward Greenspan, his lead defense attorney.
If Ravelston pleads guilty, the company is expected to provide documents that involve transfers of funds from Ravelston to Black, Greenspan said.
St. Eve, meanwhile, warned all the defendants that if any of them intend to plead guilty, they must do so by Feb. 20 to receive leniency.
None of the defendants has indicated he will plead guilty, and Black promised again outside of court to defend himself against the charges.
“We’re going to try the case,” said Black, who was ousted as Hollinger’s chief executive in November 2003 and fired as chairman in January 2004.
Black’s longtime partner, former Sun-Times Publisher F. David Radler, pleaded guilty a year ago under a plea bargain in which he agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
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