The Box Show

Paul Waldie has reported, in the Globe and Mail, that the jury has now seen the security-camera video. It was presented with accompanying testimony from the night guard at 10 Toronto, Shahab Mahmood. He testified that "he had been told that no boxes were to leave the building without approval of a court-appointed inspector.... Mr. Mahmood [further testified] that security staff had also been told not to confront executives who removed documents but to make a note of it. Mr. Mahmood said that, on a video monitor, he saw Lord Black take out the boxes but he did not move to stop him."

Mr. Waldie added to his article in a BNN Interview, aired at 1:55 PM ET. According to Mr. Waldie, Conrad Black's explanation for the removal of the boxes is comprised of these three items: he had been evicted from the Hollinger Inc. head office just before he took them; the boxes contained personal items; and, there was nothing in the boxes that's relevant to the case. The jurors have already heard from the two security guards who were on duty during the day (and night) of Mr. Black's removal of the boxes. The prosecution only got the boxes a few weeks ago, but they did have an inventory of their contents before the trial began. That inventory was entered into the record. They have a couple of more witnesses to go: a tax expert and a real-estate agent. The defense may begin tomorrow, but more probably Thursday. It isn't certain as to who the first defense witness will be, nor is the order of witnesses certain. Each defendant can call them one by one, so one defendant doesn't have to run through his entire list before the other one calls his first.

Andrew Stern of Reuters has a report that gets to the nub of the obstruction-of-justice charge and Conrad Black's defense against it: "Prosecutors say the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alerted Black's attorney on May 19 that Black would be served with a written request to surrender certain records for the investigation that was under way at the time. Prosecutors said the notice was served on Black's lawyer on May 20. The defence has said it did not receive it or was unaware of the SEC request." The report also has excerpts from the direct examination itself, and notes that the lawyer for Mr. Black asking the questions is Marc Martin.

An updated version of the same report has, on its second page, an excerpt from the testimony of Monique Delorme, a former comptroller at Hollinger Inc., who testified that "it was her understanding that 'a Hollinger Inc. employee could not alone authorize the removal of documents' without the inspectors giving their approval." A Bloomberg report, by Joe Schneider and Andrew Harris, has more from her testimony, including: Ernst and Young's insistence that the boxes remain in the office; and, Hollinger Inc's president, Donald Vale, okaying their removal because, he believed, there were only personal items in them.

An article from Medill Reports has details not only on defense objections to the prosecution's obstruction-of-justice charge, it also excerpts the testimony of the prosecution witness after Mr. Mahmood and Ms. Delorme, the "real estate appraisal expert John Miller, of consulting firm Miller Samuel Inc., to give detail Healy was not qualified to give." His figure for the apartment, minus renovations, was $5.2 million. He refused to bend under cross-examination, according to the report. It also notes that "Judge Amy St. Eve reminded the jury that Black is not charged with violating any Canadian court order or Hollinger policy, relating to any removal of items by Black from the company’s Toronto office. "

A report that covers similar ground, by Mary Vallis and webbed by Canada.com, notes that the cross-examination of Mr. Miller included asking him how much the prosecution was paying for his consulting services, and the cross-examination of Ms. Delorme had her admitting that she didn't know what the contents of the boxes were. It also notes that "[t]he prosecution admitted into evidence some of the contents of the controversial boxes late Tuesday, including invoices for expensive purchases Black allegedly made with money from non-compete payments at the heart of the case."

The report from Associated Press, webbed by the International Herald-Tribune, relates that Mr. Miller testified that the renovated apartment had a fair market value of $8.5 million. It also notes that Csr. Genson, while cross-examining Mr. Miller, asked if it was true that the $3 million plus the $4.3 million meant that Mr. Black would "'have $7.3 million... in the apartment,'" a figure close to Mr. Miller's appraisal. He answered, "'From a mathematical standpoint'"

And finally, a much briefer report from the Times Online, focuses upon the 13 boxes and the testimony of Mr. Mahmood.

----------

A post by Douglas Bell, in the Toronto Life Conrad Black trial blog, points to the vagaries inherent in the difference betwen the civil law and the criminal law, revealed by a story about convicted inside trader Joseph Nacchio suing for Qwest to pay his legal bills. Mr. Bell's entry also reveals that Conrad Black had a better outcome when in Delaware court last year, benefitting from a ruling that obliged Hollinger International to pay his legal bills.

(I vaguely remember reading stories that revealed things going a little weird in this area, such as the possily urban-legendary story of a burglar suing his victim for a tort resulting from said burgler being injured in the course of his burgling on the victim's property. I can think of a way that things in this nexus could get a little weirder, such as an accused criminal suing a prosecutor for "defamatory" press conferences - or vice-versa, for that matter.)