The media reports on the Conrad Black trial, webbed overnight and today, have only one piece of news - a Conrad Black interview with the Guardian. The rest of the reports are either recaps or feature pieces:
1. Paul Waldie has a feaure report, webbed by the Globe and Mail, in the Travel section. It's entitled "Conrad Who?" Before discussing the downtown and municipal conditions in Chicago, it notes that typical Chicagoans don't care that much about the fate of Mr. Black because, when he was the CEO of Hollinger Int'l, he was hardly in the city. Mr. Waldie recommends seeing at least one of the two Chicago commodities exchanges, and the (wild) rabbits in Grant Park.
2. The Guardian has published an intro on its own interview with Mr. Black, entitled "I'm at war with the US government, says Conrad Black." It contains his justification for that statement: the U.S. government's violation of the Fifth Amendment protections it should be extending to him. "'There's a promise in the fifth amendment of no seizure of property without proper compensation. It's an outrage. Due process is guaranteed. It's not happening,'..."
3. The interview itself, subtitled "Not everyone would react to the prospect of 101 years in jail by writing a biography of Nixon, but Conrad Black is not everyone. Oliver Burkeman meets the defiant ex-tycoon." The meeting's subject is Mr. Black's new book on Richard Nixon, The Invincible Quest: the Life of Richard Milhous Nixon. Despite that ostensible subject, a book that Mr. Burkeman finds "a persuasive defence of Nixon," most of the interview article deals with the trial itself, including Mr. Black's self-predicted outcome: "'...stage three is where I win.'" Regarding Mr. Nixon himself, Mr. Black says, "'The US simply can't pretend that this guy was some aberration, some kind of mutant, who ran on furry feet into the White House and hid his real nature, until the brave people of the Washington Post pulled back the shower-curtain one night, saw the cloven hooves, and threw him out.'" (Mr. Black also has some unkind things to say about Tom Bower.)
4. There are three other reports on the Guardian interview: the first is from the Melbourne Herald-Sun; the second is from the Globe and Mail; and the third comes courtesy of the Khallej Times of the United Arab Emirates.
5. The third item in the Hamilton Spectator's "Business Briefs," entitled "Courts," has a summary of last week's trial action, with a reminder at the end that Paul Healy is slated to testify next week.
6. Another report by Mr. Waldie, also webbed by the Globe, discusses the old friendship between Conrad Black and Izzy Asper, put under strain by the National Post's coverage of former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien: "they also had a dispute over [it] that was so bitter Mr. Asper at one point said he felt 'embarrassed, humiliated and held up to ridicule and dishonour' by Lord Black." The impression of their camaraderie, as derived from letters they exchanged in 2000 and 2001, "indicate that the men were very close during negotiations for the Hollinger newspapers and talked extensively about their plans for the future." They also show a surprisingly creative duo of deal-crafters, if only on paper. It also reveals that the (in restrospect temporary) joint ownership of the Post fell apart as a result of the Post's editorial staff treating Mr. Asper's son, David, in the same manner as they treated Conrad Black himself, with regard to differences between senior executive and editorial staff.
7. Two of those letters are trial documents submitted by the prosecution. The front page of the Globe's website has two PDF links to them, reproduced here: (PDF file #1; PDF file #2.)
8. CBC News has webbed a recap of last week's trial events by Susan Berger.
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If you're interested, an unrelated piece by Eric Phillips has a quote from Mohandas K. Gandhi as its header: "'First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.'" Granted that there are four stages, not three, in this quote, but if you count the first one listed as Stage Zero,...
Also, in the blog "Small Dead Animals," item #6 above has been linked to too, with comments from SDA readers. One of them explains the tenacious support of Conrad Black amongst conservatives, journalists or otherwise, and may explain why there's so much media sympathy towards him, relative to who he (otherwise) is: when the proprietor of the National Post, he had brought real investigative journalism to Canada. As the commentator explains it, "My husband and I were National Post supporters from the very beginning. It's largely because of the Nat'l Post, under Lord Black's courageous, and sometimes outrageous, leadership, that Shawinigate, the HRDC, and other [Liberal] scandals were exposed.... [It] was a breath of fresh air, allowing Canadians access to what was REALLY happening in the backrooms of our political parties on Parliament Hill. Many of us already suspected the dishonesty and thuggery, but it's National Post journalists who did the digging and uncovered the unsavoury details."
(If you're interested, even Tom Bower allows in a tone of admiration when discussing the launch of the National Post. See Conrad & Lady Black: Dancing On The Edge, pp. 245-52.)
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Friday, May 18, 2007
Media Roundup: Heard, Read and Said
The media reports on the Conrad Black trial, webbed overnight and today, are shifting the spoltlight away from David Radler to new witness Jonathan Rosenberg, in preparation for next week's appearance of Paul Healy:
1. From CTV News, a report by Romina Maurino, which begins with a quote from Conrad Black about Mr. Radler's entire testimony. The quote ends with: "'I don't think any jury in the world would convict anybody on the basis of what he said. I repeat my long-standing view that this was never a criminal case -- except possibly against him.''' The report includes details about the testimony of Csr. Rosenberg, who testified yesterday that both Peter Atkinson and Jack Boultbee "told the special committee that CanWest wasn't interested in the Hollinger executives getting the non-compete payments as a condition of closing. And both men knew the non-competes were not taxable under Canadian law." He also testified on the point contended by the defense team: according to Mr. Rosenberg, Mr. Atkinson "said 'that in his view, certain of the information (given to shareholders at the meeting) was incorrectly presented.''' The rest of the report contains excerpts from the final cross-examination of Mr. Radler by Ron Safer.
2. Peter Worthington's latest column, webbed by the Toronto Sun, reports on some questions asked under recross-examination by Eddie Greenspan and Gus Newman, counsels for Conrad Black and Jack Boultbee respectively. Csr. Greenspan got Mr. Radler to stipulate that the latter's "mere" 9500 shares of Hollinger International, the reason claimed for Mr. Radler's not taking an interest in the price of the stock when the sale to CanWest was announced, was bolstered by a 14% (approximately) interest in Ravelston, which amounts to owning 3.2 million shares of Hollinger Int'l. Csr. Newman reminded Mr. Radler that he was in breach of a supposedly "silly" non-compete agreement, and that he acquired two newspaper chains on the cheap, for Horizon Publications, after being thrown out of the publisher's job at the Sun-Times. (Mr. Worthington does not mention how Mr. Radler reacted to the breach question.)
3. As reported in an article webbed by the London Free Press, Conrad Black is mentioned as the exception to the rule that businesspeople are normally ethical and above reproach, in a speech by a fellow who would be considered by many to be somewhat of an oddity: Thomas Caldwell, chair of Caldwell Financial Ltd., and also a committed Christian. He made that remark as part of a speech he gave to the annual London Christian Prayer Breakfast, about his "journey to becoming a Christian."
(If you're cynical, I suspect that your radar was twitted by the above item, but Mr. Caldwell does have a track record of good works and no scandals to his name.)
4. CBC News: Morning aired a clip from an interview with Conrad Black, which is also excerpted in this report. The clip was aired at 8:07 AM.
5. From the Chicago Tribune, a report by Ameet Sachdev which focuses on the testimony by Csr. Rosenberg so far.
6. A CP summary, webbed by CBC News, mentions that there will be no testimony until Monday.
7. An article by Paul Waldie, webbed by the Globe and Mail, is a re-cap of David Radler's entire testimony, with an assessment of how effective a witness he was for the prosecution. Two experts quoted therein, both regular trial-observers, agreed that Mr. Radler was a disappointment for the prosecution, but a third offered the information that jurors tend to not hold a plea bargain agreement against the testifying bargainer; they assume that the remorse expressed is sincere.
8. Rick Westhead of the Toronto Star also re-caps Mr. Radler's testimony - from yesterday.
9. A report by Mary Vallis, webbed by the Edmonton Journal, notes near its end that "[t]he jury seemed unaware of the distinction" that was "haggled over" yesterday over what Csr. Rosenberg was allowed to testify about what he heard at the Hollinger Int'l annual meeting in 2002. It continues: "While the jury paid close attention the final hours of Radler's testimony, some jurors appeared to lose interest in the afternoon when Rosenberg took the stand. One appeared to doze off as the lawyer answered questions." (It also reports that the last part of Conrad Black's statement to the media yesterday, before being cut off by Csr. Greenspan, was "Radler, the former lieutenant in his newspaper empire, did not have 'any credibility.'")
10. The latest report from the Chicago Sun-Times' Mary Wisniewski also focuses on Mr. Radler's last day on the stand; it ends with a brief recounting of Csr. Rosenberg's initial testimony.
11. The Daily Mail has details on three questions asked by Eric Sussman to Mr. Radler on redirect: the first asked if Hollinger Int'l had received any benefit from the individual non-compete agreements; the second asked if Mr. Black had questioned the $2.6 million payment he had received from American Publishing, a Hollinger Int'l subsidiary; the third asked if non-compete agreements with the defendants (and Mr. Radler himself) had been asked for by the buyers of the newspaper. Mr. Radler's answers, stripping away particulars, were: no; no and no. (The re-cross that Mr. Worthington reported on, mentioned above, addressed the third question, at least.)
12. The Welland Tribune has webbed a column by Allan Fotheringham, which starts off by making the common-sensical observation that an odd, if erudite, vocabulary doesn't make the user of it very popular; nor does a trial filled with analogously arcane terms make for an attentive jury of ordinary people. He then complains about the courtroom rules that journalists have to observe while there, and then makes the more serious complaint that the Canadian coverage of the trial has been so lopsided as to be a "disgrace."
(When you think about it, the pro-Black skew is a man-bites-dog story all in itself. I can't recall any comparable skew in Canada's generally left-lib-oriented journalism circuit, to the favor of a known and at times notorious Tory 'plutocrat' and sharp-tongued pundit, in my own lifetime. I can't explain why; the normal pattern would be near-open castigation of Conrad Black from the Black-averse and quiet objectivity from Black sympathizers. The only stated reason I remember reading is a mutated America-skepticism, expressed in hostility at the American justice system meat-grinding a famous Canadian, which Mark Steyn wrote about some time ago. [He first broached it in this entry.] Even if that is the primal reason, it would still mark a major shift in the cultural wind. It wouldn't explain why the American reporters on the trial beat increasingly seem to be treating Mr. Steyn, Peter Worthington and Christie Blatchford as if they were the vanguard, not a triumvirate of apologists. The only rationale that makes sense to me is the prosecutors are hanging themselves in some way to the press - perhaps by presenting the non-compete agreements and payments to individuals as inherently crooked, illegal, and strange. Many of the reports I've read have gone out of their way to note that such non-competes are a normal part of the North American newspaper industry. Telling a group of people that what they've seen doesn't exist is a sure way to brown them off.)
13. Mark Steyn has taken notice of #12 above.
14. A WQAD.com-webbed Associated Press summary of Mr. Radler's impact ends with a quote from a well-known Black watcher: "Historian and journalist Tom Bower calls Radler 'a critical witness but a contaminated witness.'"
15. A longer re-cap by Mike Robinson of AP, webbed by the Houston Chronicle, also has the same quote, along with a presentation of how Mr. Radler tried to distance himself from Mr. Black while on the stand. "He told of working in tiny newsrooms in the land of sled dogs and Mounties hundreds of miles from any large city, squeezing out profits," while Mr. Black sought influence and status.
16. A summing-up from Romina Maurino, webbed by CBC News, discusses the same subject. It starts off with: "Despite Conrad Black's bold prediction that he won't be convicted of fraud on David Radler's testimony, legal observers say the prosecution's star witness still delivered some damning evidence against his former business partner," followed by this conclusion: "it's still too early to call the trial in Black's favour." It notes that the "star witness" provided little or no testimony to implicate the other three defendants - only Conrad Black suffered some damage from his testimony, particularly about who orchestrated the alleged scheme.
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In his latest post on the Toronto Life Conrad Black trial blog, Douglas Bell notes that the 2004 Delaware Chancery Court decision against Conrad Black, as controlling shareholder of Hollinger Int'l, may serve as a precedent for Rupert Murdoch taking over Dow Jones over the objections of the Bancroft family.
1. From CTV News, a report by Romina Maurino, which begins with a quote from Conrad Black about Mr. Radler's entire testimony. The quote ends with: "'I don't think any jury in the world would convict anybody on the basis of what he said. I repeat my long-standing view that this was never a criminal case -- except possibly against him.''' The report includes details about the testimony of Csr. Rosenberg, who testified yesterday that both Peter Atkinson and Jack Boultbee "told the special committee that CanWest wasn't interested in the Hollinger executives getting the non-compete payments as a condition of closing. And both men knew the non-competes were not taxable under Canadian law." He also testified on the point contended by the defense team: according to Mr. Rosenberg, Mr. Atkinson "said 'that in his view, certain of the information (given to shareholders at the meeting) was incorrectly presented.''' The rest of the report contains excerpts from the final cross-examination of Mr. Radler by Ron Safer.
2. Peter Worthington's latest column, webbed by the Toronto Sun, reports on some questions asked under recross-examination by Eddie Greenspan and Gus Newman, counsels for Conrad Black and Jack Boultbee respectively. Csr. Greenspan got Mr. Radler to stipulate that the latter's "mere" 9500 shares of Hollinger International, the reason claimed for Mr. Radler's not taking an interest in the price of the stock when the sale to CanWest was announced, was bolstered by a 14% (approximately) interest in Ravelston, which amounts to owning 3.2 million shares of Hollinger Int'l. Csr. Newman reminded Mr. Radler that he was in breach of a supposedly "silly" non-compete agreement, and that he acquired two newspaper chains on the cheap, for Horizon Publications, after being thrown out of the publisher's job at the Sun-Times. (Mr. Worthington does not mention how Mr. Radler reacted to the breach question.)
3. As reported in an article webbed by the London Free Press, Conrad Black is mentioned as the exception to the rule that businesspeople are normally ethical and above reproach, in a speech by a fellow who would be considered by many to be somewhat of an oddity: Thomas Caldwell, chair of Caldwell Financial Ltd., and also a committed Christian. He made that remark as part of a speech he gave to the annual London Christian Prayer Breakfast, about his "journey to becoming a Christian."
(If you're cynical, I suspect that your radar was twitted by the above item, but Mr. Caldwell does have a track record of good works and no scandals to his name.)
4. CBC News: Morning aired a clip from an interview with Conrad Black, which is also excerpted in this report. The clip was aired at 8:07 AM.
5. From the Chicago Tribune, a report by Ameet Sachdev which focuses on the testimony by Csr. Rosenberg so far.
6. A CP summary, webbed by CBC News, mentions that there will be no testimony until Monday.
7. An article by Paul Waldie, webbed by the Globe and Mail, is a re-cap of David Radler's entire testimony, with an assessment of how effective a witness he was for the prosecution. Two experts quoted therein, both regular trial-observers, agreed that Mr. Radler was a disappointment for the prosecution, but a third offered the information that jurors tend to not hold a plea bargain agreement against the testifying bargainer; they assume that the remorse expressed is sincere.
8. Rick Westhead of the Toronto Star also re-caps Mr. Radler's testimony - from yesterday.
9. A report by Mary Vallis, webbed by the Edmonton Journal, notes near its end that "[t]he jury seemed unaware of the distinction" that was "haggled over" yesterday over what Csr. Rosenberg was allowed to testify about what he heard at the Hollinger Int'l annual meeting in 2002. It continues: "While the jury paid close attention the final hours of Radler's testimony, some jurors appeared to lose interest in the afternoon when Rosenberg took the stand. One appeared to doze off as the lawyer answered questions." (It also reports that the last part of Conrad Black's statement to the media yesterday, before being cut off by Csr. Greenspan, was "Radler, the former lieutenant in his newspaper empire, did not have 'any credibility.'")
10. The latest report from the Chicago Sun-Times' Mary Wisniewski also focuses on Mr. Radler's last day on the stand; it ends with a brief recounting of Csr. Rosenberg's initial testimony.
11. The Daily Mail has details on three questions asked by Eric Sussman to Mr. Radler on redirect: the first asked if Hollinger Int'l had received any benefit from the individual non-compete agreements; the second asked if Mr. Black had questioned the $2.6 million payment he had received from American Publishing, a Hollinger Int'l subsidiary; the third asked if non-compete agreements with the defendants (and Mr. Radler himself) had been asked for by the buyers of the newspaper. Mr. Radler's answers, stripping away particulars, were: no; no and no. (The re-cross that Mr. Worthington reported on, mentioned above, addressed the third question, at least.)
12. The Welland Tribune has webbed a column by Allan Fotheringham, which starts off by making the common-sensical observation that an odd, if erudite, vocabulary doesn't make the user of it very popular; nor does a trial filled with analogously arcane terms make for an attentive jury of ordinary people. He then complains about the courtroom rules that journalists have to observe while there, and then makes the more serious complaint that the Canadian coverage of the trial has been so lopsided as to be a "disgrace."
(When you think about it, the pro-Black skew is a man-bites-dog story all in itself. I can't recall any comparable skew in Canada's generally left-lib-oriented journalism circuit, to the favor of a known and at times notorious Tory 'plutocrat' and sharp-tongued pundit, in my own lifetime. I can't explain why; the normal pattern would be near-open castigation of Conrad Black from the Black-averse and quiet objectivity from Black sympathizers. The only stated reason I remember reading is a mutated America-skepticism, expressed in hostility at the American justice system meat-grinding a famous Canadian, which Mark Steyn wrote about some time ago. [He first broached it in this entry.] Even if that is the primal reason, it would still mark a major shift in the cultural wind. It wouldn't explain why the American reporters on the trial beat increasingly seem to be treating Mr. Steyn, Peter Worthington and Christie Blatchford as if they were the vanguard, not a triumvirate of apologists. The only rationale that makes sense to me is the prosecutors are hanging themselves in some way to the press - perhaps by presenting the non-compete agreements and payments to individuals as inherently crooked, illegal, and strange. Many of the reports I've read have gone out of their way to note that such non-competes are a normal part of the North American newspaper industry. Telling a group of people that what they've seen doesn't exist is a sure way to brown them off.)
13. Mark Steyn has taken notice of #12 above.
14. A WQAD.com-webbed Associated Press summary of Mr. Radler's impact ends with a quote from a well-known Black watcher: "Historian and journalist Tom Bower calls Radler 'a critical witness but a contaminated witness.'"
15. A longer re-cap by Mike Robinson of AP, webbed by the Houston Chronicle, also has the same quote, along with a presentation of how Mr. Radler tried to distance himself from Mr. Black while on the stand. "He told of working in tiny newsrooms in the land of sled dogs and Mounties hundreds of miles from any large city, squeezing out profits," while Mr. Black sought influence and status.
16. A summing-up from Romina Maurino, webbed by CBC News, discusses the same subject. It starts off with: "Despite Conrad Black's bold prediction that he won't be convicted of fraud on David Radler's testimony, legal observers say the prosecution's star witness still delivered some damning evidence against his former business partner," followed by this conclusion: "it's still too early to call the trial in Black's favour." It notes that the "star witness" provided little or no testimony to implicate the other three defendants - only Conrad Black suffered some damage from his testimony, particularly about who orchestrated the alleged scheme.
----------
In his latest post on the Toronto Life Conrad Black trial blog, Douglas Bell notes that the 2004 Delaware Chancery Court decision against Conrad Black, as controlling shareholder of Hollinger Int'l, may serve as a precedent for Rupert Murdoch taking over Dow Jones over the objections of the Bancroft family.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
The Agency Problem
Now that David Radler’s testimony is over, the prosecution has to affirm that he’s been both “truthful” and “helpful” to the “sentencing judge.” (It’s an open secret that this judge is Amy St. Eve.) Like many a two-pack of standards, at times it can seem like serving two masters. You can see this by imaging you’re a plea bargainer who has to live up to those two standards.
Ideally, the two complement each other: if you’re truthful, then you’re helpful. It is possible to be truthful without being helpful, though: if you tell the truth and yet act like a jerk on the stand, then you’ve prejudiced the case you’re supposed to be supporting. The same thing goes for being the bad boy (or girl) with respect to the judge. You can be as truthful as you please, but if you aren’t well-behaved enough to avoid alienating anyone that decides the prosecution’s case, then you’re not being helpful – you’re being the reverse.
The same clash can erupt with respect to “helpful.” Ideally, to be helpful to the prosecution as a witness means to be truthful, as you can’t really help the prosecutors by failing to uphold the oath you have to swear. You are, after all, supposed to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
Unfortunately, words being what they are, there’s a bit of bend with respect to the last two. It’s tempting to bulk up the category of the “whole truth” if you want to be helpful, just as it is to become uncertain about facts that no longer seem to be “nothing but the truth” when you really want to be helpful. This shading doesn’t even have to be calculated; often, it’s an unconscious decision. If you’re under pressure, your memory does sometimes veer from the accuracy you may have had when unpressured. So, being eager to be helpful can cut in to a rigourous attempt to be truthful.
Sophisticated prosecutors know this, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that they use pressure-draining techniques when prepping witnesses who have plea-bargained. Nevertheless, there is an obvious incentive to be helpful; common sense tells us that the typical self-interested witness would err on the side of helpful because he (or she) wants the deal.
This kind of dilemma is known as an “agency problem” in management theory. An agency problem pops up when an agent has a little leeway to serve him- or herself at the expense of the person he (or she) is representing, called the “principal.” This concept is as disillusioning as a lot of management theory is. It does intrude, though, even in situations where blood runs thick. The most clear-cut, and saddening, agency problem crops up when the parents of a child star figure out that they can take some of the money from the kid’s earnings without their kid being able to do anything about it.
Since this problem is a dilemma, there’s no final answer to it. The old-fashioned way was simple: if you don’t trust someone, then don’t take them in. These days, though, it’s a more legalfied world, so that option isn’t available to many of the biggies, including child stars. For big institutions, too many potential lawsuits can arise.
The corporate-governance movement is in place largely to find a workable substitute for the old personal-trust standard. That’s what they’re aiming at. Like most dilemmas, though, many of the proffered solutions only push it back a step or two.
Ideally, the two complement each other: if you’re truthful, then you’re helpful. It is possible to be truthful without being helpful, though: if you tell the truth and yet act like a jerk on the stand, then you’ve prejudiced the case you’re supposed to be supporting. The same thing goes for being the bad boy (or girl) with respect to the judge. You can be as truthful as you please, but if you aren’t well-behaved enough to avoid alienating anyone that decides the prosecution’s case, then you’re not being helpful – you’re being the reverse.
The same clash can erupt with respect to “helpful.” Ideally, to be helpful to the prosecution as a witness means to be truthful, as you can’t really help the prosecutors by failing to uphold the oath you have to swear. You are, after all, supposed to tell “the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”
Unfortunately, words being what they are, there’s a bit of bend with respect to the last two. It’s tempting to bulk up the category of the “whole truth” if you want to be helpful, just as it is to become uncertain about facts that no longer seem to be “nothing but the truth” when you really want to be helpful. This shading doesn’t even have to be calculated; often, it’s an unconscious decision. If you’re under pressure, your memory does sometimes veer from the accuracy you may have had when unpressured. So, being eager to be helpful can cut in to a rigourous attempt to be truthful.
Sophisticated prosecutors know this, and it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that they use pressure-draining techniques when prepping witnesses who have plea-bargained. Nevertheless, there is an obvious incentive to be helpful; common sense tells us that the typical self-interested witness would err on the side of helpful because he (or she) wants the deal.
This kind of dilemma is known as an “agency problem” in management theory. An agency problem pops up when an agent has a little leeway to serve him- or herself at the expense of the person he (or she) is representing, called the “principal.” This concept is as disillusioning as a lot of management theory is. It does intrude, though, even in situations where blood runs thick. The most clear-cut, and saddening, agency problem crops up when the parents of a child star figure out that they can take some of the money from the kid’s earnings without their kid being able to do anything about it.
Since this problem is a dilemma, there’s no final answer to it. The old-fashioned way was simple: if you don’t trust someone, then don’t take them in. These days, though, it’s a more legalfied world, so that option isn’t available to many of the biggies, including child stars. For big institutions, too many potential lawsuits can arise.
The corporate-governance movement is in place largely to find a workable substitute for the old personal-trust standard. That’s what they’re aiming at. Like most dilemmas, though, many of the proffered solutions only push it back a step or two.
Radler and the rest - Thursday
According to a CP report on the opening part of today's installment of the trial, as webbed by 680 News, Judge St. Eve has yet to rule on the defense motions to put specific restrictions on the testimony of Paul Healy and the prosecution's next witness, Jonathan Rosenberg. Csr. Rosenberg was a counsel for the Hollinger International Special Committee of the Board of Directors. As of the time of the writing of the CP report, David Radler has yet to testify.
Paul Waldie's latest report, webbed by the Globe and Mail, details what he has testified to while in his final stretch on the stand. It starts with: "David Radler spent his last hours on the witness stand at the Conrad Black trial this morning insisting that he was telling the truth." This, he stated while under the quite anticipated redirect examination of him. "'I made a decision that I was going to be totally truthful,' Mr. Radler told prosecutor Eric Sussman after acknowledging that he had lied in the past." The bulk of Mr. Waldie' report, though, focuses upon the final moments of Mr. Radler's cross-examination by Ron Safer. Csr. Safer tried, like all the other defense counsels who cross-examined him, to get Mr. Radler to admit that he was either lying or singing the prosecution's tune, if not both; he didn't. Near its end, the report also mentions that Judge St. Eve has yet to rule on the defense motion to prevent Paul Healy from passing along this statement he heard while "Mr. Healy sat next to Mr. Atkinson during the 2002 annual meeting. As Lord Black spoke, Mr. Atkinson allegedly turned to Mr. Healy and said, 'He's lying.'"
CP has another report out, credited to trial regular Romina Maurino and webbed by the Toronto Star. It begins by relaying an estimate by Csr. Safer, made during his cross-examination of Mr. Radler: "Ron Safer, a lawyer for co-defendant Mark Kipnis, says Rader initially faced a jail sentence of 57 to 71 months under general guidelines in the United States if he pleaded guilty." After a continued grilling, Mr. Radler finally admitted that the only way he could have gotten 29 months under current guidelines was to agree to testify in exchange for the plea bargain. It has yet to be presented to Judge St. Eve. ""I have to say yes," he eventually [conceded to Csr. Safer's statement of it, taking the form of a question,] in a low voice." It also discloses that the jury was ususually attentive to this exchange, which ended with Mr. Radler's admission.
In an interview broadcasted at 1:55 PM on BNN, Mr. Waldie reported that Mr. Radler was finished just before lunch. He was smiling as he left the courthouse, and seemed "confident, or relieved." When he was asked by Eric Sussman how he behaved when he lied, he replied, "I pleaded guilty." When asked why he plea-bargained, he said, "I pled guilty because I am guilty. That's the way it is." Mr. Waldie concluded that the prosecution did a good job as presenting Mr. Radler as consistent during redirect, but the defense had been good at whittling away his testimony. The important question - whether or not his credibility was impugned in the minds of the jury - has no real answer as of yet.
The Reuters report, by Andrew Stern with writing by Michael Conlon, has additional detail on Mr. Radler's final testimony. Csr. Sussman walked Mr. Radler through his understanding of the plea agreement, which the report discloses; the first question quoted in it is: "'What is your understanding of how you could jeopardize your plea agreement?' Sussman asked the 64-year-old Radler." He response said that he'd break it "'by not telling the truth.'" The walk-through ended with Mr. Radler answering, after admitting that he had initially lied to the prosecutors, "'The truth came out ... I made a decision that I was going to be totally truthful and I had access to additional information ... documents.'" Page 3 and the following page contains some testimony from Csr. Safer's cross-examination, which ends with Csr. Safer shouting, after Mr. Radler said that his 'story' was the facts, "'The facts you told the special committee?... The facts you told the FBI for 10 months?'" when [Mr. Radler had] admitted [to] lying."
A report by Mary Vallis and Theresa Tedesco, webbed by the Montreal Gazette, quotes both from the final cross-examination and the redirect, in that order. The report mentions that Csr. Sussman "emphasized that if a judge rejects Mr. Radler's plea agreement, he can simply withdraw his guilty plea and ask to go to trial." It also quotes Conrad Black on Mr. Radler's testimony; he said, before he was stopped by Eddie Greenspan, "'I don't think [Mr. Radler] has any credibility... I don't think any jury in the world would convict anybody on the basis of what he said. As a star witness, I repeat my longstanding view that this was never a criminal case, except possibly against him.'" Near its end, it mentions that Judge St. Eve ruled that the next witness, Csr. Rosenberg, "will be allowed to testify that co-defendant Peter Atkinson told the committee that incorrect information was presented to Hollinger shareholders at the company's annual meeting in 2002. But the judge limited Mr. Rosenberg's comments: He will not be allowed to say that Mr. Atkinson was responding to comments that were made by Lord Black."
An update from Ms. Maurino, also webbed by the Gazette, opens with that quote from Conrad Black. At its end is an additional restriction on what the prosecution can ask Csr. Rosenberg during direct examination: "St. Eve said prosecutors can ask [him] about whether wrong information was provided at the meeting, but they cannot address who said it or suggest it was a lie."
Richard Siklos, author of Shades of Black, was interviewed on CBC Newsworld at 4:08 PM. His assessment of Mr. Radler's performance was: Mr. Radler was successful in that the prosecution got some important evidence on the record through him, as well as their theory that Mr. Black initiated the non-compete payments. Mr. Radler was "genuine" on the stand in this sense: his feistiness during the cross-examinations was the real Radler. This case, despite similarities between it and other corporate-fraud cases, may be different than those others because there is room for doubt regarding Mr. Radler's say-so.
There were no "explosive moments" for Mr. Siklos; Mr. Radler's two weeks were "weirdly anticlimactic." In explaining why he assumes that Mr. Black won't take the stand, Mr. Siklos said that it's a document-centric case, which is lulling the jury due to its complexity. The safest course for the defense is to keep Conrad Black, an unknown to the jury, off the stand.
More details on Mr. Radler's testimony is contained in the Bloomberg report, by Andrew Harris and Thom Weidlich, which begins with: "David Radler, chief witness against former Hollinger International Inc. Chairman Conrad Black, testified his plea agreement was contingent on convincing prosecutors that Black or his codefendants stole company money... He told jurors during cross-examination today in federal court in Chicago he presumed the deal would be 'off the table' if he couldn't show other executives were involved in stealing $60 million." Like the other reports, it relates that Mr. Radler continued to say during Csr. Safer's cross-examination that he was relating the facts, but it also contains an interpretation of the golden-egg memo, written by Conrad Black in 2002 and quoted in the report: "'Well, we had come to a realization that the non-competes were now a dead issue,' Radler told jurors. 'There was a lot of shareholder pressure on this issue and you had to be a fool to continue with the noncompetition program.'''
As far as Csr. Rosenberg's testimony is concerned, a third report from Romina Maurino, webbed by CBC News, has details on it so far. His role, according to Ms. Maurino, is to back up "part of the U.S. government's attempts to persuade jurors that Black and three other executives had no approvals for the tens of millions of dollars they pocketed after the sale of company newspapers." He testified that both Mr. Atkinson and Jack Boultbee had said to him that the individual non-compete agreements and payments were disguised bonuses, and (as expected,) he also testified about "a comment Atkinson made during a 2002 Hollinger annual meeting, when - according to Rosenberg, Atkinson said 'that in his view, certain of the information was incorrectly presented.'" An updated version of the same report adds a note that Paul Healy, former veep of investor relations for Hollinger Int'l, will follow Csr. Rosenberg, who will continue testifying Monday.
There are two brief reports summing up the most-covered part of the day: one from Stephen Foley of the Independent, which focuses on what Mr. Black had to say about Mr. Radler (quoted above,) and a short summary from AP and webbed by WQAD.com. A longer one, by Mike Robinson and webbed by the Southern Illinoisan, both sums up Mr. Radler's entire testimony and has additional detail on Csr. Rosenberg's testimony so far, as well as an item on Csr. Rosenberg's role in the Hollinger Int'l scandal. The man himself "investigated the scandal for Hollinger's board of directors after they became suspicious that they may have been hoodwinked by Black." He's "a former prosecutor at federal court in Manhattan, now is in private practice in New York and was one of several lawyers working on behalf of a special committee set up by the board of directors." It also reveals that Mr. Rosenberg's testimony is based upon notes he took while interviewing the defendants.
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The "Black Board" has a vignette of the Black family chowing down on fast food, and being surprisingly comfortable while doing it.
Douglas Bell's own top-story report, in the Toronto Life Conrad Black trial blog, focuses upon the recent profile of Marie-Josée Kravis, calling attention to an attributed snub by Mrs. Kravis inferred from her 15-30-minute attendance at Mrs. Black's birthday party. It ends with: "For all Lord Black’s wounds, self-inflicted or otherwise, that last line might just be the cruellest blow of all."
And, of course, Mark Steyn has a comment of his own about the new witness, pegging him in the latter of two categories: Hollinger insider whose story implodes on cross-examination; and, reputable, hence plausible, outsider. He ends with: "Will [Mr. Healy] buck the trend [by being an insider whose testimony ends up damaging to the defense]? Or will he join the Skimmer [Mr. Steyn's monicker for James R. Thompson] and the Liar [David Radler] as yet another star turn who flopped big time?"
Paul Waldie's latest report, webbed by the Globe and Mail, details what he has testified to while in his final stretch on the stand. It starts with: "David Radler spent his last hours on the witness stand at the Conrad Black trial this morning insisting that he was telling the truth." This, he stated while under the quite anticipated redirect examination of him. "'I made a decision that I was going to be totally truthful,' Mr. Radler told prosecutor Eric Sussman after acknowledging that he had lied in the past." The bulk of Mr. Waldie' report, though, focuses upon the final moments of Mr. Radler's cross-examination by Ron Safer. Csr. Safer tried, like all the other defense counsels who cross-examined him, to get Mr. Radler to admit that he was either lying or singing the prosecution's tune, if not both; he didn't. Near its end, the report also mentions that Judge St. Eve has yet to rule on the defense motion to prevent Paul Healy from passing along this statement he heard while "Mr. Healy sat next to Mr. Atkinson during the 2002 annual meeting. As Lord Black spoke, Mr. Atkinson allegedly turned to Mr. Healy and said, 'He's lying.'"
CP has another report out, credited to trial regular Romina Maurino and webbed by the Toronto Star. It begins by relaying an estimate by Csr. Safer, made during his cross-examination of Mr. Radler: "Ron Safer, a lawyer for co-defendant Mark Kipnis, says Rader initially faced a jail sentence of 57 to 71 months under general guidelines in the United States if he pleaded guilty." After a continued grilling, Mr. Radler finally admitted that the only way he could have gotten 29 months under current guidelines was to agree to testify in exchange for the plea bargain. It has yet to be presented to Judge St. Eve. ""I have to say yes," he eventually [conceded to Csr. Safer's statement of it, taking the form of a question,] in a low voice." It also discloses that the jury was ususually attentive to this exchange, which ended with Mr. Radler's admission.
In an interview broadcasted at 1:55 PM on BNN, Mr. Waldie reported that Mr. Radler was finished just before lunch. He was smiling as he left the courthouse, and seemed "confident, or relieved." When he was asked by Eric Sussman how he behaved when he lied, he replied, "I pleaded guilty." When asked why he plea-bargained, he said, "I pled guilty because I am guilty. That's the way it is." Mr. Waldie concluded that the prosecution did a good job as presenting Mr. Radler as consistent during redirect, but the defense had been good at whittling away his testimony. The important question - whether or not his credibility was impugned in the minds of the jury - has no real answer as of yet.
The Reuters report, by Andrew Stern with writing by Michael Conlon, has additional detail on Mr. Radler's final testimony. Csr. Sussman walked Mr. Radler through his understanding of the plea agreement, which the report discloses; the first question quoted in it is: "'What is your understanding of how you could jeopardize your plea agreement?' Sussman asked the 64-year-old Radler." He response said that he'd break it "'by not telling the truth.'" The walk-through ended with Mr. Radler answering, after admitting that he had initially lied to the prosecutors, "'The truth came out ... I made a decision that I was going to be totally truthful and I had access to additional information ... documents.'" Page 3 and the following page contains some testimony from Csr. Safer's cross-examination, which ends with Csr. Safer shouting, after Mr. Radler said that his 'story' was the facts, "'The facts you told the special committee?... The facts you told the FBI for 10 months?'" when [Mr. Radler had] admitted [to] lying."
A report by Mary Vallis and Theresa Tedesco, webbed by the Montreal Gazette, quotes both from the final cross-examination and the redirect, in that order. The report mentions that Csr. Sussman "emphasized that if a judge rejects Mr. Radler's plea agreement, he can simply withdraw his guilty plea and ask to go to trial." It also quotes Conrad Black on Mr. Radler's testimony; he said, before he was stopped by Eddie Greenspan, "'I don't think [Mr. Radler] has any credibility... I don't think any jury in the world would convict anybody on the basis of what he said. As a star witness, I repeat my longstanding view that this was never a criminal case, except possibly against him.'" Near its end, it mentions that Judge St. Eve ruled that the next witness, Csr. Rosenberg, "will be allowed to testify that co-defendant Peter Atkinson told the committee that incorrect information was presented to Hollinger shareholders at the company's annual meeting in 2002. But the judge limited Mr. Rosenberg's comments: He will not be allowed to say that Mr. Atkinson was responding to comments that were made by Lord Black."
An update from Ms. Maurino, also webbed by the Gazette, opens with that quote from Conrad Black. At its end is an additional restriction on what the prosecution can ask Csr. Rosenberg during direct examination: "St. Eve said prosecutors can ask [him] about whether wrong information was provided at the meeting, but they cannot address who said it or suggest it was a lie."
Richard Siklos, author of Shades of Black, was interviewed on CBC Newsworld at 4:08 PM. His assessment of Mr. Radler's performance was: Mr. Radler was successful in that the prosecution got some important evidence on the record through him, as well as their theory that Mr. Black initiated the non-compete payments. Mr. Radler was "genuine" on the stand in this sense: his feistiness during the cross-examinations was the real Radler. This case, despite similarities between it and other corporate-fraud cases, may be different than those others because there is room for doubt regarding Mr. Radler's say-so.
There were no "explosive moments" for Mr. Siklos; Mr. Radler's two weeks were "weirdly anticlimactic." In explaining why he assumes that Mr. Black won't take the stand, Mr. Siklos said that it's a document-centric case, which is lulling the jury due to its complexity. The safest course for the defense is to keep Conrad Black, an unknown to the jury, off the stand.
More details on Mr. Radler's testimony is contained in the Bloomberg report, by Andrew Harris and Thom Weidlich, which begins with: "David Radler, chief witness against former Hollinger International Inc. Chairman Conrad Black, testified his plea agreement was contingent on convincing prosecutors that Black or his codefendants stole company money... He told jurors during cross-examination today in federal court in Chicago he presumed the deal would be 'off the table' if he couldn't show other executives were involved in stealing $60 million." Like the other reports, it relates that Mr. Radler continued to say during Csr. Safer's cross-examination that he was relating the facts, but it also contains an interpretation of the golden-egg memo, written by Conrad Black in 2002 and quoted in the report: "'Well, we had come to a realization that the non-competes were now a dead issue,' Radler told jurors. 'There was a lot of shareholder pressure on this issue and you had to be a fool to continue with the noncompetition program.'''
As far as Csr. Rosenberg's testimony is concerned, a third report from Romina Maurino, webbed by CBC News, has details on it so far. His role, according to Ms. Maurino, is to back up "part of the U.S. government's attempts to persuade jurors that Black and three other executives had no approvals for the tens of millions of dollars they pocketed after the sale of company newspapers." He testified that both Mr. Atkinson and Jack Boultbee had said to him that the individual non-compete agreements and payments were disguised bonuses, and (as expected,) he also testified about "a comment Atkinson made during a 2002 Hollinger annual meeting, when - according to Rosenberg, Atkinson said 'that in his view, certain of the information was incorrectly presented.'" An updated version of the same report adds a note that Paul Healy, former veep of investor relations for Hollinger Int'l, will follow Csr. Rosenberg, who will continue testifying Monday.
There are two brief reports summing up the most-covered part of the day: one from Stephen Foley of the Independent, which focuses on what Mr. Black had to say about Mr. Radler (quoted above,) and a short summary from AP and webbed by WQAD.com. A longer one, by Mike Robinson and webbed by the Southern Illinoisan, both sums up Mr. Radler's entire testimony and has additional detail on Csr. Rosenberg's testimony so far, as well as an item on Csr. Rosenberg's role in the Hollinger Int'l scandal. The man himself "investigated the scandal for Hollinger's board of directors after they became suspicious that they may have been hoodwinked by Black." He's "a former prosecutor at federal court in Manhattan, now is in private practice in New York and was one of several lawyers working on behalf of a special committee set up by the board of directors." It also reveals that Mr. Rosenberg's testimony is based upon notes he took while interviewing the defendants.
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The "Black Board" has a vignette of the Black family chowing down on fast food, and being surprisingly comfortable while doing it.
Douglas Bell's own top-story report, in the Toronto Life Conrad Black trial blog, focuses upon the recent profile of Marie-Josée Kravis, calling attention to an attributed snub by Mrs. Kravis inferred from her 15-30-minute attendance at Mrs. Black's birthday party. It ends with: "For all Lord Black’s wounds, self-inflicted or otherwise, that last line might just be the cruellest blow of all."
And, of course, Mark Steyn has a comment of his own about the new witness, pegging him in the latter of two categories: Hollinger insider whose story implodes on cross-examination; and, reputable, hence plausible, outsider. He ends with: "Will [Mr. Healy] buck the trend [by being an insider whose testimony ends up damaging to the defense]? Or will he join the Skimmer [Mr. Steyn's monicker for James R. Thompson] and the Liar [David Radler] as yet another star turn who flopped big time?"
Media Roundup: Logic and Apportion
The media reports, webbed overnight and today, on the Conrad Black trial are concentrating on Mr. Radler's next-to-last day of cross-examination, with the exception of three reports that focus upon two of the next witnesses:
1. An abridged version of the Reuters report on yesterday's trial events has been webbed by the Brisbane Times. It relays the highlights from both Benito Romano's cross-examination and Ron Safer's: the former elicited a statement from Mr. Radler that he didn't know that the stock price of Hollinger International had leapt when the sale to CanWest was announced; the latter got Mr. Radler stipulating that Mark Kipnis had earned his bonuses, including that $100,000 payment, for saving Hollinger Inc. "considerable amounts of money." [The New York Post has webbed a similar abridgement.]
2. From "David Frum's Diary" at National Review Online, excerpts from two recent Peter Worthington columns, both of which discuss Mr. Radler's accuracy of memory, as well as veracity, on the stand.
3. CBC News has webbed a brief Canadian Press forecast that Mr. Radler's testimony will end today.
4. The Chicago Tribune's report on the cross-examination of Mr. Radler, written by Ameet Sachdev with some help by James P. Miller, points out that this case has no "smoking gun" document, which makes it different from other recent corporate-fraud cases.
5. From the Washington Post, a Bloomberg report written by Andrew Harris and Thom Weidlich that begins with, "Conrad Black and other Hollinger International Inc. executives took $5.5 million from a corporate subsidiary believing the money was part of management fees they were owed, ex-Hollinger president F. David Radler testified." It notes that the testified-to legitimacy of this supposedly suspicious withdrawal will be compared to the payments covered by the charges.
6. The National Post has webbed an article by Theresa Tedesco and Mary Vallis, which reports on motions by two lawyers for the defense to bar two witnesses, Paul Healy and Jonathan Rosenberg, from repeating statements that they remember Peter Atkinson saying to them. (Yes, these statements are "admissible hearsay.") A lawyer for Mr. Black pre-objected to them on two grounds: one, "they could be construed as an accusation"; two, counsels for Mr. Black will be denied cross-examination rights unless Mr. Atkinson himself takes the stand, a decision that is not up to Mr. Black. [Italicization mine.] A lawyer for Mr. Atkinson, Michael Schachter, petitioned for a restriction based upon this line of reasoning: "it didn't matter that his client thought there were inaccuracies in Lord Black's address to Hollinger shareholders. 'Are they trying to suggest he did something wrong by not doing something about it when Conrad Black made his statements?,' Mr. Schacter asked. 'This is an admission by Peter Atkinson but it doesn't go to whether Conrad Black knew what he was saying was false.'" The article further reports that Judge St. Eve is expected to rule on these motions this morning, before the trial begins. [An abridged version of this report has been webbed by the Vancouver Province.]
7. From the Chicago Sun-Times, a report by Mary Wisniewski that recounts Mr. Radler's testimony about the bonuses to Mr. Kipnis, and an inconsistency between Mr. Radler's earlier testimony and "a letter Radler sent to the audit committee chairman, former Gov. James R. Thompson, [in which] Radler said the audit committee had approved the payments." (Mr. Radler explained this discrepancy away.) It ends with Csr. Safer asking if "he was 'panicked' knowing that the audit committee would find out about the non-compete payments through 2001 and 2002 financial disclosures." Mr. Radler responded that "he wasn't."
8. Peter Worthington's latest column, webbed by the Edmonton Sun, begins with "The prosecution's star witness dug his grave deeper at the Conrad Black trial yesterday... Rarely has a key witness self-destructed the way David Radler has. Black's former partner in Hollinger (33 years) is embarrassing prosecution lawyers who depend on him for a conviction that could put Conrad on ice for 101 years." Mr. Worthington details the evisceration of Mr. Radler (who evidently is obliged to himself to testify that he was innocent of all wrongdoing except for that he pleaded guilty to - italics mine) and reveals a self-justification on the part of Mr. Radler that sounds a lot like the arguments that defense counsels have been making.
9. The Daily Mail also has a report on the motions filed by the defense to restrict testimony by Mr. Healy and Mr. Rosenberg, which mentions that "Paul Healy, a former banker, will introduce to the jury a video of Lord Black speaking at the shareholders’ meeting. The judge has however ordered that one shareholder’s shout at Lord Black, 'you’re a thief', should be removed from the video as prejudicial." It describes Mr. Radler as "obviously exhausted," and ends with this observation: "Confusing the jury is as much a defence tactic as seeking the truth."
10. BBC News has a report that recounts the events mentioned above, after introducing a bit of context to yesterday's testimony by Mr. Radler under cross-examination.
11. From the Globe and Mail, a report by Paul Waldie which also reports that Mr. Radler's testimony is almost over. It mentions that "[h]e provided some of the most damning evidence in the trial, telling jurors that Lord Black came up with the plan to skim off some of the payments related to non competition agreements Hollinger signed when it sold dozens of newspapers." It also notes that Mr. Radler has not fared very well during cross-examination, though. The bulk of Mr. Waldie's report deals with the two upcoming witnesses: "During a brief hearing Wednesday without the jury, prosecutors outlined some of what Mr. Rosenberg is expected to say. He will discuss how Peter Atkinson, one of the co-accused, told the committee that during the 2002 Hollinger annual meeting Lord Black misled investors about the non-compete payments, prosecutor Jeffrey Cramer told the court." It also mentions that Mr. Rosenberg will not be allowed to testify that Mr. Black had refused to meet with the Special Committee unless "strict conditions" were met by them, on the grounds that Mr. Black "had a right not to appear before the committee."
12. Another report by Mr. Waldie, also webbed by the Globe, recaps yesterday's highlights of the cross-examination of Mr. Radler, as well as a brief discussion of the above-mentioned motions made by the defense team. It begins with: "Conrad Black was smiling yesterday as David Radler endured his toughest day yet on the witness stand, but Lord Black also found out a witness could make some damning statements about him next week."
13. Rick Westead of the Toronto Star opens up his latest article by reporting on the forthcoming testimony of Mr. Healy and Mr. Rosenberg, and the defense motions aiming to restrict what they can say on the stand. While recounting the highlights of yesterday's cross, Mr. Westhead implies that the best cross-examiner of Mr. Radler wasn't Eddie Greenspan, but Ron Safer: "Earlier yesterday, lawyer Ronald Safer worked methodically and effectively on behalf of his client, one-time Hollinger counsel Mark Kipnis, in cross-examining star government witness David Radler.... While other defence lawyers at times have seemed to be meandering with their line of questioning, Safer's grilling of Radler was direct and efficient and appeared to captivate the jury."
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Both Chicago dailies have reports about the current fate of the Sun-Times Media Group, which is what remains of Hollinger Int'l. The Chicago Tribune passes on an admission from current CEO, Cyrus Friedheim, Jr.: "'Our industry, frankly, is in terrible shape,' Freidheim said, noting the ongoing erosion in newspaper circulation nationwide and the accelerating migration of newspaper readers and advertisers to Internet platforms." The report in the Chicago Sun-Times itself focuses on Mr. Friedheim's turnaround plans before getting to the doleful details. (Mr. Feldheim was the replacement for Gordon Paris; he's been the CEO since last November.)
A feature report in the New York Times profiles Marie-Josée Kravis' life before and after her spell as a Hollinger Int'l director, with a recounting of her time on the stand a few weeks ago.
Also, Patricia Best starts off her "Nobody's Business" column with a brief report on Conrad Black getting some good publicity - for his biography of Richard Nixon.
Mark Steyn has had some unkind things to say about prosecutors Eric Sussman and Julie Ruder, and has taken the occasional swipe at Jeffrey Cramer, but when he gets down to brass tacks, he does not point the finger at any of the assistant U.S. attorneys for the difficulties they've encountered in the case. (I actually agree with him on this point.) Mr. Steyn puts the blame squarely on U.S. attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who has accumulated a short track record of not fingering the obvious culprit and of meeting his Maker when his charge-filled indictments face a jury.
1. An abridged version of the Reuters report on yesterday's trial events has been webbed by the Brisbane Times. It relays the highlights from both Benito Romano's cross-examination and Ron Safer's: the former elicited a statement from Mr. Radler that he didn't know that the stock price of Hollinger International had leapt when the sale to CanWest was announced; the latter got Mr. Radler stipulating that Mark Kipnis had earned his bonuses, including that $100,000 payment, for saving Hollinger Inc. "considerable amounts of money." [The New York Post has webbed a similar abridgement.]
2. From "David Frum's Diary" at National Review Online, excerpts from two recent Peter Worthington columns, both of which discuss Mr. Radler's accuracy of memory, as well as veracity, on the stand.
3. CBC News has webbed a brief Canadian Press forecast that Mr. Radler's testimony will end today.
4. The Chicago Tribune's report on the cross-examination of Mr. Radler, written by Ameet Sachdev with some help by James P. Miller, points out that this case has no "smoking gun" document, which makes it different from other recent corporate-fraud cases.
5. From the Washington Post, a Bloomberg report written by Andrew Harris and Thom Weidlich that begins with, "Conrad Black and other Hollinger International Inc. executives took $5.5 million from a corporate subsidiary believing the money was part of management fees they were owed, ex-Hollinger president F. David Radler testified." It notes that the testified-to legitimacy of this supposedly suspicious withdrawal will be compared to the payments covered by the charges.
6. The National Post has webbed an article by Theresa Tedesco and Mary Vallis, which reports on motions by two lawyers for the defense to bar two witnesses, Paul Healy and Jonathan Rosenberg, from repeating statements that they remember Peter Atkinson saying to them. (Yes, these statements are "admissible hearsay.") A lawyer for Mr. Black pre-objected to them on two grounds: one, "they could be construed as an accusation"; two, counsels for Mr. Black will be denied cross-examination rights unless Mr. Atkinson himself takes the stand, a decision that is not up to Mr. Black. [Italicization mine.] A lawyer for Mr. Atkinson, Michael Schachter, petitioned for a restriction based upon this line of reasoning: "it didn't matter that his client thought there were inaccuracies in Lord Black's address to Hollinger shareholders. 'Are they trying to suggest he did something wrong by not doing something about it when Conrad Black made his statements?,' Mr. Schacter asked. 'This is an admission by Peter Atkinson but it doesn't go to whether Conrad Black knew what he was saying was false.'" The article further reports that Judge St. Eve is expected to rule on these motions this morning, before the trial begins. [An abridged version of this report has been webbed by the Vancouver Province.]
7. From the Chicago Sun-Times, a report by Mary Wisniewski that recounts Mr. Radler's testimony about the bonuses to Mr. Kipnis, and an inconsistency between Mr. Radler's earlier testimony and "a letter Radler sent to the audit committee chairman, former Gov. James R. Thompson, [in which] Radler said the audit committee had approved the payments." (Mr. Radler explained this discrepancy away.) It ends with Csr. Safer asking if "he was 'panicked' knowing that the audit committee would find out about the non-compete payments through 2001 and 2002 financial disclosures." Mr. Radler responded that "he wasn't."
8. Peter Worthington's latest column, webbed by the Edmonton Sun, begins with "The prosecution's star witness dug his grave deeper at the Conrad Black trial yesterday... Rarely has a key witness self-destructed the way David Radler has. Black's former partner in Hollinger (33 years) is embarrassing prosecution lawyers who depend on him for a conviction that could put Conrad on ice for 101 years." Mr. Worthington details the evisceration of Mr. Radler (who evidently is obliged to himself to testify that he was innocent of all wrongdoing except for that he pleaded guilty to - italics mine) and reveals a self-justification on the part of Mr. Radler that sounds a lot like the arguments that defense counsels have been making.
9. The Daily Mail also has a report on the motions filed by the defense to restrict testimony by Mr. Healy and Mr. Rosenberg, which mentions that "Paul Healy, a former banker, will introduce to the jury a video of Lord Black speaking at the shareholders’ meeting. The judge has however ordered that one shareholder’s shout at Lord Black, 'you’re a thief', should be removed from the video as prejudicial." It describes Mr. Radler as "obviously exhausted," and ends with this observation: "Confusing the jury is as much a defence tactic as seeking the truth."
10. BBC News has a report that recounts the events mentioned above, after introducing a bit of context to yesterday's testimony by Mr. Radler under cross-examination.
11. From the Globe and Mail, a report by Paul Waldie which also reports that Mr. Radler's testimony is almost over. It mentions that "[h]e provided some of the most damning evidence in the trial, telling jurors that Lord Black came up with the plan to skim off some of the payments related to non competition agreements Hollinger signed when it sold dozens of newspapers." It also notes that Mr. Radler has not fared very well during cross-examination, though. The bulk of Mr. Waldie's report deals with the two upcoming witnesses: "During a brief hearing Wednesday without the jury, prosecutors outlined some of what Mr. Rosenberg is expected to say. He will discuss how Peter Atkinson, one of the co-accused, told the committee that during the 2002 Hollinger annual meeting Lord Black misled investors about the non-compete payments, prosecutor Jeffrey Cramer told the court." It also mentions that Mr. Rosenberg will not be allowed to testify that Mr. Black had refused to meet with the Special Committee unless "strict conditions" were met by them, on the grounds that Mr. Black "had a right not to appear before the committee."
12. Another report by Mr. Waldie, also webbed by the Globe, recaps yesterday's highlights of the cross-examination of Mr. Radler, as well as a brief discussion of the above-mentioned motions made by the defense team. It begins with: "Conrad Black was smiling yesterday as David Radler endured his toughest day yet on the witness stand, but Lord Black also found out a witness could make some damning statements about him next week."
13. Rick Westead of the Toronto Star opens up his latest article by reporting on the forthcoming testimony of Mr. Healy and Mr. Rosenberg, and the defense motions aiming to restrict what they can say on the stand. While recounting the highlights of yesterday's cross, Mr. Westhead implies that the best cross-examiner of Mr. Radler wasn't Eddie Greenspan, but Ron Safer: "Earlier yesterday, lawyer Ronald Safer worked methodically and effectively on behalf of his client, one-time Hollinger counsel Mark Kipnis, in cross-examining star government witness David Radler.... While other defence lawyers at times have seemed to be meandering with their line of questioning, Safer's grilling of Radler was direct and efficient and appeared to captivate the jury."
----------
Both Chicago dailies have reports about the current fate of the Sun-Times Media Group, which is what remains of Hollinger Int'l. The Chicago Tribune passes on an admission from current CEO, Cyrus Friedheim, Jr.: "'Our industry, frankly, is in terrible shape,' Freidheim said, noting the ongoing erosion in newspaper circulation nationwide and the accelerating migration of newspaper readers and advertisers to Internet platforms." The report in the Chicago Sun-Times itself focuses on Mr. Friedheim's turnaround plans before getting to the doleful details. (Mr. Feldheim was the replacement for Gordon Paris; he's been the CEO since last November.)
A feature report in the New York Times profiles Marie-Josée Kravis' life before and after her spell as a Hollinger Int'l director, with a recounting of her time on the stand a few weeks ago.
Also, Patricia Best starts off her "Nobody's Business" column with a brief report on Conrad Black getting some good publicity - for his biography of Richard Nixon.
Mark Steyn has had some unkind things to say about prosecutors Eric Sussman and Julie Ruder, and has taken the occasional swipe at Jeffrey Cramer, but when he gets down to brass tacks, he does not point the finger at any of the assistant U.S. attorneys for the difficulties they've encountered in the case. (I actually agree with him on this point.) Mr. Steyn puts the blame squarely on U.S. attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who has accumulated a short track record of not fingering the obvious culprit and of meeting his Maker when his charge-filled indictments face a jury.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
The rest of the Radler - Wednesday
The first eight paragraphs of a report from Paul Waldie of the Globe and Mail detail what Mr. Radler is revealing now that he's being questioned by Benito Romano, defense counselor for Peter Atkinson. It starts off with disclosing that "David Radler told jurors in the Conrad Black trial this morning that he did not know Hollinger Intenational Inc.'s share price jumped after it announced it was selling most of its Canadian newspapers in July, 2000." Mr. Romano asked him again, and he denied knowing about it once again, even though he owns 9,000 shares directly and a lot more indirectly through his interest in Ravelston.
Csr. Romano's strategy is revealed in a Canadian Press report, webbed by 680 News. "Defence lawyer Benito Romano says Atkinson was busy hammering out legal details of a blockbuster deal with CanWest Global Communications in 2000 when Hollinger's board approved disputed payments of tens of millions of dollars to Black, Radler and others." At its end, it also mentions Radler's self-stated lack of knowledge of the jump in the value of Hollinger Int'l shares.
Mr. Waldie was interviewed on BNN, at 1:40 PM ET. When reporting on the "surprising admission" that Csr. Romano had gotten out of Mr. Radler, the COO of Hollinger Int'l at the time of the CanWest sale, Mr. Waldie disclosed that Csr. Romano asked Mr. Radler more than twice about the share price leap. It's now Ron Safer's turn, for defendant Mark Kipnis. The prosecution alleges that Mr. Kipnis' $100,000 bonus was a payoff for facilitating the allegedly illegal transactions; the defense argues that Kipnis got it for his good work as a lawyer. Mr. Radler all but admitted that the latter explanation was the true one.
When co-host Pat Bolland asked how the other lawyers are doing when compared with Eddie Greenspan, Mr. Waldie started off with the general strategy used by the defense team: whichever lawyer goes first takes the most time at cross-examination, and the others follow in his wake. The other lawyers' styles are "very different" than Csr. Greenspan's: they ask more yes/no questions, they're more document-centred, and they're less aggressive than Eddie Greenspan is. Mr. Radler is behaving on the stand today. Mr. Waldie finished by stating that the defense's call about Conrad Black taking the stand has yet to be made.
An updated version of the same report by Ms. Maurino has some detail on Csr. Safer's cross-examination in its lower middle. He "began his cross-examination by saying his client wasn't involved in purchases and sales. As the Chicago-based in-house consel for Hollinger International, he was in charge of pensions, insurance and property leases." In other words, the legal paperwork related to the allegation wasn't under Mr. Kipnis' purview.
The latest AP summary, webbed by WQAD.com, concurs with what Mr. Waldie reported in his interview: "The star witness at Conrad Black's fraud trial says 1 of Black's co-defendants saved the Hollinger International media empire millions of dollars in legal fees and earned $150,000 in bonuses." It also discloses that Mr. Radler testified that the bonuses were unrelated to the sale to CanWest.
Ms. Maurino's reports above have been revamped into a newer one, with new information added, as webbed by Canadian Business. It not only repeats the above information about the real reason behind the awarding of bonuses to Mr. Kipnis, it also says that Mr. Radler answered in the affirmative to this question from Csr. Safer: "'Each time the government asked you, you said the bonus had nothing to do with non-competes and was solely based on Mark Kipnis's hard work and the money he saved Hollinger on legal fees'..."
The second page of the report notes Mr. Radler's behavior today, and adds some of Mr. Radler's earlier testimony as background.
A more detailed AP report is out, as webbed by Forbes.com, and it also has details on the revelation that Mr. Kipnis did not receive any special compensation for the legal work he did for the allegedly illegal transactions. At its end, it notes that Csr. Safer "stressed that Kipnis had no experience in or knowledge of the newspaper business when he joined Hollinger International and no reason to distrust Vogt's judgment in ordering the money transferred to Toronto." Specifically, he asked Mr. Radler if the latter had ever told Mr. Kipnis not to trust Mr. Vogt as of January 1999 (the time when the $2 million was transferred) and Mr. Radler said that he hadn't.
The Reuters report has additional information on Csr. Romano's earlier cross-examination, some of which veered in on who approved the non-compete payments for Jack Boultbee and Csr. Romano's client, Peter Atkinson: "Romano noted that as the deal neared closing Radler -- who has pleaded guilty to one count of fraud in the case and faces jail time -- forwarded to Boultbee and Atkinson advice from an accountant that non-compete payments were free of tax in Canada.... 'You sent him (Atkinson) the fax because you thought that he had a personal interest, did you not? You had discussed giving a portion of the non-compete to Peter by that time?' Romano asked." Mr. Radler answered that he didn't know because he couldn't put definite dates to each.
The updated version of the above report has added testimony, in a subsection starting on page 3 entitled "No Reason To Panic." It discloses that, during his cross-examination, Csr. Safer asked Mr. Radler to go back in his mind to "early 2001 when Hollinger was forced to disclose the payments in its financial statements to government regulators and shareholders." After being asked about his emotional state, Mr. Radler replied, "'Sir, they signed them (the financial statements), didn't they?'" Then, snapping to when Csr. Safer suggested that he unconsciously agreed with the defense's theory regarding the individual non-compete payments, he responded, "'No, sir, that's your version.'"
And finally, another AP report, webbed by the International Herald-Tribune, discloses near its end that Mr. Radler's flat testimony, that the audit committee would never have approved the individual non-compete agreements, was met with a question from Csr. Safer of why he would say in August 2001 that Gov. Thompson had approve them. "'Did you think you could convince the governor that he approved something he didn't approve?'" Safer asked. When Mr. Radler replied that he didn't know, Safer snapped back, "'But you thought you'd give it a shot.'"
----------
Mark Steyn's entry ealier today in his Conrad Black trial blog reviews the prosecution's opening address and compares what's promised there to what has been actually delivered. He concludes that it all hinges upon four phone calls...and nothing more. Jeffrey Cramer's opening address is webbed here.
(What's interesting about this conclusion is what it would imply if Conrad Black and the others are convicted. The "bureaucratic mentality" would come back with a fury, and the business phone may very well become antiquated. "E-mails; E-mails; E-mails" would be de rigueur, and more personal modes of communication would be rendered anathema except in more old-fashioned/secure part of the business world.
(Something to consider: this would mean that a lot of law-abiding executives would act, perhaps out of advice from lawyers, as if they were shady characters. It could be that the use of the RICO act [originally intended to prosecute mobsters] against tradespeople has a self-fulfilling-prophecy aspect to it, unless used judiciously and with knowledge of what it takes to be a law-abiding executive nowadays - let alone what it would take to be law-abiding in the world described in the previous paragraph.)
Alan D. Gold, a lawyer who writes for the Toronto Life Conrad Black trial blog, has a take on plea bargains being used in exchange for testimony, when sentencing is postponed until after the testimony is given, which hints at an agency problem inhering in them. In order to assure that the leniency of the agreed-to sentence is kept, the witness (the agent) has a lot of incentive to sing a tune that the prosecution is sympatico with, rather than the truth as it was.
Also, Douglas Bell, in his top-stories watch for Toronto Life's Conrad Black trial blog, has highlighted a feature article by Jennifer Wells, comparing David Radler to Enron's Andrew Fastow. Ms. Wells' article, which reminds us that the jury has yet to hear from Paul Healy, can be found here.
To get back to Mr. Steyn, his latest entry hints that what got the prosecutorial machine rolling in the first place was the impression that non-compete payments were inherently illegal, when in fact they're common.
Csr. Romano's strategy is revealed in a Canadian Press report, webbed by 680 News. "Defence lawyer Benito Romano says Atkinson was busy hammering out legal details of a blockbuster deal with CanWest Global Communications in 2000 when Hollinger's board approved disputed payments of tens of millions of dollars to Black, Radler and others." At its end, it also mentions Radler's self-stated lack of knowledge of the jump in the value of Hollinger Int'l shares.
Mr. Waldie was interviewed on BNN, at 1:40 PM ET. When reporting on the "surprising admission" that Csr. Romano had gotten out of Mr. Radler, the COO of Hollinger Int'l at the time of the CanWest sale, Mr. Waldie disclosed that Csr. Romano asked Mr. Radler more than twice about the share price leap. It's now Ron Safer's turn, for defendant Mark Kipnis. The prosecution alleges that Mr. Kipnis' $100,000 bonus was a payoff for facilitating the allegedly illegal transactions; the defense argues that Kipnis got it for his good work as a lawyer. Mr. Radler all but admitted that the latter explanation was the true one.
When co-host Pat Bolland asked how the other lawyers are doing when compared with Eddie Greenspan, Mr. Waldie started off with the general strategy used by the defense team: whichever lawyer goes first takes the most time at cross-examination, and the others follow in his wake. The other lawyers' styles are "very different" than Csr. Greenspan's: they ask more yes/no questions, they're more document-centred, and they're less aggressive than Eddie Greenspan is. Mr. Radler is behaving on the stand today. Mr. Waldie finished by stating that the defense's call about Conrad Black taking the stand has yet to be made.
An updated version of the same report by Ms. Maurino has some detail on Csr. Safer's cross-examination in its lower middle. He "began his cross-examination by saying his client wasn't involved in purchases and sales. As the Chicago-based in-house consel for Hollinger International, he was in charge of pensions, insurance and property leases." In other words, the legal paperwork related to the allegation wasn't under Mr. Kipnis' purview.
The latest AP summary, webbed by WQAD.com, concurs with what Mr. Waldie reported in his interview: "The star witness at Conrad Black's fraud trial says 1 of Black's co-defendants saved the Hollinger International media empire millions of dollars in legal fees and earned $150,000 in bonuses." It also discloses that Mr. Radler testified that the bonuses were unrelated to the sale to CanWest.
Ms. Maurino's reports above have been revamped into a newer one, with new information added, as webbed by Canadian Business. It not only repeats the above information about the real reason behind the awarding of bonuses to Mr. Kipnis, it also says that Mr. Radler answered in the affirmative to this question from Csr. Safer: "'Each time the government asked you, you said the bonus had nothing to do with non-competes and was solely based on Mark Kipnis's hard work and the money he saved Hollinger on legal fees'..."
The second page of the report notes Mr. Radler's behavior today, and adds some of Mr. Radler's earlier testimony as background.
A more detailed AP report is out, as webbed by Forbes.com, and it also has details on the revelation that Mr. Kipnis did not receive any special compensation for the legal work he did for the allegedly illegal transactions. At its end, it notes that Csr. Safer "stressed that Kipnis had no experience in or knowledge of the newspaper business when he joined Hollinger International and no reason to distrust Vogt's judgment in ordering the money transferred to Toronto." Specifically, he asked Mr. Radler if the latter had ever told Mr. Kipnis not to trust Mr. Vogt as of January 1999 (the time when the $2 million was transferred) and Mr. Radler said that he hadn't.
The Reuters report has additional information on Csr. Romano's earlier cross-examination, some of which veered in on who approved the non-compete payments for Jack Boultbee and Csr. Romano's client, Peter Atkinson: "Romano noted that as the deal neared closing Radler -- who has pleaded guilty to one count of fraud in the case and faces jail time -- forwarded to Boultbee and Atkinson advice from an accountant that non-compete payments were free of tax in Canada.... 'You sent him (Atkinson) the fax because you thought that he had a personal interest, did you not? You had discussed giving a portion of the non-compete to Peter by that time?' Romano asked." Mr. Radler answered that he didn't know because he couldn't put definite dates to each.
The updated version of the above report has added testimony, in a subsection starting on page 3 entitled "No Reason To Panic." It discloses that, during his cross-examination, Csr. Safer asked Mr. Radler to go back in his mind to "early 2001 when Hollinger was forced to disclose the payments in its financial statements to government regulators and shareholders." After being asked about his emotional state, Mr. Radler replied, "'Sir, they signed them (the financial statements), didn't they?'" Then, snapping to when Csr. Safer suggested that he unconsciously agreed with the defense's theory regarding the individual non-compete payments, he responded, "'No, sir, that's your version.'"
And finally, another AP report, webbed by the International Herald-Tribune, discloses near its end that Mr. Radler's flat testimony, that the audit committee would never have approved the individual non-compete agreements, was met with a question from Csr. Safer of why he would say in August 2001 that Gov. Thompson had approve them. "'Did you think you could convince the governor that he approved something he didn't approve?'" Safer asked. When Mr. Radler replied that he didn't know, Safer snapped back, "'But you thought you'd give it a shot.'"
----------
Mark Steyn's entry ealier today in his Conrad Black trial blog reviews the prosecution's opening address and compares what's promised there to what has been actually delivered. He concludes that it all hinges upon four phone calls...and nothing more. Jeffrey Cramer's opening address is webbed here.
(What's interesting about this conclusion is what it would imply if Conrad Black and the others are convicted. The "bureaucratic mentality" would come back with a fury, and the business phone may very well become antiquated. "E-mails; E-mails; E-mails" would be de rigueur, and more personal modes of communication would be rendered anathema except in more old-fashioned/secure part of the business world.
(Something to consider: this would mean that a lot of law-abiding executives would act, perhaps out of advice from lawyers, as if they were shady characters. It could be that the use of the RICO act [originally intended to prosecute mobsters] against tradespeople has a self-fulfilling-prophecy aspect to it, unless used judiciously and with knowledge of what it takes to be a law-abiding executive nowadays - let alone what it would take to be law-abiding in the world described in the previous paragraph.)
Alan D. Gold, a lawyer who writes for the Toronto Life Conrad Black trial blog, has a take on plea bargains being used in exchange for testimony, when sentencing is postponed until after the testimony is given, which hints at an agency problem inhering in them. In order to assure that the leniency of the agreed-to sentence is kept, the witness (the agent) has a lot of incentive to sing a tune that the prosecution is sympatico with, rather than the truth as it was.
Also, Douglas Bell, in his top-stories watch for Toronto Life's Conrad Black trial blog, has highlighted a feature article by Jennifer Wells, comparing David Radler to Enron's Andrew Fastow. Ms. Wells' article, which reminds us that the jury has yet to hear from Paul Healy, can be found here.
To get back to Mr. Steyn, his latest entry hints that what got the prosecutorial machine rolling in the first place was the impression that non-compete payments were inherently illegal, when in fact they're common.
Media Roundup: Prepared For The Wrong Examiner
The media reports on the Conrad Black trial, webbed overnight and today, have centred on the dissolution of David Radler's demeanor on the stand yesterday:
1. From the Chicago Tribune, a report that focuses upon the rebukes visited upon Mr. Radler for not directly answering the questions put to him. It's entitled "Radler admonished for evasive testimony."
2. CBC News has webbed the latest write-up from Romina Maurino, which reports that: "On Tuesday, he appeared at a loss to explain a number of discrepancies, including an attempt to deny that KPMG, Hollinger's auditors, and Torys LLP, the company's lawyers, knew about a "template" to funnel 25 per cent of all non-compete fees to Hollinger Inc. - the Canadian parent of Hollinger International.... Radler had initially held up under the gruelling cross-examination, but has now received various reprimands from the judge for being argumentative and for making speeches to qualify his answers." It quotes extensively from Steve Skurka, to the effect that Mr. Radler's credibility is slowly but definitely dissipating into a hazy shade of glibness. (Note: Ms. Maurino was the first regular on the beat to call Mr. Radler's testimony "evasive.")
3. The latest report from the Associated Press, webbed by the International Herald Tribune, starts off with the note that Mr. Radler "was hammered by defense attorneys as a liar and scolded by the judge for unsolicited comments Tuesday, his sixth combative day on the stand.... [He] has made it plain he has no intention of being a pushover for defense attorneys and has freely offered opinions no one requested when it suits him to speak out."
4. A Financial Times report, webbed by MSNBC.com, focuses upon Mr. Radler admitting his "inaccuracies," and his recurrent difficulties in answering yes-or-no questions put to him by Gus Newman. It mentions that Conrad Black "settled back on his chair with a wry smile on his lips" as this dispute-in-stages was going on. It also mentions, at the very end, that "[Csr.] Newman appeared infuriated himself at times, and at one stage apologised."
5. The Boston Globe has webbed an abridged Bloomberg report, which contains one single quote from Mr. Radler's testimony yesterday, "'I was in my rationalization phase'".
6. Peter Worthington's latest column, webbed by the London Free Press, reports that "the unravelling of Radler was unabated" - to the point where Mr. Radler could be charged with perjury in Canada. Mr. Worthington makes it evident that Mr. Radler couldn't invoke Fifth Amendment right because his plea bargain agreement has taken that right from him (unless he wants to call his own side of the bargain into question.) Mr. Worthington also reports that Mr. Radler seems to be in breach of one non-compete agreement he had signed.
7. The Globe and Mail has webbed Paul Waldie's report on yesterday's testimony, which contains a few details on Mr. Radler's operation of Hollinger International. Mr. Radler claimed in the stand that he didn't read the agreement for the sale to CanWest, despite he being involved in the negotiations, because he wasn't a lawyer.
8. Mary Vallis' latest report, webbed by the Vancouver Sun, points out another contradiction in Mr. Radler's testimony, exposed yesterday by Csr. Newman: a fax from July 2000 to Mr. Radler, in response to a question from him asking if non-compete payments were tax-free in Canada. "[It] contradicted testimony Radler gave last week, when Radler told the Chicago trial that he learned about the favourable tax treatment of non-competes in a newspaper article." Her article also describes Mr. Radler as giving "most of his answers in a soft voice and was repeatedly asked to speak up."
9. The Edmonton Journal has webbed a brief forecast from Canadian Press, entitled "Tough day ahead at Black trial for star prosecution witness David Radler." It notes that Mr. Radler is presently being questioned by Benito Romano, counsel for Peter Atkinson.
10. From the Daily Southtown, a report from the Chicago Sun-Times' Mary Wisniewski, which opens with a mention of Mr. Radler's "penchant for not answering questions and inserting extra comments in his testimony". It also notes that Mr. Radler's testimony was "subdued" after a ten-minute conference with his lawyer, John Duffy.
11. The last three paragraphs of Janet Whitman's latest, webbed by the New York Post, reports on the behavior of the jury. It notes that the jurors "seemed most lively when they could chatter among themselves when the judge called lawyers over for sidebars." They also became focused when a U.S. marshal had to rush over to replace a pen of a juror that ran out of ink.
12. Neil Sternberg of the Sun-Times starts his latest column with this "Opening Shot...": speculation from (my fellow) Canadian first-hand trial observers that Mr. Radler has breached the terms of his plea agreement, and may get the lengthy sentence that the prosecution hoped Conrad Black would serve. He also notes that "[r]eaders seem to think this fumbling performance is part of a plot between Radler and Black, that Radler is intentionally scuttling the case. But they forget that the feds can yank back their deal at any time and, if Radler ends up seeming less-than-forthcoming, they just might do that."
13. An abbreviated CP report has been webbed by the Orillia Packet-Times, entitled "Radler faces severe attack, forced to correct testimony."
14. The Globe has webbed another report by Mr. Waldie, which discloses what a soon-to-testify prosecution witness, Paul Healy, is bringing to the table: testimony about Mr. Black's spending patterns, as prefaced by documents that have already been filed as evidence in court. "According to those filings, Mr. Healy is expected to tell the jury about expenses Lord Black allegedly charged Hollinger for purchases made by his wife, Barbara Amiel-Black. Prosecutors allege Lord Black used company money to pay for his wife's alleged shopping trips which included buying $2,000 (U.S.) worth of exercise equipment, $2,700 in opera tickets and a $2,000 leather briefcase." It ends with an explanation of why the defense team wants access to notes on Mr. Healy's testimony to the Special Committee.
15. A less abridged Bloomberg report has been webbed by the Herald-Sun of Melbourne, Australia.
----------
A report in Editor and Publisher details a (re)current woe of what Hollinger International is now: Sun Times Media Group. STMG is planning to axe up to 25 small Chicago-area papers if they don't get their profit margins up. The top executives there now are still trying to turn it away from a string of losses. [A report from Crain's Chicago Business explains why.]
1. From the Chicago Tribune, a report that focuses upon the rebukes visited upon Mr. Radler for not directly answering the questions put to him. It's entitled "Radler admonished for evasive testimony."
2. CBC News has webbed the latest write-up from Romina Maurino, which reports that: "On Tuesday, he appeared at a loss to explain a number of discrepancies, including an attempt to deny that KPMG, Hollinger's auditors, and Torys LLP, the company's lawyers, knew about a "template" to funnel 25 per cent of all non-compete fees to Hollinger Inc. - the Canadian parent of Hollinger International.... Radler had initially held up under the gruelling cross-examination, but has now received various reprimands from the judge for being argumentative and for making speeches to qualify his answers." It quotes extensively from Steve Skurka, to the effect that Mr. Radler's credibility is slowly but definitely dissipating into a hazy shade of glibness. (Note: Ms. Maurino was the first regular on the beat to call Mr. Radler's testimony "evasive.")
3. The latest report from the Associated Press, webbed by the International Herald Tribune, starts off with the note that Mr. Radler "was hammered by defense attorneys as a liar and scolded by the judge for unsolicited comments Tuesday, his sixth combative day on the stand.... [He] has made it plain he has no intention of being a pushover for defense attorneys and has freely offered opinions no one requested when it suits him to speak out."
4. A Financial Times report, webbed by MSNBC.com, focuses upon Mr. Radler admitting his "inaccuracies," and his recurrent difficulties in answering yes-or-no questions put to him by Gus Newman. It mentions that Conrad Black "settled back on his chair with a wry smile on his lips" as this dispute-in-stages was going on. It also mentions, at the very end, that "[Csr.] Newman appeared infuriated himself at times, and at one stage apologised."
5. The Boston Globe has webbed an abridged Bloomberg report, which contains one single quote from Mr. Radler's testimony yesterday, "'I was in my rationalization phase'".
6. Peter Worthington's latest column, webbed by the London Free Press, reports that "the unravelling of Radler was unabated" - to the point where Mr. Radler could be charged with perjury in Canada. Mr. Worthington makes it evident that Mr. Radler couldn't invoke Fifth Amendment right because his plea bargain agreement has taken that right from him (unless he wants to call his own side of the bargain into question.) Mr. Worthington also reports that Mr. Radler seems to be in breach of one non-compete agreement he had signed.
7. The Globe and Mail has webbed Paul Waldie's report on yesterday's testimony, which contains a few details on Mr. Radler's operation of Hollinger International. Mr. Radler claimed in the stand that he didn't read the agreement for the sale to CanWest, despite he being involved in the negotiations, because he wasn't a lawyer.
8. Mary Vallis' latest report, webbed by the Vancouver Sun, points out another contradiction in Mr. Radler's testimony, exposed yesterday by Csr. Newman: a fax from July 2000 to Mr. Radler, in response to a question from him asking if non-compete payments were tax-free in Canada. "[It] contradicted testimony Radler gave last week, when Radler told the Chicago trial that he learned about the favourable tax treatment of non-competes in a newspaper article." Her article also describes Mr. Radler as giving "most of his answers in a soft voice and was repeatedly asked to speak up."
9. The Edmonton Journal has webbed a brief forecast from Canadian Press, entitled "Tough day ahead at Black trial for star prosecution witness David Radler." It notes that Mr. Radler is presently being questioned by Benito Romano, counsel for Peter Atkinson.
10. From the Daily Southtown, a report from the Chicago Sun-Times' Mary Wisniewski, which opens with a mention of Mr. Radler's "penchant for not answering questions and inserting extra comments in his testimony". It also notes that Mr. Radler's testimony was "subdued" after a ten-minute conference with his lawyer, John Duffy.
11. The last three paragraphs of Janet Whitman's latest, webbed by the New York Post, reports on the behavior of the jury. It notes that the jurors "seemed most lively when they could chatter among themselves when the judge called lawyers over for sidebars." They also became focused when a U.S. marshal had to rush over to replace a pen of a juror that ran out of ink.
12. Neil Sternberg of the Sun-Times starts his latest column with this "Opening Shot...": speculation from (my fellow) Canadian first-hand trial observers that Mr. Radler has breached the terms of his plea agreement, and may get the lengthy sentence that the prosecution hoped Conrad Black would serve. He also notes that "[r]eaders seem to think this fumbling performance is part of a plot between Radler and Black, that Radler is intentionally scuttling the case. But they forget that the feds can yank back their deal at any time and, if Radler ends up seeming less-than-forthcoming, they just might do that."
13. An abbreviated CP report has been webbed by the Orillia Packet-Times, entitled "Radler faces severe attack, forced to correct testimony."
14. The Globe has webbed another report by Mr. Waldie, which discloses what a soon-to-testify prosecution witness, Paul Healy, is bringing to the table: testimony about Mr. Black's spending patterns, as prefaced by documents that have already been filed as evidence in court. "According to those filings, Mr. Healy is expected to tell the jury about expenses Lord Black allegedly charged Hollinger for purchases made by his wife, Barbara Amiel-Black. Prosecutors allege Lord Black used company money to pay for his wife's alleged shopping trips which included buying $2,000 (U.S.) worth of exercise equipment, $2,700 in opera tickets and a $2,000 leather briefcase." It ends with an explanation of why the defense team wants access to notes on Mr. Healy's testimony to the Special Committee.
15. A less abridged Bloomberg report has been webbed by the Herald-Sun of Melbourne, Australia.
----------
A report in Editor and Publisher details a (re)current woe of what Hollinger International is now: Sun Times Media Group. STMG is planning to axe up to 25 small Chicago-area papers if they don't get their profit margins up. The top executives there now are still trying to turn it away from a string of losses. [A report from Crain's Chicago Business explains why.]
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Corruption: Time, Place, People
A sociologist by the name of Jack D. Douglas once adapted Sartre’s maxim, “we are condemned to be free,” to: we’re condemned to be partially free. In an analogous matter, general society is condemned to be partially opportunistic.
It really can’t be helped. Opportunism is the dark side of opportunity-seeking; it is to “enterprising” what “scrawny” is to “wiry.” We can’t eliminate scrawniness without eliminating thinness, and wiriness.
Consequently, there are cultural norms that tell us what’s enterprising, what’s opportunity-seeking, and what’s opportunistic – and what’s corrupt.
These norms do change over time. Back in the 1920s, insider trading was considered just one of life’s bounties. Nowadays, it’s been illegalized, if not always frowned upon. In the 1920s, though, something as normal as accounting for intangible assets - “goodwill” – was considered to be stock-watering, a real no-no back then. Day-trading was also considered to be fit for the bucket shop, except for professionals right at the market; the bulk of the latter’s trades were arbitrage. It’s really impossible to say whether or not today’s investing and business milieu is more permissive of opportunism, and even of corruption of norms, than the 1920s' was; all that can be said is that a lot of practices frowned on now were okay back then, and vice-versa.
The same thing applies to self-dealing by executives. As of now, this is not only frowned on, but pounced on. Back in the 1950s in Canada, at least in the world of Bud Macdougald, it was permitted and even somewhat customary, as a kind of rudimentary stock-option or performance-bonus compensation. I need hardly say that granting stock options to executives was a rare practice back then, and was also associated with disreputable penny-stock companies.
Since norms are observed by people, the group involved is also central to what was considered corrupt in business and investing, and what is not. A hundred years ago, there was a crazy-quilt system of keeping the books of listed companies, and this was tolerated. Nowadays, there being many more investors, a much greater proportion of them self-taught, and (of course) many more public companies to watch, such a system now would be intolerable. When the market is played primarily by investment guildspeople, whose education came at their parents’ knees, the latitude for “you shoulda known” is much greater than a market with general public participation can tolerate.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the phrase “corrupt business practices” is like the word “terrorist” – both for those more philosophical and those more down-to-earth. One interesting point to ponder is: what kind of executive-compensation, investment and corporate practices considered tolerable nowadays will become egregious fifty years from now? And what norms then would be shockingly imprudent to us in 2007?
It really can’t be helped. Opportunism is the dark side of opportunity-seeking; it is to “enterprising” what “scrawny” is to “wiry.” We can’t eliminate scrawniness without eliminating thinness, and wiriness.
Consequently, there are cultural norms that tell us what’s enterprising, what’s opportunity-seeking, and what’s opportunistic – and what’s corrupt.
These norms do change over time. Back in the 1920s, insider trading was considered just one of life’s bounties. Nowadays, it’s been illegalized, if not always frowned upon. In the 1920s, though, something as normal as accounting for intangible assets - “goodwill” – was considered to be stock-watering, a real no-no back then. Day-trading was also considered to be fit for the bucket shop, except for professionals right at the market; the bulk of the latter’s trades were arbitrage. It’s really impossible to say whether or not today’s investing and business milieu is more permissive of opportunism, and even of corruption of norms, than the 1920s' was; all that can be said is that a lot of practices frowned on now were okay back then, and vice-versa.
The same thing applies to self-dealing by executives. As of now, this is not only frowned on, but pounced on. Back in the 1950s in Canada, at least in the world of Bud Macdougald, it was permitted and even somewhat customary, as a kind of rudimentary stock-option or performance-bonus compensation. I need hardly say that granting stock options to executives was a rare practice back then, and was also associated with disreputable penny-stock companies.
Since norms are observed by people, the group involved is also central to what was considered corrupt in business and investing, and what is not. A hundred years ago, there was a crazy-quilt system of keeping the books of listed companies, and this was tolerated. Nowadays, there being many more investors, a much greater proportion of them self-taught, and (of course) many more public companies to watch, such a system now would be intolerable. When the market is played primarily by investment guildspeople, whose education came at their parents’ knees, the latitude for “you shoulda known” is much greater than a market with general public participation can tolerate.
It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the phrase “corrupt business practices” is like the word “terrorist” – both for those more philosophical and those more down-to-earth. One interesting point to ponder is: what kind of executive-compensation, investment and corporate practices considered tolerable nowadays will become egregious fifty years from now? And what norms then would be shockingly imprudent to us in 2007?
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.
----------
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.
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.
----------
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.
Media Roundup: Exit Stage Greenspan
Overnight's, or today's, media reports on what the defense hoped would become the David Radler trial are still numerous but fading:
1. The New Zealand Herald has webbed the Reuters report, which starts off with: "Conrad Black's lawyer today accused the star prosecution witness against the former media baron of being a habitual liar out to save himself." It then supplies details on Mr. Radler's inconsistency on the stand, exposed by Eddie Greenspan yesterday morning, and then summarizes Mr. Radler's testimony under direct examination before ending with the final moments of Csr. Greenspan's cross.
2. The Montreal Gazette has webbed Mary Vallis' latest, which starts off with those final moments. It also mentions a rebuke from Judge St. Eve aimed at Eric Sussman, who had "complained [twice] to [her] that the defence lawyer was not operating in good faith." After telling him that he had created an improper impression in front of the jury, "Sussman then stormed out of the courtroom."
3. From the Chicago Tribune's James P. Miller, a report that describes Csr. Greenspan's entire cross-examination of Mr. Radler as "remorseless" and yesterday's as proceeding "with an even more truculent tone" than last week's. It mentions all of the major news points from yesterday morning's cross.
4. The latest report by the National Post's Theresa Tedesco starts off by noting that the jury is ignorant of the fact that Judge St. Eve is the same person that will approve or deny Mr. Radler's plea agreement, which she has yet to do. Afterwards, it mentions that Csr. Greenspan did in fact use the p-word in a question directed to Mr. Radler, in his final line of questioning that came close to exposing Judge St. Eve as the "'sentencing judge'" mentioned in the plea bargain.
5. The First Post has webbed a report by Paul Waldie, which describes Mr. Radler as "battered but not broken" at the end of Csr. Greenspan's cross-examination. It mentions that "Greenspan landed one big blow when he noted Radler had no documentation to back up key phone calls he had with Black in 1999 and 2000."
6. Peter Worthington's latest column, webbed by the Edmonton Sun, says explicitly that Mr. Radler had perjured himself. It also mentions the side deal for control between Mr. Radler and David Vogt. Mr. Worthington is one of the few Canadian journalists who can get away with this sentence, describing Conrad Black's reaction when he found out about Vee Holdings: "When Black discovered this three years later, he felt betrayed and sent a querulous and plaintive memo to Radler questioning the ploy."
7. Janet Whitman of the New York Post also focuses upon the final moments of Csr Greenspan's questioning. It quotes Mr. Radler's answer to one of Csr. Greenspan's more-reported-on jibes: "When Greenspan asked whether he had made the 'deal of a lifetime,' Radler responded, 'I don't believe going to prison even for 10 days is a great deal.'"
8. Also from the Post, a report on the missing five chandeliers from the same Manhattan apartment which the prosecution alleges that Conrad Black had bought for below-market value. It's a tid-bit from another legal action that Mr. Black is involved in, as a defendant...
9. A brief report, webbed by the Regina Leader-Post, quotes Mr. Radler as responding to the question of whether or not he knew about the Canadian parole provisions for his sentence with this statement: "'I'll look right in their faces and say that I've heard a lot of rumours but I did not know that,' Radler said, referring to the lenient six months he could spend in a Canadian prison."
10. From the Globe and Mail, another report by Paul Waldie, which starts off with: "Jurors in the Conrad Black trial probably don't know a lot about Canada, but they got a lesson yesterday in our lax sentencing rules and cushy prisons where inmates play golf, tend cattle and roam across acres of farmland." It also mentions that Judge St. Eve had "to intervene twice to restore order."
11. A report, from the Chicago Sun-Times, features Chicago Prediction Markets. According to the report, "[t]he most active market is one on whether former Sun-Times owner Conrad Black would be found guilty in his federal trial. Only 39 percent think Black will walk."
12. From LawFuel.com, a report entitled "Radler's Sweetheart Prison Deal - Conrad Black Fraud Trial - David Radler's Cross Examination."
13. Also from the Globe, and also written by Paul Waldie, the only report that begins by focusing upon the cross-examination of generally-overlooked Gus Newman. Csr. Newman got Judge St. Eve intervening twice as well, but both of them involved him objecting to David Radler's answers. Subsequently, he asked: "'Do you feel that your gratuitous remarks strengthens you position with the people at this table?'... while pointing to prosecutors." The report also mentions that the next prosecution witness is Paul Healy, former investor-relations officer for Hollinger International.
14. The Globe also has a comedy feature that presents Conrad Black as not quite a role model.
15. CTV NewsNet broadcast a report by Joy Malbon, which re-capped Csr. Greenspan's cross-examination. It contained a quote from Csr. Greenspan himself, after he was finished: ""I liked it [the cross-examination] a lot." After relaying that Mr. Radler confirmed he had no documents, it quotes Steve Skurka: "Radler was virtually confessing that he had acted alone" at the end of the cross. [CTV News also has a webbed report, with broadband links to that story and a Canada AM interview with Csr. Skurka.]
16. Rick Westhead of the Toronto Star has written a report that covers all of the highlights, and also contains some description of the spectators' reactions. He concludes that Csr. Greenspan did much better yesterday than last week.
----------
Mark Steyn has an interim-finale kick at Mr. Radler, entitled "As straight as a $3 bill," which begins with a personal anecdote of dropped dealings between he and Mr. Radler that ties in with the title.
1. The New Zealand Herald has webbed the Reuters report, which starts off with: "Conrad Black's lawyer today accused the star prosecution witness against the former media baron of being a habitual liar out to save himself." It then supplies details on Mr. Radler's inconsistency on the stand, exposed by Eddie Greenspan yesterday morning, and then summarizes Mr. Radler's testimony under direct examination before ending with the final moments of Csr. Greenspan's cross.
2. The Montreal Gazette has webbed Mary Vallis' latest, which starts off with those final moments. It also mentions a rebuke from Judge St. Eve aimed at Eric Sussman, who had "complained [twice] to [her] that the defence lawyer was not operating in good faith." After telling him that he had created an improper impression in front of the jury, "Sussman then stormed out of the courtroom."
3. From the Chicago Tribune's James P. Miller, a report that describes Csr. Greenspan's entire cross-examination of Mr. Radler as "remorseless" and yesterday's as proceeding "with an even more truculent tone" than last week's. It mentions all of the major news points from yesterday morning's cross.
4. The latest report by the National Post's Theresa Tedesco starts off by noting that the jury is ignorant of the fact that Judge St. Eve is the same person that will approve or deny Mr. Radler's plea agreement, which she has yet to do. Afterwards, it mentions that Csr. Greenspan did in fact use the p-word in a question directed to Mr. Radler, in his final line of questioning that came close to exposing Judge St. Eve as the "'sentencing judge'" mentioned in the plea bargain.
5. The First Post has webbed a report by Paul Waldie, which describes Mr. Radler as "battered but not broken" at the end of Csr. Greenspan's cross-examination. It mentions that "Greenspan landed one big blow when he noted Radler had no documentation to back up key phone calls he had with Black in 1999 and 2000."
6. Peter Worthington's latest column, webbed by the Edmonton Sun, says explicitly that Mr. Radler had perjured himself. It also mentions the side deal for control between Mr. Radler and David Vogt. Mr. Worthington is one of the few Canadian journalists who can get away with this sentence, describing Conrad Black's reaction when he found out about Vee Holdings: "When Black discovered this three years later, he felt betrayed and sent a querulous and plaintive memo to Radler questioning the ploy."
7. Janet Whitman of the New York Post also focuses upon the final moments of Csr Greenspan's questioning. It quotes Mr. Radler's answer to one of Csr. Greenspan's more-reported-on jibes: "When Greenspan asked whether he had made the 'deal of a lifetime,' Radler responded, 'I don't believe going to prison even for 10 days is a great deal.'"
8. Also from the Post, a report on the missing five chandeliers from the same Manhattan apartment which the prosecution alleges that Conrad Black had bought for below-market value. It's a tid-bit from another legal action that Mr. Black is involved in, as a defendant...
9. A brief report, webbed by the Regina Leader-Post, quotes Mr. Radler as responding to the question of whether or not he knew about the Canadian parole provisions for his sentence with this statement: "'I'll look right in their faces and say that I've heard a lot of rumours but I did not know that,' Radler said, referring to the lenient six months he could spend in a Canadian prison."
10. From the Globe and Mail, another report by Paul Waldie, which starts off with: "Jurors in the Conrad Black trial probably don't know a lot about Canada, but they got a lesson yesterday in our lax sentencing rules and cushy prisons where inmates play golf, tend cattle and roam across acres of farmland." It also mentions that Judge St. Eve had "to intervene twice to restore order."
11. A report, from the Chicago Sun-Times, features Chicago Prediction Markets. According to the report, "[t]he most active market is one on whether former Sun-Times owner Conrad Black would be found guilty in his federal trial. Only 39 percent think Black will walk."
12. From LawFuel.com, a report entitled "Radler's Sweetheart Prison Deal - Conrad Black Fraud Trial - David Radler's Cross Examination."
13. Also from the Globe, and also written by Paul Waldie, the only report that begins by focusing upon the cross-examination of generally-overlooked Gus Newman. Csr. Newman got Judge St. Eve intervening twice as well, but both of them involved him objecting to David Radler's answers. Subsequently, he asked: "'Do you feel that your gratuitous remarks strengthens you position with the people at this table?'... while pointing to prosecutors." The report also mentions that the next prosecution witness is Paul Healy, former investor-relations officer for Hollinger International.
14. The Globe also has a comedy feature that presents Conrad Black as not quite a role model.
15. CTV NewsNet broadcast a report by Joy Malbon, which re-capped Csr. Greenspan's cross-examination. It contained a quote from Csr. Greenspan himself, after he was finished: ""I liked it [the cross-examination] a lot." After relaying that Mr. Radler confirmed he had no documents, it quotes Steve Skurka: "Radler was virtually confessing that he had acted alone" at the end of the cross. [CTV News also has a webbed report, with broadband links to that story and a Canada AM interview with Csr. Skurka.]
16. Rick Westhead of the Toronto Star has written a report that covers all of the highlights, and also contains some description of the spectators' reactions. He concludes that Csr. Greenspan did much better yesterday than last week.
----------
Mark Steyn has an interim-finale kick at Mr. Radler, entitled "As straight as a $3 bill," which begins with a personal anecdote of dropped dealings between he and Mr. Radler that ties in with the title.
Monday, May 14, 2007
The Verdict: Skimmed or Scathed?
There was one segment of tonight's episode of The Verdict that dealt with the Conrad Black trial. It started off with Ms. Todd announcing that the “critical phase” in the trial is over, in which Eddie Greenspan had launched an “all-out assault” on David Radler. The first guest was David Akin, who reported that Csr. Greenspan ended his cross-examination of Mr. Radler with the plea agreement, and stuck with the liar theme all the way through. He spelled out Mr. Radler’s incentive in the plea bargain for the jury to hear, which is more incentivizing than it seems because of the relatively lax parole regulations in Canada, and the relatively comfy minimun security prisons in B.C. Ms. Todd asked Mr. Akin how successful Csr. Greenspan was in impeaching Mr. Radler's testimony under direct examination, and he replied Greenspan “put seeds in the jury’s mind” that suggested Mr. Radler was the only criminal there.
The next guests were two attorneys, securites lawyer Andrew Stoltmann and CTV legal analyst Steve Skurka. Csr. Skurka stated that Csr. Greenspan was the “clear victor,” for two reasons: one, he established that there is no documentation supporting Mr. Radler’s word; two, Mr. Radler “gave Greenspan a gift:” he pretended that his deal with the prosecution wasn’t that sweet after all, and that he didn’t know about the lax prison time he could get in Canada, which was “ridiculous.” Csr. Stoltmann agreed with Csr. Skurka with regard to the success of the cross-examination.
Ms. Todd, though, asked if a smart white-collar criminal would document any illegal activity. Csr. Stoltmann replied that the answer was quite obviously no. That’s why Mr. Radler is so important to the prosecution. Csr. Skurka brought up this point regarding the lack of documents: what will the judge say to the jury before they decide?
Ms. Todd then asked if Mr. Radler has hurt Mr. Black’s chances, and will Mr. Black have to take the stand. Csr. Skurka noted in reply that the jury saw two Radlers, not one, and that Conrad Black won’t take the stand. Csr. Stoltmann disagreed, speculating that there is a chance, given Mr. Black’s ego. In 1982, he testified in SEC hearing, and seemingly enjoyed himself.
[This episode of The Verdict will be broadbanded as of 10:30 pm tonight, and will stay up until about 10:30 PM or so tomorrow.
[Also, CTV News has an updated report on the cross-examination, which details the points touched on above, along with a few sentences on the start of Gus Newman's cross-examination of Mr. Radler near its end. On that article's page, there are links to three broadbanded reports.]
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Neil Macdonald's report for CBC's The National included an accusation that Csr. Greenspan threw at Mr. Radler: using a euphemism, “rationalize,” for lying. He also said that Mr. Radler was never charged for “lying.” Mr. Radler agreed with the second half.
Mr. Macdonald also noted that Csr. Greenspan's cross "neatly" avoided two issues: one, Mr. Black still profited from any crimes committed by Mr. Radler; two, if Mr. Black regains his citizenship, then he will be entitled to that lax Canadian deal too. (It’s available to any citizen of Canada.)
The next guests were two attorneys, securites lawyer Andrew Stoltmann and CTV legal analyst Steve Skurka. Csr. Skurka stated that Csr. Greenspan was the “clear victor,” for two reasons: one, he established that there is no documentation supporting Mr. Radler’s word; two, Mr. Radler “gave Greenspan a gift:” he pretended that his deal with the prosecution wasn’t that sweet after all, and that he didn’t know about the lax prison time he could get in Canada, which was “ridiculous.” Csr. Stoltmann agreed with Csr. Skurka with regard to the success of the cross-examination.
Ms. Todd, though, asked if a smart white-collar criminal would document any illegal activity. Csr. Stoltmann replied that the answer was quite obviously no. That’s why Mr. Radler is so important to the prosecution. Csr. Skurka brought up this point regarding the lack of documents: what will the judge say to the jury before they decide?
Ms. Todd then asked if Mr. Radler has hurt Mr. Black’s chances, and will Mr. Black have to take the stand. Csr. Skurka noted in reply that the jury saw two Radlers, not one, and that Conrad Black won’t take the stand. Csr. Stoltmann disagreed, speculating that there is a chance, given Mr. Black’s ego. In 1982, he testified in SEC hearing, and seemingly enjoyed himself.
[This episode of The Verdict will be broadbanded as of 10:30 pm tonight, and will stay up until about 10:30 PM or so tomorrow.
[Also, CTV News has an updated report on the cross-examination, which details the points touched on above, along with a few sentences on the start of Gus Newman's cross-examination of Mr. Radler near its end. On that article's page, there are links to three broadbanded reports.]
----------
Neil Macdonald's report for CBC's The National included an accusation that Csr. Greenspan threw at Mr. Radler: using a euphemism, “rationalize,” for lying. He also said that Mr. Radler was never charged for “lying.” Mr. Radler agreed with the second half.
Mr. Macdonald also noted that Csr. Greenspan's cross "neatly" avoided two issues: one, Mr. Black still profited from any crimes committed by Mr. Radler; two, if Mr. Black regains his citizenship, then he will be entitled to that lax Canadian deal too. (It’s available to any citizen of Canada.)
Monday's Cross-Examination of Mr. Radler: Still Continuing, With Different Hands
ormally, Mark Steyn is unabashedly pro-vindication; his blog posts do tend to be opinionated. Some of them, though, do contain scoops, such as two of his recent ones. The first discloses that Todd Vogt of Horizon Publishing was a stooge for David Radler, which explains how Mr. Radler hold majority control of the company that Conrad Black also owns a piece of. The set-up even used a "golden share arrangement," similar to the one that Reuters uses. The careful Mr. Radler has even gotten a written document - an undated but signed resignation letter - from Mr. Vogt in case the latter gets refractory. The second discloses that the $2 million payment mentioned in the indictment, which was wired from Chicago to Toronto, was ordered by that same Mr. Vogt.
Speaking of Reuters, its report on the cross-examination of Mr. Radler, by Andrew Stern, has been webbed. With regard to the inconsistency that Csr. Greenspan had pounced on early this morning, in which he exposed that Mr. Radler had testified on two previous occasions that he had reviewed / not-reviewed his statements submitted to the Special Committee, Mr. Stern writes, "[Mr. Radler] said he must have misunderstood Greenspan's question last week about what he had reviewed." The entire report has copious quotes from Csr. Greenspan's cross-examination this morning.
Mary Vallis also has a report, webbed by the Financial Post, which not only relates the final moments of Csr. Greenspan's cross-examination but also expands upon that rebuke reported on by Mr. Steyn, linked to below the dashes: "[After telling the jury to leave, she told the prosecutors] ''You leave an impression in front of the jury that is not proper,'...
"Mr. Sussman then stormed out of the courtroom."
A report aired by CBC Newsworld, at 3 PM ET, featured CBC reporter Havard Gould relaying the conclusion that Mr. Radler, as a witness, is still largely intact after Csr. Greenspan's cross-examination. He supplied no documents justifying the scheme allegation, though. What may stick with the jury is the "sweetheart" plea-bargain deal that Csr. Greenspan ended his cross with, including the part about serving in Canada, which has much more lenient parole regulations than the U.S. does for these kinds of crimes. Mr. Radler's professed ignorance of the lenience that accompanies serving the term in Canada "didn't ring true." As of now, no-one knows what path the other counsels will take in their own cross-examinations.
An updated CP report, webbed by 940 Montreal, relays that Csr. Greenspan listed all the deals mentioned in the indictment before closing with the remark that the plea bargain was the best deal Mr. Radler had ever made. It also discloses that the lawyer for Jack Boultbee, Gus Newman, is the next cross-examiner of Mr. Radler. [The CBC has webbed the same report, credited to Romina Maurino.] A recently-webbed Bloomberg report doesn't mention Csr. Newman's cross-examination at all; it focuses upon Csr. Greenspan's. It touches upon all the highlights, and carries an estimate of 20 years' prison time for Mr. Black is he's found guilty.
A report from David Akin, aired on CTV NewsNet at 3:30 PM ET, relayed this assessment from Steve Skurka: there was a "dramatic turnaround" for the defense this morning. Mr. Akin also disclosed this snippet from Csr. Greenspan's cross: when he mentioned the crimes "'committed here,'" Mr. Radler blurted out, "'By me?'" and Csr. Greenspan said, "Thank you very much." The only evidence of the alleged scheme were four phone calls, none with any supporting documentation. Mr. Akin ended his report by noting that Conrad Black "may" have something to say once Mr. Radler is through the cross-examination.
An updated version of the same Reuters report contains this new intro: "Conrad Black's lawyer on Monday accused the star prosecution witness against the former media baron of being a habitual liar out to save himself." It also contains Mr. Radler's reaction to Csr. Greenspan's best-deal remark: "'I don't believe going to prison ... is a "great deal"," Radler replied angrily. 'I'm facing a 29-month jail sentence.'" It also contains his answer to Mr. Greenspan's suggested accusation that Mr. Radler alone commited any criminal acts, which really ended his cross: "'By me,' Radler replied, sounding as if he were mocking Greenspan's question."
The International Herald Tribune has webbed an Associated Press report, which only covers Mr. Greenspan's cross. In addition to summarizing, it uses the Horizon set-up as bookends, and relates the trial-specific context of Mr. Radler's holding company for the additional shares in Horizon, Vee Holdings: "Cross-examined by Greenspan, Radler said that he had testified in a civil trial several years ago in Canada that he and Black each owned 24 percent of Horizon. Greenspan noted that Vee Holdings also owned shares." The existence of Vee was also used to suggest that Mr. Radler had fooled Mr. Black in a business co-venture.
Havard Gould's update at 4 PM contained little new information. It did, though, contain Mr. Gould's conclusion that, at most, there were "seeds of doubt" planted by Csr. Greenspan. It doesn't appear as if this pivotal moment in the trial did anything for Conrad Black at all.
David Akin's, broadcasted by CTV NewsNet at 4:30 PM ET, did have news on Csr. Newman's cross-examination, after reporting that the lawyers observing the trial believe that Csr. Greenspan did rather well today. Mr. Akin reported, contrary to Reuters' Andrew Stern , that Mr. Radler sounded surprised, not mocking, at the end. As far as Csr. Newman's line of questioning is concerned, it is trying to establish that Jack Boultbee was just an accountant, like many others. Mr. Boultbee, in other words, "had nothing to do with it." Mr. Akin forecasted that this approach is the same one that the other defense counsels will probably take. [CTV News has webbed an associated report on Csr. Greenspan's cross-examination.]
AHN News has weighed in with a brief report of its own, which summarizes Mr. Radler's testimony this morning. So does Stephen Foley of The Independent; his report covers the same ground.
The report for BBC News goes into more detail, and works in some testimony Mr. Radler made under direct examination last week. David Letterick's, for the Telegraph, focuses upon the final moments of Csr. Greenspan's cross-examination, from which it quotes.
----------
Mr. Steyn still shows his opiniatedness; he did relate with some glee Judge St. Eve's tongue-crack directed at Eric Sussman: "Prosecutor Sussman was not happy about the country-club line of questioning about [Mr. Radler's plea agreement, which occupied the last part of Eddie Greenspan's cross-examination], and angrily objected twice that Mr Greenspan had no good-faith basis for what he was asking. The judge overruled the objections and at the recess slapped down the prosecution harder than she ever has before. 'Don't make that objection again in front of the jury,' she rebuked him. 'It's not proper.'" (This rebuke does answer Mr. Steyn's earlier complaint that Csr. Sussman was getting too easy a ride.)
Also, a story by James Bone webbed in the Times Online, details a civil suit by Sotheby's International Realty for its commission on the sale of Conrad Black's former Manhatten apartment, which notes that " Patricia Patterson, Lord Black’s broker at Sotheby’s, said in a deposition that she was surprised to find that the five chandeliers in the flat had been removed by Lady Black."
In an item related to the broader issues underlying the trial, another activist mutual fund is going after another honoured U.K citizen, for clarification of the strategy and governance of the media company he is the CEO of and partly owns. The mutual fund is Franklin Mutual Advisors, and the CEO-shareholder is Sir Richard Branson. (The company is, of course, Virgin Media.)
Finally, Douglas Bell, in Toronto Life's Conrad Black trial blog, finds real significance in the moment when Conrad batted away Tony Fell, after the latter flew down to Palm Beach to urge the former to settle.
Speaking of Reuters, its report on the cross-examination of Mr. Radler, by Andrew Stern, has been webbed. With regard to the inconsistency that Csr. Greenspan had pounced on early this morning, in which he exposed that Mr. Radler had testified on two previous occasions that he had reviewed / not-reviewed his statements submitted to the Special Committee, Mr. Stern writes, "[Mr. Radler] said he must have misunderstood Greenspan's question last week about what he had reviewed." The entire report has copious quotes from Csr. Greenspan's cross-examination this morning.
Mary Vallis also has a report, webbed by the Financial Post, which not only relates the final moments of Csr. Greenspan's cross-examination but also expands upon that rebuke reported on by Mr. Steyn, linked to below the dashes: "[After telling the jury to leave, she told the prosecutors] ''You leave an impression in front of the jury that is not proper,'...
"Mr. Sussman then stormed out of the courtroom."
A report aired by CBC Newsworld, at 3 PM ET, featured CBC reporter Havard Gould relaying the conclusion that Mr. Radler, as a witness, is still largely intact after Csr. Greenspan's cross-examination. He supplied no documents justifying the scheme allegation, though. What may stick with the jury is the "sweetheart" plea-bargain deal that Csr. Greenspan ended his cross with, including the part about serving in Canada, which has much more lenient parole regulations than the U.S. does for these kinds of crimes. Mr. Radler's professed ignorance of the lenience that accompanies serving the term in Canada "didn't ring true." As of now, no-one knows what path the other counsels will take in their own cross-examinations.
An updated CP report, webbed by 940 Montreal, relays that Csr. Greenspan listed all the deals mentioned in the indictment before closing with the remark that the plea bargain was the best deal Mr. Radler had ever made. It also discloses that the lawyer for Jack Boultbee, Gus Newman, is the next cross-examiner of Mr. Radler. [The CBC has webbed the same report, credited to Romina Maurino.] A recently-webbed Bloomberg report doesn't mention Csr. Newman's cross-examination at all; it focuses upon Csr. Greenspan's. It touches upon all the highlights, and carries an estimate of 20 years' prison time for Mr. Black is he's found guilty.
A report from David Akin, aired on CTV NewsNet at 3:30 PM ET, relayed this assessment from Steve Skurka: there was a "dramatic turnaround" for the defense this morning. Mr. Akin also disclosed this snippet from Csr. Greenspan's cross: when he mentioned the crimes "'committed here,'" Mr. Radler blurted out, "'By me?'" and Csr. Greenspan said, "Thank you very much." The only evidence of the alleged scheme were four phone calls, none with any supporting documentation. Mr. Akin ended his report by noting that Conrad Black "may" have something to say once Mr. Radler is through the cross-examination.
An updated version of the same Reuters report contains this new intro: "Conrad Black's lawyer on Monday accused the star prosecution witness against the former media baron of being a habitual liar out to save himself." It also contains Mr. Radler's reaction to Csr. Greenspan's best-deal remark: "'I don't believe going to prison ... is a "great deal"," Radler replied angrily. 'I'm facing a 29-month jail sentence.'" It also contains his answer to Mr. Greenspan's suggested accusation that Mr. Radler alone commited any criminal acts, which really ended his cross: "'By me,' Radler replied, sounding as if he were mocking Greenspan's question."
The International Herald Tribune has webbed an Associated Press report, which only covers Mr. Greenspan's cross. In addition to summarizing, it uses the Horizon set-up as bookends, and relates the trial-specific context of Mr. Radler's holding company for the additional shares in Horizon, Vee Holdings: "Cross-examined by Greenspan, Radler said that he had testified in a civil trial several years ago in Canada that he and Black each owned 24 percent of Horizon. Greenspan noted that Vee Holdings also owned shares." The existence of Vee was also used to suggest that Mr. Radler had fooled Mr. Black in a business co-venture.
Havard Gould's update at 4 PM contained little new information. It did, though, contain Mr. Gould's conclusion that, at most, there were "seeds of doubt" planted by Csr. Greenspan. It doesn't appear as if this pivotal moment in the trial did anything for Conrad Black at all.
David Akin's, broadcasted by CTV NewsNet at 4:30 PM ET, did have news on Csr. Newman's cross-examination, after reporting that the lawyers observing the trial believe that Csr. Greenspan did rather well today. Mr. Akin reported, contrary to Reuters' Andrew Stern , that Mr. Radler sounded surprised, not mocking, at the end. As far as Csr. Newman's line of questioning is concerned, it is trying to establish that Jack Boultbee was just an accountant, like many others. Mr. Boultbee, in other words, "had nothing to do with it." Mr. Akin forecasted that this approach is the same one that the other defense counsels will probably take. [CTV News has webbed an associated report on Csr. Greenspan's cross-examination.]
AHN News has weighed in with a brief report of its own, which summarizes Mr. Radler's testimony this morning. So does Stephen Foley of The Independent; his report covers the same ground.
The report for BBC News goes into more detail, and works in some testimony Mr. Radler made under direct examination last week. David Letterick's, for the Telegraph, focuses upon the final moments of Csr. Greenspan's cross-examination, from which it quotes.
----------
Mr. Steyn still shows his opiniatedness; he did relate with some glee Judge St. Eve's tongue-crack directed at Eric Sussman: "Prosecutor Sussman was not happy about the country-club line of questioning about [Mr. Radler's plea agreement, which occupied the last part of Eddie Greenspan's cross-examination], and angrily objected twice that Mr Greenspan had no good-faith basis for what he was asking. The judge overruled the objections and at the recess slapped down the prosecution harder than she ever has before. 'Don't make that objection again in front of the jury,' she rebuked him. 'It's not proper.'" (This rebuke does answer Mr. Steyn's earlier complaint that Csr. Sussman was getting too easy a ride.)
Also, a story by James Bone webbed in the Times Online, details a civil suit by Sotheby's International Realty for its commission on the sale of Conrad Black's former Manhatten apartment, which notes that " Patricia Patterson, Lord Black’s broker at Sotheby’s, said in a deposition that she was surprised to find that the five chandeliers in the flat had been removed by Lady Black."
In an item related to the broader issues underlying the trial, another activist mutual fund is going after another honoured U.K citizen, for clarification of the strategy and governance of the media company he is the CEO of and partly owns. The mutual fund is Franklin Mutual Advisors, and the CEO-shareholder is Sir Richard Branson. (The company is, of course, Virgin Media.)
Finally, Douglas Bell, in Toronto Life's Conrad Black trial blog, finds real significance in the moment when Conrad batted away Tony Fell, after the latter flew down to Palm Beach to urge the former to settle.
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