CONRAD BLACK, the former Hollinger International chairman and chief executive officer, faces more than a year’s prison time in the US after being resentenced for mail fraud and obstructing justice, the surviving convictions from his 2007 trial.

The new sentence of 3½ years was imposed yesterday by US District Judge Amy J St Eve in Chicago. Black will get credit for 29 months already served, a justice department spokesman, Randall Samborn, said. He was in federal prison from March 2008 to July 2010 before winning a reversal of two convictions and being freed on bail.

Black’s wife, Barbara Amiel, appeared to faint when the sentenced was passed and was helped from the courtroom. It was the second time that Black (66) faced punishment at a federal courthouse for his role in what prosecutors called the theft of $6.1 million (€4.3 million) from the Chicago-based publishing company.

A federal appeals court last year threw out two of three mail fraud convictions after the Supreme Court told it to consider whether they conformed to a recent High Court decision. “I have always tried to take success like a gentleman and disappointment like a man,” Black told Judge St Eve before she imposed the sentence.

“I accept that a reasonable person could conclude that I am guilty,” he said, adding he also believed the same reasonable person could conclude he had been “adequately punished”.

Black’s lawyers argued that he showed respect for the law and did good work in prison by tutoring inmates at the low-security Coleman Federal Correctional Institution in Florida. His attorney Carolyn Gurland called his efforts “nothing less than extraordinary”.

A prosecutor countered that Black is “a corporate CEO who stole from the company and obstructed justice”, and that Black still stands convicted of two crimes. “Defendant’s conduct at Coleman, whatever it was, does not undo the crimes that were committed,” assistant US attorney Julie Porter said.

Judge St Eve said earlier that federal sentencing guidelines supported a term of 51 to 63 months.

Hollinger International, now Sun-Times Media Group, was once the world’s third-biggest publisher of English-language newspapers. Its publications included the Daily Telegraph in Britain, Canadas National Post and the Jerusalem Post.

Montreal-born Black served as the company’s chairman and CEO from 1995 to 2003. In 2003, amid allegations of corruption, he was forced to resign as CEO and was later fired as chairman. – (Bloomberg)