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Conrad Black, former owner of the Sun-Times, reported to a federal prison in Florida Monday to begin a six-and-a-half-year sentence for fraud and obstructing justice. His own man to the end, Black posted a statement Monday in Canada’s National Post, a paper he founded, insisting on his innocence and declaring that he has “endured the most comprehensive international defamation I can recall in over four decades of close acquaintance with the media.” Black noted that since “dissident shareholders” drove him away from Hollinger International, “our successors have made every conceivable business blunder and have eliminated $1.85-billion of shareholder value.”
Black’s downfall remains a huge story in Canada, and Chicago freelance writer Susan Berger was interviewed at length Monday by CBC TV. Berger covered Black’s trial in Chicago from gavel to gavel last year and maintained a popular blog she continues to update. In January she passed a chatty evening with Black in Palm Beach.
