In the US they’re still lynching Blacks

Today Conrad Black surrendered to authorities at the Coleman-Low Federal Penitentiary near Orlando, Florida to begin serving a six-year sentence for three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice. Black’s prison sentence amounts to a lynching, pure and simple, as forces beyond even his control conspired to deprive Black of his wealth as well as his liberty.

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For the forces wishing to bring down Conrad Black it was the perfect storm as a politically ambitious prosecutor colluded with unscrupulous minority shareholders of Hollinger International to use the testimony of an admitted perjurer to convict a highly principled and innocent man. In the process these poor excuses for human beings managed to lose 95% of the assets of Hollinger’s shareholders, but not without enriching themselves as well as a bevy of carrion-eating lawyers in the process. This was a case that should never have ended before a jury in criminal court, as the dispute started out as a civil matter and should have remained there. It is true that Conrad Black and his co-convicts did pay themselves hefty non-compete payments, which in some cases were never asked for by the purchasers of the papers that Hollinger International sold them, said payments were always above board, were vetted through the company’s audit committee and approved by Hollinger’s Board of Directors. The squawking about these payments came from a minority shareholder, Tweedy Brown LLC, likely as the opening salvo of a hostile takeover of Hollinger by Tweedy Brown. The matter was referred to Patrick Fitzgerald, US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Fitzgerald jumped on the case like a piranha and brought the matter before a grand jury supported by the flimsiest of evidence and some filings that were outright lies. But the case was so complex and Black was so rich, that it didn’t take a lot of arm-twisting on Fitzgerald’s part to convince the grand jury to file charges. While Fitzgerald claims to be “non-partisan” in his legal dealings, his track record belies any claim to impartiality. Fitzgerald is relentless in pursuing corruption, so long as the corruption he pursues is among Republicans and/or conservatives. During his tenure as U.S Attorney for Northern Illinois, Fitzgerald prosecuted over 60 Republicans and only two Democrats. This is also the same Mr. Fitzgerald, by the way, who charged Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, with perjury after a three year witch hunt over the Valerie Plame affair, during which time Fitzgerald knew all along that it was Dick Armitage who had made Plame’s identity public. Fitzgerald prosecuted Black under provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, one of the Bush Administration’s less than Constitutional statutes, which allows the government to go after any and all corporate executives if the prosecution can convince a grand jury that the executive intended to bilk investors. Given the level of class envy that currently runs rampant in North American society, that was not an overwhelming task. Fitzgerald even attempted to deprive Black of the proceeds from the sale of a co-op apartment in New York with a false affidavit that deprived Black of $10 million he needed to pay legal fees. At the end of a lengthy and complicated trial the jury did bring in guilty verdicts on three of the over 60 charges that were laid against Black and his co-defendants and added a conviction of mail fraud against Black (because he sent the company’s financial statements to the audit committee by mail). When questioned at the end of the trial some jury members admitted they had doubts about the defendants’ guilt, but felt pressured by other jurors to convict. While Conrad Black maintains that he still believes in the American justice system, it’s clear that in this case the system has failed and innocent people have been convicted. And while they didn’t string Black up to the nearest lamppost, what happened to him still amounts to a lynching. It’s a dark day for justice in America.