The Close For Conrad Black

Mark Steyn has the first details from the closing argument for Conrad Black. The first part is being given by Eddie Greenspan, and he started off by mentioning the dearth of shareholders amongst the prosecution witnesses. "'"Where are those shareholders [who allegedly were swindled by the defendants]? Where are those victims?'"

A report webbed by CTV News has additional details on the start of the first defense closing argument. "Toronto lawyer Edward Greenspan asked jurors to listen to both sides of the story before they formed their decision. He said they have a serious obligation that could affect the lives of four people." It also said, before recounting Judy Ruder's earlier closing argument, that Csr. Greenspan is exoected to spend "several hours" on his part of Conrad Black's closing argument.

Mr. Steyn, in a subsequent entry, disclosed that Csr. Greenspan is picking apart the prosecution's opening statement, and is also playing excerpts from the Hollinger International annual meeting held in 2003. (Ersatz redirect?)

A report on the same part of the closing argument, written by Rick Westhead and webbed by the Toronto Star, quotes an excerpt from one of those tape snippets. "The jurors listened to an audio clip from Hollinger's 2003 annual shareholders' meeting. Lee Hawkins, head of Hollinger shareholder Southeastern Asset Management suggested Black had built a 'very capable management team.'"

"[Csr. Greenspan concluded:]'What does this show you? That there are two sides to every story." The report also notes that Csr. Greenspan included an apologia for his earlier aggressiveness as part of his contention that lifestyle details, as well as unappealing personality characteristics, are irrelevant to the trial.

A brief Canadian Press report, webbed by 680 News, summarizes the closing argument so far as: "Conrad Black is not a thief, his lawyer says, and the jury in his fraud trial should consider the possibility that prosecutors are wrong about the former press baron...."

This point has been expanded on in a report by Mary Vallis, as webbed by the Edmonton Journal. It also elaborates upon the lifestyle issue: "Greenspan lashed out at the prosecution for mentioning Black's purchase of heated towel racks, elephant statues and antiques during the trial as attempts to prejudice the jury against his client and convict him because of 'his wealth, his lifestyle or his vocabulary' instead of the facts." He added that it was irregular in America to convict someone merely of being rich.

In his next two entries, Mr. Steyn noted that the "bubblegum blonde," who has already captured the attention of several reporters and commenters, is still in the jury box (so she wasn't the one who was excused earlier), but she's "looking very bored." The jurors are not taking notes during Csr. Greesspan's part of the closing address. Also, Csr. Greenspan has emphasized that "'[t]he government wanted to go after Conrad Black... 'They had no documents or other evidence against him;'" he also spelled out a theory on why David Radler plea-bargained: simple risk-aversion.

A later CP report, credited to Romina Maurino and webbed by 570 News, concentrates upon the Radler theme after quoting one of Csr. Greenspan's lines dealing with the smoking-gun consideration: "'The government doesn't have a smoking gun because there isn't one... As Conrad sits here today, he is an innocent man,' he said, arguing the government turned to Black's former partner David Radler to get 'the big fish.'..."

Paul Waldie's report, webbed by the Globe and Mail, also concentrates on the impugnment of Mr. Radler, after recounting the part of Csr. Greenspan's closing argument which deals with the solemn trust the jurors have in their hands. "There were no documents to back up Mr. Radler's key testimony, Mr. Greenspan said. He added that Mr. Radler changed his story on the witness stand several and lied to save himself. Mr. Radler 'is devoid of morals,' he told the jury."

Mr. Steyn has added this detail on the closing argument: "Eddie Greenspan just... pulled up the September 1st 2000 memo sent to each of the three Audit Committee members whose first item is headlined "NON-COMPETITION AGREEMENTS" and details the percentages allocated to non-competes in the relevant US transactions." (There's also a bit of kibitzing.)

The Prince George Citizen has webbed another updated CP report, which has quotes from the more recent part of Csr. Greenspan's closing argument as well as the earlier. He argued that the Audit Committee members were no fools, implying that they knew of the non-compete payments (and other suspicious payments) and approved them because they were above-board.

Moving to televised sources, BNN's Amanda Lang reported on the closing argument, as aired at 1:42 PM ET: Csr. Greenspan is now finished his part, and Edward Genson has begun. The former was "direct” and “down-to-earth.” He focused on Mr. Radler, as mentioned above, itemizing the lies of Radler’s lies that were exposed in the trial. He also emphasized all the relevant paperwork disclosing the non-competes, and said that the Audit Committee members lied on the stand to save their skins. They had approved the payments because those payments were okay but later changed their story under government pressure. According to Ms. Lang, Green, “did a stand-up job.”

She also reported on one "knock-out punch," courtesy of Csr. Genson, through using an evidence chart, one used by the prosecution yesterday to show where those suspicious payments supposedly went. With regard to [a CHNI] non-compete payment, and the surrounding expensive expenditures, he added dates showing that the expensive items were paid for before the suspicious payment had arrived in the bank account. This knocked a prop out of Csr. Ruder's closing address.

The details in the above report regarding Eddie Greenspan's part of the closing address have been filled in by an updated report by Ms. Vallis, as webbed by Canada.com. He implied that any scheme that was afoot had only one member, Mr. Radler himself. As far as the Audit Committee is concerned, "[w]hether the audit committee members were 'Olympic-level synchronized' skimmers or 'Olympic liars,' Black should not be convicted for them, Greenspan argued."

As far as jurors' reactions to Csr. Greenspan's part of the argument are concerned, a further updated report by Ms. Maurino, webbed by CBC News, discloses that "[they] appeared mixed, with several listening attentively and taking notes, while others yawned or rested their eyes."

Other words of Csr. Greenspan are in a report webbed by the Turkish Press. The counselor made a clever point: Conrad Black is very free with his pen when given half the chance, so why are there no implicating E-mails to back up Mr. Radler's word? Why no explicit (as opposed to suggestive) brags about them? (This point may have been prompted by the difficulty that Mr. Black's lawyers have had in restraining him from talking to the press, up to and including the point of formal rebuke.) Csr. Greenspan also said that Mr. Black had thought the buyers had requested the non-compete agreements: "'Of course Conrad thought they were conditions of sale requested by the buyer -- they were written into the contracts... It would be, for him, a logical thing for them to request... Conrad Black was the CEO of one of the world's largest media empires... he had just received 11.9 million for a non-compete requested by the buyer Izzy Asper in the CanWest deal.'"

(The second point reveals something about Conrad Black's business style: letting people make assumptions and then quietly letting them run with them until he pulls the curtain down at a decisive moment. The conclusion that Mr. Black must have known about all of the details of the negotiations for the sales covered by the indictment is based upon the assumption that he was a hands-on negotiator as CEO. Csr. Greenspan implied that he wasn't at the time when the sales were made.)

The Bloomberg report, by Andrew Harris and Bob Van Voris, contains this excerpt from Csr. Greenspan's apology for grilling Mr. Radler so incessantly: "'When someone is falsely accused of a crime, the only way to deal with it is to ask questions,' he told the jurors. 'Do not hold that against Mr. Black.'"

Another subsequent post from Mark Steyn reports that Csr. Genson is moving in on his closing statement. The meat of it, though, describes Genson's delivery, which makes the impact of his arguments in person far different from reading a transcript of them. Mr. Steyn mentions the point that Ms. Lang had reported on earlier (written about above,) noting that the non-compete payment in question had come from a sale to Community Newspapers Holdings, Inc.; he concludes that Csr. Genson's delivery was what "made a small point a big win."

As mentioned previously, the same Bloomberg report has been updated to include the same moment in the closing argument that Mr. Steyn and Ms. Lang mentioned. "Genson produced a list of Black's expenses showing that prosecutors had chosen some and skipped others to add up to the same amount and that many were paid before he received his check.

"'It's not right,' Genson said. 'It's not fair.'' Earlier, Csr. Greenspan had pointed to the 11 instances of disclosure to the Audit Committee, stating that "'[i]f this does not raise reasonable doubt, I don't know what does.'" He also claimed that the committee members had a lot to lose, career-wise, by refraining from telling a simple lie.

[More quotes from Csr. Genson are in the next update to the same report. "Genson said the noncompete deals were put together by Radler and men who worked with him.... 'There is no scheme and he's a liar.' Gensen [also] told jurors that Radler and Black had little in common, ran different parts of the company and were rarely in contact. He contrasted Radler, who cursed in business meetings, according to trial testimony, with Black, 'who writes like a Victorian author... These are not people who hang out,' Gensen said. 'These guys were not pals.'"

[A further update details Csr. Genson's argument that the 60th birthday party for Barbara Black was indeed a business event, and that the cost split was fair.]

BNN aired an on-the-fly analysis from Jacquie McNish, aired at about 4:05 PM, who claimed that Csr. Greenspan's assertion that there was no smoking gun isn't true. David Radler is a living smoking gun, according to Ms. McNish. She wondered why Csr. Greenspan did not engage the prosecution's closing address more directly. Ms. McNish also speculated that the apologia was included because Csr. Greenspan was worried about previously alienating the jury.

Stephanie Kirchgaessner's report, webbed by MSNBC.com, contains these quotes from the more rhetorical part of Csr. Greenspan's part of the closing argument: "The prosecution had 'bargained for and bought' Mr Radler's testimony to go after Lord Black... and, in return, Mr Radler was heading to 'some country club farm' – in other words, a prison in his native Canada – 'where he will work on the tan he sported' during the trial.... The government wants you to rely on David Radler to convict Conrad Black for relying on David Radler. This is not a quip. It's not a joke. This is the government's case.'" Near its end, it also contains a bit of cleverness from Csr. Genson, relating to that CHNI payment which the prosecution tried to use to show motive: "Lord Black's expenses exceeded $4.3m but the government had 'cherry-picked' items off Lord Black's accounts – which were shown in full – that totalled $4.3m to make it appear as if Lord Black needed the money."

A third interview with Ms. Lang on BNN, aired at approx. 5:45 PM ET, started with her reviewing the highlights of the closing argument so far. Once again, she went out of her way to emphasize Csr. Genson's (metaphorical) ripping apart of part of the prosecution’s evidence-board exhibit. She also noted that Csr. Greenspan had begun unimpressively, in terms of delivery, but he gave a “solid” performance through sticking to two themes: the government’s case resting on Mr. Radler’s unsubstantiated word and reasonable doubt. The strong point of his part of the argument was his emphasis on the latter.

His tackling of the non-compete agreements issue had an argument that was, according to Ms. Lang, "sublime." After saying that the CanWest non-compete was the first one Conrad Black had signed as an individual, Csr. Greenspan claimed that the rest were presented to Mr. Black by Mr. Radler. The prosecution expects the jury to believe David Radler, while also expecting the jury to expect Mr. Black to have disbelieved the same man. He also made the general suggestion that Ms. Ruder's presentation implies that any defense should be interpreted as further justification of the crime.

The lifestyle issues have been emphasized more by the defense than by the prosecution, because the defense wants to bring up the possibility of class demagogy on the part of the prosecution. Csr. Genson is not finished yet; the afternoon stretch of his part of the closing argument has been workmanlike, with few quotable moments.

Another reporter, James Bone, has written an article for the Times Online on Csr. Greenspan's part of the closing argument, which notes that Greenspan neatly tied in the customary jurors' flattery with a reminder that the job of juror is too important to decide cases through using personal animosities. Mr. Bone also observes that "Mr Greenspan did not appear to connect with the predominantly female jury in the way that Julie Ruder, the prosecutor, did in her impassioned summing up of the Government’s case the previous day."

There's yet another update to Ms. Maurino's report, which has been webbed by the Vancouver Sun. Among other items, she's added this quote from Csr. Genson: "Ed Genson, [while reinforcing the defense's argument that Mr. Radler acted alone,] said that if Black and Radler were really like 'siamese twins' acting as one, they'd be 'schizophrenic.' As a married couple, he added, they would bicker constantly.

"'Can you imagine?', he asked, prompting laughter from the court as well as Black."

There's more Genson excerpts in Mike Robinson's AP report, as webbed by the JournalGazette Times-Courier, such as: Csr. "Genson said the sales closed in Paducah, Ky., and Fargo, N.D., and that Black wasn't anywhere near those cities when the papers were signed.

"'How is he supposed to know?' Genson said. 'Is Conrad supposed to go down there and look?'"

With regard to the Bora Bora trip, "Genson said Black paid half the cost... and had the estimated $565,000 price tag added to his income for tax purposes as well. He said Black was justified in billing the company for the rest of the trip because he did considerable work while on his vacation.

"'He works all the time,' Genson said."

Two British newspapers, The Independent and the Telegraph, both have articles that focus on Csr. Greenspan's part of the closing address for Conrad Black. The former is written by Stephen Foley; the latter, David Litterick; both are regular trial-watchers.

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The National Post blog, "Posted," has a media round-up of its own, which includes a link to a post in the Wall Street Journal's Law Blog about the ostrich instruction.

Another blog's "Media Blitz" has mentioned the trial: Jossip's. Beside the link, to a New York Times report, is this wisecrack: "Black’s attorneys expected to describe an acquittal as 'a sound investment—I mean, "verdict"' and then wink knowingly at the jury."

Douglas Bell has posted his latest commentary on the previous day's media reports for the Toronto Life Conrad Black trial, noting that the Britons are back now that "voyeuristic fodder" has been made available once again.

He's also posted a write-up on Judy Ruder's closing address from yesterday, which may be worth reading for balance's sake. Although he conceded the possibility that she may have been 'singing to the kids', he nevertheless adds to the plethora of fulsome praise for her performance yesterday.

In the Maclean's Conrad Black trial blog, Mark Steyn brought up the possibility that Csr. Genson tailed off in the afternoon because of ill health; his heath was bad enough to induce Judge St. Eve to end the day's proceedings a little early. (This item might prove to be a scoop.)