Thursday, December 01, 2005

Brother Can You Spare A Dime?

RingAroundTheWhiteCollar
CrimeVille



Or, to be more precise, two hundred million dimes.

Because that's what Conrad the Marauder needed to fork over to keep himself out of jail in Chicago earlier today.

And the trial hasn't even started yet.

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Conrad Black, the former Hollinger International Inc. chairman accused of helping steal $51.8 million from the newspaper company, pleaded not guilty to wire and mail fraud charges today at Chicago's federal courthouse.

Black was freed on $20 million bail. The U.S. government seized $8.5 million in October from Black's sale of his apartment in New York City. The rest will be secured by a lien on his estate in Palm Beach, Florida, now on sale with an asking price of $37 million.


But our favorite part of all, in addition to the fact that it will soon be a Fitzgiving-assisted Battle Royale between Little Lord Fauntleroy of Crossedharpoons and David 'I Ain't No Ratfink' Radler, had nothing to do with greenbacks whatsoever.

Because, in exchange for temporary freedom, Mr. Black also had to waive all right of extradition as a condition of his bail.

And that is is as good gold itself for we Canuckistanis as it ensures that any attempt by Mr. Black to reclaim Canadian citizenship will be worth less than a boatload full of National Post copy.

Which would be what, exactly, in real money?

Something considerably less than a plug nickel we figure.


____
And while we're on the subject of trials, whatever happened to the one involving David Basi and Bob Virk anyway? It was scheduled to begin on Nov. 28th, but we have seen nothing about it in the public prints. Is it possible that the folks running the latter media organs are just too busy being bamboozled by Carole Taylor's tiger print blouses, or is it actually a fact that the trial has not yet begun. Knowledgable readers please enlighten us, thank-you.

.


No comments: