Security guard testifies at Black trial

Security guard testifies at Black trial

	Published : Fri, 25 May 2007 02:24 By : Agencies Print this Story

CHICAGO (AP) - A security guard testified Thursday that an assistant to media mogul Conrad Black asked to have boxes of documents moved out of the downtown Toronto headquarters of Hollinger Inc.

Security guard Lancelot Bloomfield said he later took the boxes out of her car and put them back in the building.

At the time of the May 20, 2005, incident, Black was the subject of a criminal probe in the United States and had been barred by an Ontario court from taking any documents from the company without the permission of a court-ordered inspector.

Black, 62, is currently on trial in Chicago where he is facing federal racketeering and fraud charges. The government says he and three co-defendants swindled Hollinger International Inc. -- Hollinger Inc.'s Chicago-based publishing subsidiary -- out of millions of dollars.

In the criminal indictment against him, Black is also accused of concealing and attempting to conceal are cords, documents and other objects with the intent to impair their availability for use in official proceedings.'

The May 2005 incident in Toronto is cited in that charge.

Bloomfield said he used a handcart to move 12 or 13 boxes from the office of Joan Maida, located just outside Black's office, into her vehicle. Along the way, however, Bloomfield said he talked to someone else about the request and started to have 'misgivings.'

'To remove documents, there was a specific procedure and it had to be cleared and it had to be signed off,' Bloomfield said.

He didn't feel like the procedures had been followed, and so he said he went back to the vehicle, moved the boxes back into the building near a back stairwell and returned the car keys to Maida.

When he ended his shift, he told the night security guard that 'I expected him to keep an eye on those boxes,' Bloomfield said from the stand.

The night security guard is expected to testify for the prosecution early next week. Maida is expected to be among the first witnesses for the defense.

On May 26, 2005, Black's spokesman said the media baron would return 12 boxes after a video caught him on tape loading papers from his office into a limousine with the help of Maida and a chauffeur. The spokesman said Black didn't believe that his personal effects were included in the court order.

Black and three other former executives at Hollinger International are accused of swindling the company out of $60 million through the sale of assets starting in 1998.

The company had decided to sell off hundreds of small community newspapers across the U.S. and Canada and received millions of dollars in return for promises not to compete with the new owners.

Millions of dollars in non-compete payments also went to two Toronto-based companies controlled by the Canadian-born Black as well as Black himself, Hollinger International chief operating officer F. David Radler and former Hollinger vice presidents John Boultbee and Peter Y. Atkinson.

Prosecutors say all four joined with former Hollinger lawyer Mark Kipnis to deceive the board of directors about the money they say should have gone to shareholders.

Radler testified for eight days as the government's star witness. He has pleaded guilty to fraud and is expecting a lenient sentence in return for cooperating with the government.

Boultbee, Atkinson and Kipnis have pleaded not guilty and are on trial with Black. The defendants say they did nothing illegal.

Before Bloomfield took the stand, U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve stressed to jurors that the security guard's testimony only applied to Black.

The jurors are not back in court until Tuesday. Before they left for the Memorial Day holiday weekend, St. Eve provided an update on the trial, which got under way with jury selection in mid-March.

She said prosecutors expect to rest their case by Wednesday. The defendants are expected to spend up three weeks mounting their cases, she said, followed by closing arguments.