Disgraced press baron Conrad Black and Enron fraudster Jeffrey Skilling recently received fresh hope of an early release from jail following a US Supreme Court ruling that their convictions partly relied on a controversial corruption law that was too broad in its scope.
In a major legal victory for the two jailed tycoons, the Supreme Court issued separate but related rulings declaring that the men were treated unfairly when appeal court judges threw out attempts to have their convictions overturned.
However, the rulings only shed doubt on certain aspects of the men’s multiple convictions and stop well short of acquittal.
Black, currently an inmate at Florida’s Coleman prison, was sentenced in 2007 to six-and-a half years for defrauding shareholders in his Hollinger media empire out of US$6.1 million by attaching “non-compete” clauses to the sale of newspaper businesses that siphoned off funds from investors. The Canadian-born businessman has vigorously protested his innocence from the beginning.
Skilling, 56, is in a prison near Denver and serving a 24-year sentence. He was chief executive of Enron until shortly before the energy trading company imploded in one of the most dramatic corporate corruption scandals in US history.
In both cases, prosecutors used a law that allows for conviction if business leaders are found to have robbed investors of “honest services.”
Twin decisions written by Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg have now ruled that this law should only be applied to incidents of bribery and kickback schemes.
Referring to Black, the ruling concludes: “We vacate the judgment of the court of appeals and remand the case for further proceedings.”
The decision affects three counts of fraud for which Black was convicted by a Chicago jury. However, the 65-year-old still faces a hurdle in that he was also found guilty of obstructing justice by removing boxes of evidence from his Toronto office in defiance of a court order. Once friendly with society figures ranging from former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher to former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, Black described the case against him as hanging “like a toilet seat” around the necks of prosecutors.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of