When the Conrad Black jury announced its verdict on Friday, clearing him of several charges, my immediate response - expressed in two separate postings, here and here - was that the prosecution had screwed up. I didn't elaborate on what I meant. But the Financial Times columnist, John Gapper, has put it better than I ever could in an excellent article today.
He argues that highlighting Black's excesses, and those of his wife, Barbara Amiel, were part of a strategy designed to appeal to a jury which might be bored with the complexity of fraud charges. But the jury ignored that trivia and "homed in on the most important issue of the case", Black's appropriation of non-compete fees.
Gapper compared the Black trial to that of Dennis Kozlowski, the former chief executive of Tyco International, who was convicted of looting his company. The jury at the initial hearing were treated to stories of Kozlowski's spending but later said they resented that part of the prosecution's evidence. One juror told the Wall Street Journal that it focused "not on how they spent their money, but on how they got the money they spent".
"That is a wise distinction," Gapper writes. Black was guilty of fraud, and what he did with his ill-gotten funds is beside the point. In my view, if he had spent it on relieving Aids in Africa or funding research into the despoliation of the rain forests - as if - it would not change the fact that he took the money illegally from investors.
As Gapper concludes: "The Black jury displayed a better grasp of this principle than juries - particularly mid-western juries - are often given credit for. The prosecutors, the media and the court of public opinion decided that Lord and Lady Black's jet-setting and partying lay at the heart of the case. The real court knew better." Hear, hear.
