Court will review Black's fraud conviction
Lawyer Blogs
The Supreme Court agreed Monday to consider media executive Conrad Black's appeal of his fraud conviction. Black is serving a 6 1/2 year prison term.
The justices will hear arguments later this year over the convictions of Black, the former chairman and chief executive of the Hollinger International media company, and two other former executives in connection with payments of $5.5 million they received from a Hollinger subsidiary.
The men argued that they did not commit fraud because they did no harm to the company.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago upheld the convictions, but the nation's appeals courts are divided on the central issue undergirding their convictions.
At issue is the reach of a federal fraud statute that was originally aimed at prosecuting public officials.
Black and former executives John A. Boultbee and Mark S. Kipnis argue that the $5.5 million actually represented management fees that the subsidiary owed to the executives.
Hollinger once owned the Chicago Sun-Times, the Daily Telegraph of London, the Jerusalem Post and hundreds of community papers across the United States and Canada.
All of Hollinger's big papers except the Sun-Times have now been sold and the company that emerged changed its name to Sun-Times Media Group.
Black, a member of the British House of Lords, has so far served more than a year of his sentence at the federal prison in Coleman, Fla. He had asked President George W. Bush for a pardon before Bush left office in January.
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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC
A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party
Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party
However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.