Conrad Black's appeal of his fraud conviction.

Supreme Court today agreed to consider media executive Conrad Black's appeal of his fraud conviction. Black is serving a 6 1/2 year prison term. The justices will hear arguments later this year over the convictions of Black, the former chairman and chief executive of the Hollinger International media company, and two other former executives in connection with payments of $5.5 million they received from a Hollinger subsidiary. The men argued they did not commit fraud because they did no harm to the company. Hollinger once owned the SouthtownStar, Chicago Sun-Times, the Daily Telegraph of London, the Jerusalem Post and hundreds of community papers across the United States and Canada. The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld the convictions, but the nation's appeals courts are divided on the central issue undergirding their convictions. At issue is the reach of a federal fraud statute originally aimed at prosecuting public officials. Black and former executives John A. Boultbee and Mark S. Kipnis argue the $5.5 million actually represented management fees the subsidiary owed to the executives. All of Hollinger's big papers except the Sun-Times have now been sold and the company that emerged changed its name to Sun-Times Media Group. Black, a member of the British House of Lords, has so far served more than a year of his sentence at the federal prison in Coleman, Fla. He had asked President George W. Bush for a pardon before Bush left office in January. The case is Black v. U.S., 08-876.Black, 64, was convicted in 2007 of stealing $6.1 million from the newspaper publishing company, and a U.S. appeals court upheld the conviction. Black and two other onetime Hollinger executives say the appeals court improperly expanded the scope of the federal mail fraud law, allowing a conviction even though the company wasn’t at risk of losing money. “The jury was permitted to return guilty verdicts on the fraud counts even if it rejected the government’s main theory -- that petitioners stole money from Hollinger,” the appeal argued. Today’s decision to hear the case may delay efforts by the company, now known as Sun-Times Media Group Inc., to recoup as much as $100 million it spent to defend its former executives. Supreme Court review may also affect the company’s civil suit against Black. The justices will consider the Black case during their 2009-2010 term, which starts in October. Black’s lawyers will talk to their client about the possibility of seeking his release from prison while the Supreme Court considers the case, said Miguel Estrada, the former executive’s lead lawyer at the high court.