Conrad Black trial jurors quizzed on wealth issues

Day one:

This does sound like another Enron...

Black, 62, sat at a table with seven of his lawyers today as U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve started the process of choosing 12 people to judge him. He was accompanied into the courtroom by his wife, Barbara Amiel Black.

In response to questions, several of the prospective jurors said they had lost money in the stock market.

Some suggested they may have a hard time believing that someone could earn tens of millions of dollars without stealing it.

More on the story.

Here are some of the potential jurors' responses:

``When I hear `tens of millions of dollars,' I shudder,'' one woman told the judge.

The judge questioned a man who lost money in the WorldCom debacle, a woman whose investments went sour and two dozen other prospective jurors.

"We lost every dime," said the woman -- one of 27 prospective jurors for the trial of the millionaire former press lord accused of siphoning $84 million from the Hollinger International media empire.

"No one receives that much money out of the blue for no reason," one potential juror said.

Another woman said when asked about her impression of Black: "Whenever I see his picture he seems to be dressed up in a tuxedo."

Conrad Black trial created another black eye of all high profile corporate scandals such as Worldcom, Tyco, Enron, and so on. Very differcult to sift through potential jurors with either anger or shock when questioning and relating to their experiences in other corporate scandals. It will be interesting on the makeup of the final 12 jurors.

As well as detailing the lavish personal expenses that Conrad Black and his wife Barbara Amiel charged to the company, the Breeden investigation reported a list of abuses which, it alleged, Black and his sidekick, David Radler, had committed. These included:

* Taking $9.5 million in 2000, without telling Hollinger International’s board. Radler paid Mark Kipnis, the internal lawyer, $100,000, to facilitate the unauthorised transfer

* Diverting nearly $200 million to Black and Radler via Ravelston through excessive and unjustifiable management fees

* Transferring income generating Hollinger assets to entities controlled by Black and Radler for free or below market value

Forgot to mention the honorable mentionable scum of corporate scandals and history:

Dennis Kozlowski was convicted on June 17, 2005 for misappropriation of Tyco's corporate funds, among other charges. The prosecution won a total of 22 counts of grand larceny for $150 million in unauthorized bonuses. He was convicted of fraud against the company shareholders for an amount of more than $400 million.

In 2005, Bernie Ebbers was convicted of fraud and conspiracy in the largest (to date) accounting scandal in U.S. history, as a result of WorldCom's false financial reporting, and subsequent 180 billion dollar loss to investors.