The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the jury weighing fraud and racketeering charges against Conrad Black has informed the judge that it is hopelessly deadlocked.
"We have discussed and deliberated on all the evidence and are still unable to reach a unanimous verdict on one or more counts. Please advise," jurors wrote in a note to the judge Tuesday afternoon.
It's unclear whether the jury has come to any agreement on any of the charges faced by Black.
2 comments:
The latest that I have heard, is that there is concensus on some charges, but not all.
Doesn't sound good for the "Lord" does it?
There will be tears in BT land to be sure.
To be honest, I found the whole trial arcane and difficult to follow. I don't have any love for the man, in fact, I can think of few individuals that are that arrogant, (save Harper, Hillier, Bush, Cheney...). Okay a few, but if these charges are trumped up, then I suppose he should walk.
The rumour seems to be that the jury is deadlocked only on some of the charges. That, of course, doesn't mean they've decided to convict on the others. I think the whole thing hangs on the "non-compete" payments. The purchaser didn't care about non-competition covenants and so paid nothing additional for that protection. The case, as I understand it, is that Black and Radler invented the non-compete business to siphon off sale proceeds into their own pockets. If there was no component of the purchase price to buy this concession, it sounds to me like they were filching shareholders' money.
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