UPDATE 3-Black "snotty" but innocent, lawyer tells trial
(Recasts with later trial statements)
By James B. Kelleher and David Bailey
CHICAGO, March 20 (Reuters) - Conrad Black's lawyer told a jury on Tuesday the failed media baron comes off as "snotty" and arrogant but he is not the thief U.S. government prosecutors claim.
"Other than a bad attitude you're not going to find a single thing that's wrong" with the way the 62-year-old Canadian-born millionaire built and later disposed of one of the world's largest news media companies, Edward Genson said at the opening of Black's criminal fraud trial.
He "sounds snotty" and "has an arrogant attitude" when he fires off e-mails in the middle of the night, Genson said. But Black moved in powerful circles, running a company that made nearly $2 billion a year. Some of the perks prosecutors have accused him of carrying to excess have only "show time value" at a trial like this one, he added.
Genson said Black's riches and lifestyle made him different from the jurors but not better.
"It does not absolve him of any obligation," he said. "On the other side, it cannot be held against him."
Genson followed U.S. prosecutor Jeffrey Cramer who told jurors that Black and three former associates "stole $60 million." He painted them as "four men who believed their five- and six-figure salaries were not enough."
What they did, Cramer added, "was theft. It was fraud. It was a crime" committed with "memos and documents and a few lies" rather than with the masks and weapons used by street thugs.
Black and the others are charged with skimming millions from Chicago-based Hollinger International -- now called the Sun-Times Media Group Inc. (SVN.N) -- in the process of building up a conglomerate that once published hundreds of newspapers including such marquee names as the Daily Telegraph of London and the Jerusalem Post.
Genson said Hollinger was not like an Enron or a WorldComm, citing two famous corporate crash landings, but a healthy concern "until it was taken away from Conrad Black."
TWO TAKES ON RADLER
Black and partner David Radler were ousted from Hollinger in 2003 and 2004 after an internal committee at the company accused them them of operating a "corporate kleptocracy" that stole millions.
Black faces charges of fraud, racketeering, money laundering and obstruction of justice that could result in a maximum prison sentence of 101 years, plus millions in fines and $92 million in possible forfeitures.
Cramer, who delivered the government's opening statement, wasted no time mentioning Radler, Black's long-time associate. Radler made a plea agreement more than a year ago under which he will pay a $250,000 fine and serve 29 months in prison.
He is expected to be the government's chief witness.
"You don't see David Radler here (in court)" Cramer told the jury. "He has already (pleaded) guilty to a fraud and accepted responsibility ... and is going to jail."
But Genson told the jury that Radler "will come into the courtroom and lie about Conrad Black to help himself."
Radler, not Black, was at the heart of almost every deal the government will question, Genson said.
The other defendants face lesser charges. They are Jack Boultbee, an accountant; Peter Atkinson, a company lawyer; and Mark Kipnis, also a corporate attorney.
Black was appointed a member of Britain's House of Lords in 2001, renouncing his Canadian citizenship in the process.
He is also charged with misusing company funds for a lavish lifestyle that included a vacation trip on the company plane to the South Pacific and entertainment and luxuries such as a birthday party for his wife, conservative columnist Barbara Amiel Black.
