$2 million bond posted for ex-media mogul Conrad Black; attorney says release likely Wednesday

Atty: Conrad Black likely to be released Wednesday

CHICAGO — A federal judge set bond at $2 million for Conrad Black on Wednesday, ruling that the former media mogul can’t leave the continental United States and must return to a Chicago courtroom to receive further conditions of his release.

The decision from U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve came just two years into the 6½-year sentence Black received for defrauding investors out of millions of dollars.

A friend of Black’s, Roger Hertog, posted the $2 million bond, and Black’s attorney, Miguel Estrada, said he expected Black to be released Wednesday from the Coleman, Fla., prison where he’s been held.

“I’m hoping it happens today. It should happen today. It’s up to the facility to process the court order,” Estrada said after the hearing.

St. Eve ordered Black to appear before her at 12:30 p.m. Friday to go over the conditions of his release.

Black’s attorneys had asked that he be allowed to return to Canada, where he owns a home in Toronto. But St. Eve said he must remain in the U.S. and ordered Black to not try to obtain a passport. Estrada said Black, a member of Britain’s House of Lords, doesn’t own a current passport, and that the Federal Bureau of Prisons issued him an ID that would allow him to appear in court in Chicago on Friday.

Estrada said after the hearing that Black would likely return to his home in Palm Beach, Fla., after his release from prison.

Black and three former Hollinger International Inc. executives were convicted in 2007 of defrauding shareholders out of $6.1 million. One of the prosecutors’ arguments was that Black deprived the company of his faithful services as a corporate officer, breaking the so-called “honest services” law.

Black also was convicted of obstruction of justice after jurors saw a video of him carrying boxes of documents out of his offices, loading them into his car and driving off with them. The documents were sought by government investigators.

The U.S. Supreme Court last month limited the scope of the honest services law, leaving it to the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to determine whether to overturn Black’s conviction in whole or in part. The appeals court on Monday granted Black’s motion for bail as he appeals his fraud conviction.

The high court’s ruling didn’t affect the obstruction of justice count.

Hollinger International once owned the Chicago Sun-Times, The Daily Telegraph of London, The Jerusalem Post and hundreds of community papers in the U.S. and Canada.

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Associated Press writers Sophia Tareen and Karen Hawkins in Chicago contributed to this report.