“I accept that it is a complicated fact and legal situation, but I resent being accused of offenses of which I have been judged not guilty, and being associated with someone with whose conduct I was proved not to have been associated, and of which conduct I was the principal victim.”
During his sentencing on the 24th, Conrad evoked the old Mark Twain adage that a lie can travel halfway around the world “before the truth gets its trousers on.” He expounded on his meaning by saying, “it is very late in the case, Your Honor, but the truth has almost caught up with the original allegations.”
In 2007 Conrad Black was originally convicted of four felony counts (a fraction of what he was indicted on) and sentenced to 78-months in prison. In July of 2010, he was granted bond after the overwhelming success of his Supreme Court case. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals vacated two of his four convictions. Last Friday Conrad was resentenced to 42-months, 29-months of which he has already served.
Federal inmates are required to serve roughly 85% of their sentences. After subtracting the 29-months time served and 15% off for good behavior, Conrad Black will do approximately 7-months when he goes back to prison. He should be going back around August 1, 2011, which means he will have enjoyed more than a one year vacation from prison prior to finishing the rest of his now greatly diminished sentence. He should be home in Canada by sometime in March of 2012.
In another victory, the court also finally acknowledged that it will return the 6.5 million dollars prosecutors took via the ex parte seizure of Conrad’s 2006 condo sale proceeds. This acknowledgement is hopefully just one more in a line of exonerations for Conrad Black and his reputation. At the end of this sordid saga, it is a comfort to all of Conrad’s friends and family that his torments will soon be over. As one of Conrad’s beloved family members recently put it, “we can now see the end.”
