prepared by Cheryl Cook.
Finally, I would like to make special mention of my parents, Fred and Rene Skurka, and my grandparents, Morris and Annie Levitt and Jack and Clara Skurka, who greatly influenced my life.
Introduction
For my part, I believe I have made it clear to fair-minded observers and will continue to do so that I committed no illegalities, I made the most I could of my time in prison, enjoyed teaching there, and my career as a writer has flourished. My financial condition is quite satisfactory. I have responded as well as I could to Radler’s treachery and other unbidden events …
— Conrad Black in an email to the author, May 23, 2011
Conrad Black’s final opportunity for vindication in his costly legal struggle[1] that deprived him of over two years of his freedom took place in the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago in a ceremonial courtroom. The courtroom was reserved for special occasions and a hearing was set to proceed before a panel of three judges from the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Black had already secured his place in American legal lore with the United States Supreme Court’s decision in his case. The decision of the Supreme Court to hear the appeal was regarded by Black’s own lawyers as an “unbelievable” achievement. The odds of obtaining a Supreme Court review were calculated to be about one in one hundred.[2] Black had managed to overcome such daunting odds to subsequently obtain a ruling from the nation’s highest court that placed his three remaining convictions for mail fraud and his obstruction of justice conviction into jeopardy. The showdown would unfold in Chicago with the Court of Appeals acting as the arbiter of Black’s legal fate.
Conrad Black was recognized as a celebrity figure in the Dirksen Federal Building. His status was confirmed on a mounted board adorning the wall immediately outside of the ceremonial courtroom. There in bold lettering was an outdated, and slightly inaccurate, account of Conrad Black’s case. The inscription on the board read as follows:
The world’s media came to Dearborn Street in 2005 when U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald brought eight criminal charges against international newspaper mogul Conrad Black, Baron Black of Crossharbor. Four new charges were added later that year, alleging racketeering, obstruction of justice, money laundering, and wire fraud. Under the racketeering count, the government sought forfeiture of more than $92 million. A media circus erupted on the streets surrounding the Dirksen Building with photographers jostling one another for shots and staking out all four corners of the city block. After 12 days of deliberation, the jury found Black guilty of three counts of mail and wire fraud and racketeering. On December 10, 2007, Black was sentenced to 78 months in jail. A subsequent appeal to the Seventh Circuit was denied; Lord Black has appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Conrad Black was likely the first British Lord ever tried in the courthouse. Black’s Chicago-based veteran attorney, Ed Genson, had announced to the local media that he had never defended a Lord before.[3] Perhaps the novelty of the lordly designation explained the inclusion of Baron Black recorded on yet another board in the hallway capturing the “famous faces” that had graced the courthouse as trial litigants in the past. Notably, Al Capone wasn’t among the group. Conrad Black featured prominently on a list of such notable historical figures as Thomas Edison, Charlie Chaplin, Marcus Garvey, John D. Rockefeller, Joseph Smith, and Alexander Graham Bell.
The atmosphere in the courtroom in the moments leading up to the hearing was cordial and had the feel of a reunion. It was homecoming week for three of the trial prosecutors in Conrad Black’s case as they hugged each other in warm embraces on the side of the courtroom. Two of them, Eric Sussman and Jeffrey Cramer, had left the U.S. Attorney’s Office shortly after the trial concluded, a feature of a lucrative revolving door for American prosecutors in high-profile cases. Sussman, the former lead prosecutor, had secured a partnership and was head of regulatory enforcement and white-collar litigation practice at the Chicago law firm of Kaye Scholer. Cramer became the managing director at the Kroll consulting firm, a corporate fraud and internal investigation company.[4]
Sussman recognized me from attending the trial of Conrad Black and was quite gracious as he greeted me in my seat in the front row of the gallery. He referred to the book that Conrad Black was reportedly writing and was curious to learn if it was still being published. Black’s book was also the topic of discussion on the appellants’ side of the rectangular courtroom. Richard Greenberg, Jack Boultbee’s counsel, asked a member of Black’s legal team if either he or Gus Newman, Boultbee’s trial lawyer, received mention in Black’s forthcoming book. The cheerful response was that “it’s a great story. It has great potential.”
Michael Schachter was acting as the attorney for another of the co-defendants, Peter Atkinson. Schachter was formerly a federal prosecutor in New York and had played a key role in the successful prosecution of Martha Stewart for making false statements and conspiracy. During the trial, Schachter was confronted by Rosie O’Donnell, who asked him if he wanted his children to grow up knowing him “as the man who took down Martha Stewart.”[5]
It required a measure of legal acumen on Schachter’s part to even permit Atkinson to be included in the appeal in Chicago. After the initial disappointing result in the Court of Appeals, Atkinson, with roots in Toronto, had abandoned any effort to appeal his case further. Peter Atkinson suffered more than any of his co-defendants at the loss of reputation after the trial and had become increasingly fragile. It was decided that Atkinson would focus on being transferred to a Canadian prison and seek early release on parole. The U.S. government wouldn’t consider his transfer to a Canadian prison until his appeals were resolved. When the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to review Black’s petition, the first telephone call that Eric Sussman received was from a frantic Michael Schachter. He shouted into the phone with the startling news of the development in the Supreme Court. Sussman attempted to calm his adversary with a few soothing words about Atkinson’s impending prison transfer to Canada. Schachter refused to be placated. He later discovered an obscure provision in the Supreme Court rules that allowed his client to join the appeal in the nation’s highest court.
Conrad Black’s final co-defendant was Mark Kipnis. Ron Safer was Kipnis’s lead counsel at both the trial and series of ensuing appeals. Safer, the managing partner of a national law firm, Schiff Hardin, was a former chief of the Criminal Division in the U.S. Attorney’s Office and supervised one hundred U.S. Attorneys in the division. He was very familiar to the prosecutors in the case. Sussman described him as an outstanding advocate and later conceded that it would have been beneficial not to have him in the courtroom as opposing counsel.
Ron Safer was carrying an additional burden as he strode into court for the appeal. He genuinely believed that Kipnis was an innocent man. He rued his miscalculation at trial of ignoring common sense and following the advice of a jury consultant by remaining firmly in the background of the case. A low-key approach plainly was a horrible plan when 90 percent of the witnesses at the trial dealt with his client who had prepared the paperwork as in-house counsel. Safer had “zero doubt” that Kipnis’s convictions were a miscarriage of justice. It marked a hollow victory that the government had sought a twelve-year sentence against Mark Kipnis, but Safer had secured probation for his client. The jury’s verdict was devastating, and Safer was left feeling depressed after the trial and experienced difficulty getting up to go to work.
Conrad Black’s venerable counsel at the hearing was Miguel Estrada, a former assistant to the U.S. solicitor general and part of an emerging breed of lawyers who specialized in Supreme Court advocacy.[6] His law firm of Gibson Dunn in Washington had attained a seminal victory in the case of Bush v. Gore that became a decisive factor in the outcome of a presidential election. Estrada had played a critical role in the hastily prepared winning argument before the U.S. Supreme Court. Conrad Black referred to Estrada as “brilliant” and to his legal writing as “completely rapacious.”
The judge who sat imposingly at the centre of the panel
