Conrad Black loses Chicago retrial

Conrad Black, who used his newspaper empire Hollinger as "a piggy bank" to fund his and his wife Barbara Amiel's luxurious lifestyle, yesterday lost his legal bid to have his convictions for fraud thrown out by a Chicago judge. With three weeks to go before he receives his sentence, Judge Amy St Eve also denied him a retrial. She rejected defence claims that the convictions were based on the unreliable testimony of Black's second-in-command, David Radler, who testified against him in return for a lenient sentence. "The evidence consisted of substantially more than the testimony of co-schemer Radler, whose credibility defendants venomously attack," the judge said. Black's lawyers have meanwhile asked the court to apply lenient sentencing guidelines. Prosecutors want Black (above) to serve between 19 and 24 years in jail which his lawyers say would be unfairly disproportionate to the six months Radler is expected to serve. The peer who once owned the Daily Telegraph has been free on £10m bail since he was convicted in July but barred from returning to to his native Canada for fear he might do a bunk before sentencing. He has been living at his waterfront home in Palm Beach, Florida. In e-mails to Men's Vogue, he said recently that he had been reading "apposite passages from ecclesiastical authors, especially Cardinal Newman" and trying to spend an hour each day drinking a "good French white wine" on the terrace. ·