Lord Greed 'is destitute'

FALLEN peer Conrad Black faces complete financial ruin in addition to a stretch in prison.

Conrad Black Conrad Black

He could be behind bars as early as Thursday, following convictions for fraud and obstruction.

The former owner of the Daily Telegraph is the target of at least five civil lawsuits seeking more than

£2.5billion in damages.

In addition, prosecutors who brought the criminal case against him want to see him jailed in America for at least 20 years and are also pursuing him for £50million in forfeiture of assets.

This is on top of £500,000 in fines likely to be imposed by the court in addition to a prison sentence.

His former media group Hollinger International is expected to force him to pay back more than £2million it loaned him – after Black went to court to extract the money – to pay his legal fees.

“He will be wiped out,” a close Canadian friend said of the Montreal-born newspaper baron.

Black exchanged Canadian for British citizenship when he was awarded a life peerage in 2001 but his title Lord Black of Crossharbour is now barely more than an empty symbol.

The Conservatives removed the whip – the power that goes with his position in the Lords – from him on Friday, just hours after he was convicted.

However, his woes have barely begun since a jury declared him guilty of three charges of fraud and one of obstruction of justice in the “corporate looting” case against him, after a three-month trial in Chicago, where his Hollinger group used to own the Sun-Times daily tabloid.

He will not be sentenced until November 30 and prosecutors are demanding he be remanded in custody in Chicago until then lest he flee.

Black, 62, was given a continuation of bail following the verdicts last Friday, on a £10million bond that would be seized if he broke any of the conditions.

He was made to hand over his sole passport, a British one, to the judge and pledge to stay within the Chicago area until he appears back in court this Thursday for an extended bail hearing.

He and a group of senior executives were convicted of siphoning off millions from the Hollinger group every time a deal was done to sell newspapers from the company. Instead of all the profits from the deals going to shareholders, Black and the directors fed their personal “piggy banks”, prosecutors said.

Black alone was convicted of obstruction of justice after security cameras caught him, his secretary and his chauffeur lugging 13 boxes of documents out of his Toronto office in 2005. The exact content has never been discovered.

That charge alone carries a 20-year maximum prison stretch.

It is not yet clear exactly how much money Black has got and where all his assets are scattered. He is suspected of having offshore funds in the Cayman Islands and has incurred suspicion by juggling “millions” between himself and his infamously extravagant wife Barbara Amiel, 66.

To get around this, she is named in some of the litigation against Black.

The Blacks are down to their last two mansions – in Palm Beach and Toronto – the peer having sold his Kensington pile for £13million and his New York luxury flat for £4.5million. The US authorities have frozen the proceeds from the New York sale and want Black to forfeit his £17.5million Florida ocean-front home.

Barbara Amiel can enjoy a tiny consolation. The authorities have decided to let her keep her ostentatious jewellery, including a £1.3million diamond ring.

Black is facing destitution. As well as criminal fines, corporate fines and forfeiture of assets, he is being sued by:

Hollinger International, the remnant of his old newspaper company, now called Sun-Times Media and based in Chicago, for “breach of fiduciary duty and unjust enrichment”. Suing Black, Barbara Amiel and other executives for £270million.

Tens of thousands of individual shareholders, mainly Canadian, who claim Black effectively stole from their retirement nest eggs. Class action in Canada seeking £2billion in damages.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission for unspecified damages.

US shareholders in an American class action, for unspecified damages.

Hollinger International suing the crumbled remains of Black’s holding companies Hollinger Inc and Ravelston in Ontario, for £85million.

All these actions were on hold pending the outcome of the criminal trial and now have a good chance of success.

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