CHICAGO — A federal appeals court on Friday reversed two of former media mogul Conrad Black’s 2007 fraud convictions — raising at least the possibility that he won’t return to prison.
After serving two years of a 6 1/2-year sentence, Black was released earlier this year from a federal prison in Florida while his case was appealed.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago unanimously agreed that a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling sharply curtailing so called “honest services” laws meant the two fraud convictions had to be tossed. The government had conceded two of Black’s convictions rested partly on the idea that he had deprived his former company of his faithful services as a corporate officer.
But the ruling was only a partial victory for Black because the three-judge panel upheld two other convictions for fraud and obstruction of justice.
It’s unclear what will happen next to the 66-year-old who once controlled a media empire that included the Chicago Sun-Times, The Daily Telegraph of London, and community papers in the U.S. and Canada. The Associated Press
