Cleanup Batters, Part 1

The testimony of the first witness of the week has been disclosed in a report written by Romina Maurino and webbed by the Toronto Star. That witness was journalist John O'Sullivan, who testified that "[a] posh birthday party for Conrad Black's wife was really a business event 'masquerading' as a social gathering and was not unlike other Hollinger International dinners... O'Sullivan, who has known the Black family for more than 20 years, said he attended the dinner and considered it a 'business event masquerading as a social occasion.'" To back this opinion up, he noted that two of the prominent guests were not personal friends of the Blacks.

Paul Waldie added to the above in a BNN interview, aired at 1:55 PM. He reported that Edward Genson had shown some documents to the court before John O'Sullivan began his testimony. Entered into evidence was a death threat that Conrad Black had received in July 1999. An E-mail from Richard Perle, which had warned Mr. Black to get in touch with the U.K. police about it, was also entered. These two E-mails are related to Conrad Black's claim that he had used the Hollinger International corporate jet largely for security purposes. After testifying about the business nature of the birthday party, Mr. O’Sullivan admitted that he didn’t know the details of how it was planned. This afternoon, forensic auditor and former FBI agent Alan Funk is expected to take the stand; Mr. Funk looks like the last witness. With regard to his article about the ex-juror's belief that the defendants are not guilty, Mr. Waldie noted that she did miss most of the testimony as a juror, including David Radler's. She's been watching the trial subsequently, though, and still has doubts.

An updated version of Ms. Romino's report, webbed by Canada East Online, has an excerpt from the cross-examination of Mr. O'Sullivan by Eric Sussman. "Lead prosecutor Eric Sussman tried to portray O'Sullivan as a biased witness, suggesting he owed Black 'a debt of gratitude' after the mogul helped him secure a position as editor-at-large of the National Review magazine." Mr. O'Sullivan disagreed with the suggestion that an investment by Mr. Black in National Review was a disguised payoff to get him the job. The report also has a few excerpts from that threatening E-mail.

A Bloomberg report on Mr. O'Sullivan's testimony, written by Bob Van Voris and Andrew Harris, has also been webbed. It confirms that "O'Sullivan... testified that the primary purpose of Barbara Amiel Black's birthday party was business networking." Also contained in it is a brief profile of Mr. O'Sullivan.

So has a Reuters report, written by Andrew Stern. It has more details on the cross-examination of Mr. O'Sullivan: Csr. Sussman suggested that Mr. Black had been quite the patron to this defense witness. In addition to Mr. Black putting Mr. O'Sullivan in as an opinion page advisor to the National Post, a $400,000 investment in the National Interest magazine had accompanied Mr. O'Sullivan's appointment as editor-in-chief. "To make his point, Sussman read what he said was a memo from National Interest publisher Irving Kristol prior to O'Sullivan's appointment at the journal, explaining that he didn't want O'Sullivan to work there." Until, Csr. Sussman added, that investment had been made. Mr. O'Sullivan countered that the Nixon Center had bought a half-interest, and that National Interest executives had "'asked me to become editor.'"

Mary Vallis' report, webbed by the Financial Post, says that Mr. O'Connor testified, under direct examination by Eddie Greenspan, that "several of the attendees at the December 2000 event were not close friends of the Blacks... He also agreed that 11 of 14 members of Hollinger International Inc.'s board were in attendance." It also contains a courtroom joke about the threatening E-mail introduced as evidence this morning. [I got the link to this article through the National Post's blog "Posted."]

A third version of Ms. Maurino's report, webbed by 570 News, has details on Mr. Funk's testimony, given under direct examination, at its end. He testified that "he didn't find any evidence of fraud when reviewing documents used by auditors KPMG in an investigation of deals that involved non-compete payments." In fact, he testified that the disclosure he saw was inconsistent with a pattern of fraud. "He also testified he did not find any evidence of shredded or doctored documents, or of 'cooked books.'"

More of Mr. Funk's testimony has been added to an updated version of the Reuters report, starting on page 2 of it. He stated while on the stand that "'[a]ll the essential information was disclosed to the auditors,'... Funk said he based his findings on watching parts of the trial and his review of documents including internal working papers of Hollinger's auditors, KPMG." He also disclosed that he had billed $425/hour for his forensic work.

There's more excerpted from that threatening E-mail in Ms. Maurino's third revision of her report, as webbed by 680 News: "'Money. Power. It all comes to nothing,' the e-mail read [in part.] 'And how do these rich people do it - so gosh damned happy all the time? Mr. Black has never learned that dark art, and if he hasn't learned it by now, he probably never will, which is great news, at least from the point of view of this prophet.'"

And finally, James Bone of the Times Online provides a recap of all the day's trial events, including a mention of Sandra Grubar.

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Mark Steyn is back on the "Jim (the Skim) Thompson" theme in his Maclean's Conrad Black trial blog. After subjecting Jeffrey Cramer's opening statement to methodical mockery which cumulates with "when you need an unwitting front man for your conspiracy they don't come any dumber than a former federal prosecutor," he concludes, "[t]he reality is: The Skimmer signed off on everything. He always did. Maybe, from the vantage of 2007, he shouldn't have. But at the time he did. End of story."

In a rare moment of harmonization, Douglas Bell, in the Toronto Life Conrad Black trial blog, says that Mr. Waldie's report, at a minimum, "bodes well for the defence." The regular Toronto Life day poll, asking "Based on today's evidence, I think Conrad Black is Guilty/Not Guilty," squares with his latest post. As of 4:50 PM ET, it's running 2 to 1 in favour of "Not Guilty." That's the most pro-defense result I've seen so far from it.

An old article, dated May 4, that was webbed by The Lawyers Weekly discussed the fallout for Torys, LLP as a result of two of their lawyers being dragged into the Conrad Black trial. It concludes that there will be none after the dust settles. Steve Skura is one of the lawyers quoted in it.

Csr. Skurka himself has some comments on the trial in an entry posted today in his blog "The Crime Sheet." They come after his description of a code of honour in the Canadian legal profession (or calling) that treats an oral agreement with the same seriousness as a written contract, a tradition that makes such contracts normally superfluous. He points out that the reason explaining why Mark Kipnis is the only defendant to call a character witness is that such a maneuver allows the prosecution to call rebuttal witnesses; Mark Kipnis is the only defendant with none.