Expect a circus when Conrad Black gets to town.
The disgraced and dethroned media baron is slated to spend the next few months in a federal courtroom in downtown Chicago facing allegations he plundered millions from investors in the newspaper empire he once controlled.
Preceding Black is his infamous reputation as a loquacious, military-metaphor-spouting aristocrat, who gave up his Canadian citizenship to be named Lord Black of Crossharbour in Britain.
“I’ll be interested to see if he asks people to call him Lord Black,” said Robert Stephenson, a lawyer with Foley & Lardner in Chicago, who’s not involved in the case.
“Don’t be surprised if he doesn’t demand it,” he added.
Black’s pompous demeanor could be one of his biggest hindrances at the trial. Opening arguments are expected to begin next Monday after about a couple of days of jury selection.
Black’s legal team will be looking to weed out potential jury members who might have a problem with Canadians, people entitled “Lord,” or who believe that “corporate executives make too much money.”
Black, 62, and three other executives are accused of looting $84 million from Hollinger International, the Chicago newspaper company once controlled by the fallen media mogul.
Testifying for the prosecution will be star witness David Radler, Black’s longtime right-hand man who turned on his old boss in 2005 and pleaded guilty in exchange for a light sentence.
Also likely to take the stand is James Thompson, former Illinois governor and head of Hollinger’s audit committee, who expected to testify that Black kept him in the dark about the alleged illicit payments.
As many as 300 journalists from across the U.S., Canada and the U.K., where Black owned the Daily Telegraph, have registered to cover the trial.
The Chicago Sun-Times, which is about all that’s left of Black’s newspaper empire is opening up part of its newsroom for out-of-town journalists to cover the trial.
Beyond Monday-to-Thursday court proceedings, reporters will likely be snooping for the kind of out-of-court antics that have made Black and his wife, conservative columnist Barbara Amiel, famous.
Photographers will undoubtedly be keeping an eye out for Amiel, who quipped in a Vanity Fair profile, “My extravagance knows no bounds, on the ritzy shopping district known as the Magnificent Mile.
Black’s lead lawyer, Canadian Eddie Greenspan, hopes to avoid a media circus. “We’re going to do everything in our power to avoid any interaction outside the courtroom,” Greenspan told The Post. “This case is to be argued in front of 12 jurors.”
Black could get hit with a sentence of a hundred years if he’s found guilty on all counts.
But the Canadian-born mogul has said he doesn’t expect to spend any time behind bars.
In a sign of his confidence, Black eagerly embraced expressions of support from a group on the Internet.
Black, flattered by the group’s attention, invited them for drinks at his Toronto home, before being informed of the that it was a hoax by Canadian satirical magazine “Frank.”