The rest of the Radler - Tuesday

A report from Paul Waldie, webbed by the Globe and Mail, discloses that Mr. Radler's self-assurance has gone from shielding to annoying. "David Radler spent another testy morning on the witness stand at the Conrad Black trial, snapping back at one defence lawyer and earning stern reminders from the judge to answer the questions." What's getting him into trouble is his known habit of fencing with the cross-examiner - but this time, he's fencing down simple yes-or-no questions. The details end with: "As Mr. Radler left the stand for the morning break, Judge St. Eve told his lawyer, John Duffy, to remind Mr. Radler to just answer questions as they are put."

His better cross-examinational style is showing too. A Canadian Press report, webbed by the Toronto Star, begins with: "David Radler says he was wrong to tell prosecutors Conrad Black's former holding company Hollinger Inc. deserved non-compete payments from the sale of U.S. newspapers and only said that because he was 'rationalizing" his actions.'" (Note the use of the same word that Eddie Greenspan had called 'lying' yesterday. He's still trying to exhibit a kind of remorse for his past statements.)

That same report, written by Romina Maurino and webbed by 680 News, has been updated with details, which put the word "better" above in a somewhat ironic cast. Its second half recounts another correction of another inconsistency, pointed out by Gus Newman, between his statement "(Co-defendant Mark) Kipnis told me that Torys and KPMG were in the room [with respect to the plan to divide the non-compete payments between Hollinger International and Hollinger Inc.], that's as far as I can go" and "an earlier statement from Radler, in which he told investigators that Torys and KPMG were aware of the template and had no problems with its implementation." The earlier "rationalization," mentioned in the above paragraph, dealt with a statement he had made to prosecutors in 2004, before he had signed the plea agreement.

On a BNN interview, aired at 1:47 PM, Mr. Waldie reported that Mr. Radler was still being cross-examined by Csr. Newman. He got Mr. Radler to make this “surprising” admission: when asked if he had seen the final agreement for the sale to CanWest, Radler said that he never saw it, had never read it. The bulk of the cross-examination was “very nitpicky,” revolving around his 2003 statements, but that particular admission was significant, given Mr. Radler's normally hands-on approach. (How significant depends upon how much the jurors have already heard about Mr. Radler's business thoroughness.)

An article from Mary Vallis, as webbed by the Financial Post, starts off by describing Mr. Radler as "soft-spoken" when testifying, but brings up the same details that the earlier reports have. He often doesn't recall details, and has corrected himself several times, once without being prompted by Csr. Newman: "Asked whether it was his responsibility to present the proposed management figures to Hollinger International's audit committee, Mr. Radler initially replied, "'That's correct.'" After a pause, he said further: "'I'm going to correct myself,'.... He then explained that he presented the figures to James Thompson, who was then chairman of the audit committee. 'It was his responsibility to bring it to the audit committee,' Mr. Radler added."

(Mark Steyn's depiction of Mr. Radler as having "a surprisingly limited vocabulary, and one getting more limited every week" sounds like a description of someone under a lot of pressure. Evidently, David Radler now becomes, when pressured, somewhat of a yes-man while on the stand.)

The Reuters report, written by Andrew Stern, fleshes out Mr. Radler's difficult performance on the stand. It describes Mr. Radler as "clearly frustrated at not being allowed to give fuller explanations" to the yes-and-no questions he was posed. It also supplies a certain context to Mr. Radler's quibble over the meaning of "savvy buyer:" when asked by Csr. Newman, 'You said you didn't see anything wrong with ... a non-compete?'... 'As part of a larger explanation," Radler replied, trailing off."

Three other articles, the Bloomberg report and another CP report, both describe the same trial events that the earlier ones have, but the former points out that Judge St. Eve will decide on an appropriate sentence for Mr. Radler at the end of the trial. The latter notes that Mr. Radler used the word "verbalize" when protesting the yes/no questions asked him by Csr. Newman. An update of Ms. Maurino's report, webbed by CBC News, also adds that Mr. Radler once used "'[t]here's more to it'" as well as the word "'verbalize'"

Finally, WQAD.com has webbed an Associated Press summary touching on the highlights of the day.

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The Chicago Reader blog "News Bites" has a blow-by-blow recounting of the final part of Eddie Greenspan's cross-examination of David Radler, with a skeptical inquiry into how things really are in the two minimum-security prisons in B.C. that Csr. Greenspan mentioned. The author, Michael Miner, concludes that they're not that idyllic as Csr. Greenspan portrayed, but they're not that bad.

There's an absorbing post-Greenspan analysis of the cross-examination of David Radler by Steve Skurka in "The Crime Sheet." Near its end, he suggests that Judge St. Eve had handed too much rope to the prosecutors yesterday; she's yanked it back later in the day and today.


Also, an in-depth look at the cross-examination of Mr. Radler by Edward Greenspan has been written by Matthew McClearn over at Canadian Business. In Part 1, he re-caps Mr. Radler's testimony under direct examination, in a fact-sheet format, after recapping his own, pre-Radler assessment of how the prosecution was doing: "In an earlier journal entry [here], I argued that the government had done a good job showing the problematic nature of the non-compete agreements paid from International to the defendants and companies within Black’s newspaper empire—and an inadequate job proving that the defendants engaged in any conspiracy to defraud anyone." At the end of the fact sheet, he doesn't modify this conclusion: "Granted, even if all of Radler’s testimony was true, the case still wouldn’t be a slam-dunk. But if it holds up under fierce cross-examination, most (if not all) of the defendants may have suffered serious damage."

Part 2 examines Csr. Greenspan's cross, with this conclusion: "The thrust of his questioning seemed to be that Radler told the truth during his earlier protestations of innocence, but changed his story save his own hide. It that’s the inference he wants jurors to draw, I think Greenspan may have further to go." He also mentions that some of Csr. Greenspan's questions encroached upon Mr. Radler's attorney-client privilege, to the ire of Mr. Radler's lawyer at the trial, John Duffy. Mr. McClearn reports that Csr. Duffy's complaints had left Judge St. Eve "chastened," which is not the best thing to do. As noted at the top of this entry, Judge St. Eve had some chastening words for Mr. Duffy today.