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My prison life by Conrad Black: Tutoring, piano practice and coffee with friends
Ellen Widdup03.03.09
FORMER newspaper tycoon Conrad Black has told friends his first year in a US prison has been surprisingly pleasant.
The 64-year-old Canadian-born peer, serving six and a half years for a $6.1million fraud and obstruction of justice, said his social circle has "expanded" and he is given time to surf the internet, write books and articles and learn to play the piano.
In a long email to the Canadian newspaper he founded, the National Post, he said his sentence was not only bearable but intellectually stimulating.
"In some respects, there is less intrusion here of the irritations of daily life than on the outside," he said. "I get up just after 7am except on the weekends and holidays, when it is possible to sleep in.
"I eat some granola and go to my workplace where I tutor high school-leaving candidates, one-on-one, though sometimes I have to deal with up to four at a time, around my desk, and talk with fellow tutors and other convivial people.
"I lunch around 11am with friends from education, work on emails, play the piano for 30 to 60 minutes, return to my tutoring tasks by 1pm, return to my unit at 3pm, deal with more emails, rest from 4pm to 6pm, eat dinner in the unit then, and go for a walk in the compound or recreation yard for a couple of hours, drinking coffee (well-made by Colombian fellow residents) and come back into the residence about 8:30pm, deal with emails and whatever, have my shower etc, around midnight, read until 1:30 am and go to sleep.
"On the weekends it is pretty open."
Black once ran the world's third-largest newspaper group, including the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, The Spectator, Chicago Sun-Times and the Jerusalem Post. He flew between homes in London, Toronto, New York, and Palm Beach with his columnist wife, Barbara Amiel.
But in 2007, a Chicago jury convicted him of swindling the company and obstructing justice by trying to remove boxes of evidence.
Now he is known as Prisoner 18330-424 at Coleman correctional facility in Florida.
He said he was lucky to have made so many friends in prison.
"The people I mainly see here are often not unlike people I might know outside," he said.
"I have also met many interesting people from a variety of backgrounds that were somewhat unfamiliar to me, but are no less interesting for that, and have been quite informative in some ways. I have never had any difficulty getting along with people and I have had no unpleasant encounters here with anyone."
He said that he remains hopeful of his release and convinced of his innocence. His appeal was rejected and President Bush refused to commute his sentence before leaving office but Black is seeking to take his case to the US Supreme Court.
Under US law, he is required to serve 85 per cent of his sentence but he is considering the possibility of asking for a transfer to a British prison if his appeal fails, where he could apply for discretionary conditional release after half his term.
His former right-hand man David Radler, who struck a plea bargain and agreed to testify against him, is already out after serving 10 months of his 29-month term in a Canadian jail.
Reader views (5)
Whatever fun times he had, he uis still a jailbird with a criminal record who is not permitted to visit many foreign countries because of his criminality
- Keith Price, Luton, England
Hopefull Conrad Black will be a role model for other prisoners and reduce the rate of second time offenders. At least he is contributing his time and intellect to help other less priveliged inmates to perhaps make better life decisions and hopefully help them to build a a future when they leave prison. Good for him.
- Dolores Carey, Toronto, Canada
He'll be the better man for it. If only all these Bankers could be locked up for a couple of years and feel real hardship and depivation. Lets hope he's into Prison Reform when he comes out, and learnt someplumbing skills to have a job to fall back on.
- Dhanraj, basildon
You see bankers, your future does not look so bleak.
- Bloke, London
A US$6.1 million fraud looks pretty small beer after the last few months revelations! They might just as well let him out and give his cell to a more worthy person.
- Robin, Brentford, UK
