After nearly three months of passively watching witness after witness cast him as a greedy villain, Conrad Black stood up in a Chicago courtroom for the first time on Tuesday and addressed the judge.
“I decline to exercise my right to testify,” Black told U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve.
It was an anticlimactic end to testimony in one of the most widely watched trials in the corporate world this year.
Black’s decision not to take the stand as the defense rested Tuesday and the case moved closer to jury deliberations, while hardly surprising, was nevertheless striking. Outside the courtroom the former press baron has been vocal in his defense since first being accused of corporate fraud and other charges in 2005 by federal prosecutors.
Even in the middle of the lengthy trial, Black — the former chairman of Chicago-based Hollinger International Inc. — did not bite his tongue about the witnesses who had testified against him. The prosecution’s case, Black told the London Guardian, is “hanging like a toilet seat around their necks.”
Given Black’s contempt for the legal proceedings and propensity for colorful language, his defense team made the right call in keeping him off the witness stand, legal observers said.
“I think he would make a terrible witness,” said Hugh Totten, a Chicago trial lawyer who has been watching the case. “He is not a jury-friendly persona. He doesn’t talk like the jurors talk. He has an arrogance about him that he can’t help.”
The decision for Black not to testify in his own defense, though, also conveys a sense of confidence that the defense believes it is in good shape, analysts said.
As the case unfolded the prosecution hammered away, but some court observers — several writing for publications that have watched Black closely for years — think the British lord, through his attorneys, has given as good as he has gotten. The courtroom blogger for the Canadian magazine Maclean’s stated Tuesday that the government’s case appears to have faded “from a sinister shade to a pale and limpid light grey.”
Black and three other former Hollinger executives, John Boultbee, Peter Atkinson and Mark Kipnis, are accused of looting more than $60 million from the international newspaper company, now called Sun-Times Media Group Inc., which owns the Chicago Sun-Times. Black also faces charges of misusing corporate perks.
Closing arguments in the case are scheduled to begin Monday, with the case expected to reach the jury later this month.
Prosecutors relied on the testimony of two former insiders, F. David Radler and Paul Healy, and directors such as former Illinois Gov. James Thompson to show the jury that Black and other executives personally enriched themselves at the expense of shareholders.
The alleged scheme focused on the defendants inserting themselves into non-competition agreements signed with the buyers of Hollinger newspapers, who also testified that they did not request such agreements with the individuals.
In cross-examination, defense lawyers shredded the credibility of Radler, Black’s former second-in-command, and the only witness who tied Black to the fraud scheme. Radler, former publisher of the Sun-Times, has pleaded guilty to one count of fraud and is expected to be sentenced to 29 months in prison.
After prosecutors presented more than 25 witnesses over two months the defense team proceeded with a “less is more” approach.
It wrapped up its case in eight days. In addition to Black, the other defendants declined to testify in their defense.
None of Black’s high-society pals, such as Henry Kissinger or conservative writer William Buckley, were called to the stand as character witnesses. Even the much-anticipated appearance of developer Donald Trump was a bust, as Black’s lawyers decided at the last minute not to call him.
Instead jurors heard from witnesses such as Joan Maida, Black’s longtime personal assistant in Toronto, or Kipnis’ former paralegal, who said she “would trust him with my life.”
Some of these no-name witnesses seemed effective in denting the prosecution’s case. Securities lawyer Christopher Paci, for example, testified that Thompson acknowledged that the audit committee approved the non-compete agreements and that the public disclosures were correct.
Thompson had said earlier that Black and other executives withheld information from the committee about the non-compete payments.
The defense also presented a string of handsomely paid expert witnesses to bolster the case. Their testimony often went into sleep-inducing detail about Canadian tax law and pension benefits.
But some of their testimony was helpful, said Steven Skurka, a Canadian legal analyst who has been writing a Conrad Black blog.
For instance, Boultbee summoned James Reda, a New York executive compensation consultant, who concluded that non-compete agreements are not uncommon and that the size of the payments Hollinger executives received was “within market range.”
Another, Jinyan Li, a Canadian tax-law professor, said there was nothing wrong with sellers proposing non-competes, given Canada’s favorable tax treatment of such payments.
Not every witness helped the defense. Maida was combative testifying about boxes Black removed in 2005 from his Toronto office.
Prosecutors charge that Black obstructed justice by removing documents in the midst of an official proceeding.
“Remember the burden of proof rests with the prosecution,” Skurka said. “It’s not a question of who won the day.”
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asachdev@tribune.com
