Top court to hear Black appeal

Former newspaper baron Conrad Black contends he was wrongly convicted under a broadly worded antifraud law. (Jerry Lai/ Associated Press/ File 2007)

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to hear an appeal from Conrad Black, the jailed former newspaper executive, who contended he was wrongly convicted under a broadly worded antifraud law that makes it a crime to deprive someone of "honest services."

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Black was prosecuted in Chicago for allegedly skimming millions of dollars from Hollinger International and the Chicago Sun-Times to finance a lavish lifestyle.
He was convicted and is in prison in Florida. The jury acquitted him on charges of treating the company as his "personal piggy bank," but convicted him on charges that he deprived the company and its shareholders of his "honest services," his lawyer, Miquel Estrada, said.
Estrada said this "vaguely worded criminal prohibition" allows prosecutors to charge corporate executives and public officials with crimes, even without proving they wrongly took money for themselves.
Congress expanded the antifraud law in 1988 to combat public corruption. The expanded law said it was a fraud to "deprive another of the intangible right of honest services."