Trial Begins for Ex-Chief of Hollinger the New York Times March 21, 2007 Wednesday

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Trial Begins For Ex-Chief Of Hollinger The New York Times March 21, 2007 Wednesday

1001 of 1258 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times

March 21, 2007 Wednesday

Late Edition - Final

Trial Begins For Ex-Chief Of Hollinger

BYLINE: By RICHARD SIKLOS

SECTION: Section C; Column 5; Business/Financial Desk; Pg. 1

LENGTH: 1212 words

DATELINE: CHICAGO, March 20

Two wildly different portraits of Conrad M. Black were presented to the jury in opening arguments Tuesday at the criminal trial against the former newspaper baron and three colleagues.

In the version put forward by a prosecutor, Mr. Black is a thief who is different from a bank robber only in that his methods involve artfully worded memorandums and he wears suits and ties.

Jeffrey H. Cramer, an assistant United States attorney, began his opening statement to the jury by saying, ''You are sitting in a room with four men who stole $60 million.''

In the view of Mr. Black's defense lawyer, however, he is a law-abiding entrepreneur who has been smeared by the accusations that he and three former executives looted the newspaper company Mr. Black built and ran.

''This isn't a story about a theft by Conrad Black,'' Edward M. Genson told the jury. ''This is a story about theft from him.''

Mr. Black and the other defendants -- Jack A. Boultbee, Mark S. Kipnis and Peter Y. Atkinson -- are accused of helping themselves to unauthorized bonuses. Mr. Black is also individually facing charges of abusing company perquisites, racketeering and obstruction of justice.

In laying out its prosecution against Mr. Black, now a Briton who gave up citizenship in his native Canada to become Lord Black of Crossharbour, Mr. Cramer portrayed the defendant as someone who betrayed the trust of directors and the public shareholders. They owned the majority of the equity in Hollinger International, the company Mr. Black built over three decades.

During his 90-minute opening statement, Mr. Cramer sought to educate the jury about the global newspaper empire Mr. Black built. Mr. Cramer spoke of the web of companies Mr. Black controlled, and the way in which, Mr. Cramer said, Mr. Black misused so-called noncompete agreements to skim millions from the company as it sold more than $3 billion worth of newspapers in the United States and Canada from 1998 to 2001.

In one instance, he said, the executives received money for signing agreements that they would not compete with a subsidiary of Hollinger International -- in effect, agreeing not to compete with themselves.

Mr. Kipnis, a company lawyer who arranged many of the payments at the heart of the case, did not receive any of the payments but received $150,000 in bonuses.

''His price was just a little lower,'' Mr. Cramer said.

At one point, Mr. Cramer stood across from the table where Mr. Black was seated, stared at him, and angrily described Mr. Black as having ''decided how much of the shareholders' money he would take.''

Mr. Black's stern expression did not change but his face turned slightly red as he stared straight ahead.

It was clear from Mr. Cramer's statement that the case against Mr. Black would rely heavily on testimony from Hollinger's star-studded board -- which was hand-picked by Mr. Black -- as well as by Mr. Black's former partner, F. David Radler, who has pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to testify for the prosecution.

In the last week, Mr. Radler has also agreed to pay more than $100 million to settle civil litigation with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Sun-Times Media Group, as Hollinger International is now called, stemming from allegations of fraud.

In particular, Mr. Cramer said the former audit committee of the Chicago-based Hollinger International will offer critical testimony.

Its members included James R. Thompson, the former Illinois governor and United States attorney; Richard Burt, a former United States ambassador to Germany; and Marie-Josee Kravis, an economist who is the wife of the financier Henry Kravis.

''The audit committee members will tell you they were never given full and accurate disclosure,'' Mr. Cramer said.

Mr. Radler, he added, will give ''an inside look at how they went about stealing $60 million; Radler will tell you how it worked.''

The $60 million was lower than a figure of more than $80 million that had been used in the indictment against Mr. Black and the others, and seemed to reflect a decision by the government to no longer challenge one payment made to Mr. Black.

In his opening, Mr. Genson depicted Mr. Black as a tireless businessman and author who hobnobbed with the rich and famous and a man for whom there was no distinction between his personal life and his business interests.

Perhaps in an attempt to defuse at least the tone of some evidence, Mr. Genson described Mr. Black as being egotistical and arrogant and prone to oratorical flourishes.

In one e-mail message the jury was shown by the prosecution, Mr. Black described queries from shareholders about his pay as an ''epidemic of shareholder idiocy.''

Another e-mail message to Mr. Radler referred to the ''splendid conveyance of the noncompetition agreements from which you and I profited so well and deservedly.''

But Mr. Genson said that Mr. Black's florid style did not mean he was a criminal, and he noted that there was no accounting scandal or bankruptcy at Hollinger International the way there was at Enron.

''His life is different than ours -- it's not better, it's just different,'' Mr. Genson said of Mr. Black. ''You can't allow the sparkle of wealth to blind you as to the facts of this case.''

At one point, the lawyer joked that one goal over the course of the trial was to get Mr. Black -- who sat slouching and grim throughout much of the proceedings and during jury selection last week -- to sit straight in his chair.

Referring specifically to the idea that Mr. Black misled members of Hollinger's board, Mr. Genson said these are ''not people you could go in and trip and bully.''

He spent much of his presentation trying to distance Mr. Black from Mr. Radler, whom he characterized as a liar who had turned against his longtime partner to assure himself a more lenient prison sentence that he could be able to serve in Canada.

One of the biggest questions in the case is whether the jury will accept that portrayal or will instead accept the prosecution's view that even though Mr. Radler was his hatchet man, Mr. Black knew exactly what he was doing.

Mr. Genson also pointed out that Mr. Black oversaw the company's newspaper interests in Britain and Canada, while Mr. Radler oversaw the company's ownership of The Jerusalem Post and its United States papers, which at one point included 400 community newspapers and The Chicago Sun-Times.

While Mr. Cramer told the jury that the buyers of several groups of small-town newspapers would be testifying that they did not ask for the agreements that funneled millions to the defendants, Mr. Genson argued that those same newspaper buyers would also testify that they never knew Mr. Black and dealt only with Mr. Radler.

Similarly, Mr. Genson said, it was Mr. Radler's responsibility to obtain the approval for the noncompete payments from the audit committee.

The trial will also include accusations that Mr. Black abused perquisites. These include charges that Mr. Black stole money from the company by using the company jet to fly to Bora Bora for a vacation with his wife and refused to pay for it and that he defrauded the company on the purchase of a Park Avenue apartment. Mr. Genson said he would disprove all the accusations.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com

SUBJECT: ORGANIZED CRIME (92%); JUSTICE DEPARTMENTS (90%); LAWYERS (89%); COVENANTS NOT TO COMPETE (89%); FRAUD & FINANCIAL CRIME (78%); ETHICS (74%); ROBBERY (72%); SHAREHOLDERS (69%); JURY TRIALS (90%) Accounting and Accountants; Ethics; Securities and Commodities Violations; Racketeering and Racketeers ; Frauds and Swindling; Bonuses

COMPANY: SUN-TIMES MEDIA GROUP INC (54%)

ORGANIZATION: Hollinger International Inc; Hollinger International Inc

TICKER: SVN (NYSE) (54%)

PERSON: Conrad M Black; Richard Siklos; Jack Boultbee; Mark Kipnis; Peter Atkinson; Jeffrey H Cramer; Edward M Genson

GEOGRAPHIC: UNITED STATES (93%); CANADA (90%); NORTH AMERICA (79%)

LOAD-DATE: March 21, 2007

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

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Add a Dash of Green and the Dish Is Done The New York Times March 21, 2007 Wednesday

1002 of 1258 DOCUMENTS

The New York Times

March 21, 2007 Wednesday

Late Edition - Final

Add a Dash of Green and the Dish Is Done

BYLINE: By Florence Fabricant

SECTION: Section F; Column 2; Dining, Dining Out/Cultural Desk; FOOD STUFF; Pg. 2

LENGTH: 198 words

A finishing touch on a dish in a restaurant is often a scattering of tiny leaves, or microgreens, packing intense flavor.

Now home cooks can add this same professional grace note with fresh snippets of baby plants direct from the refrigerator. Lauri Roberts, an entrepreneur in Warwick, R.I., has started a company called Farming Turtles (''I wanted a name that was funny and memorable,'' she said) to grow nine kinds of microgreens.

They are sold in plastic tubs, growing in soil. Tuck them into the refrigerator and cut with scissors to use on all sorts of dishes.

They are called salad toppers, but they have other uses, like garnishing fillets of fish, dressing up sandwiches and wraps, floating on soups and showering on pasta and risotto.

Basil and cilantro are deeply flavorful. Arugula and a blend called Firecracker Zest pack plenty of spice. The onion, with its tiny black seeds, tastes richly oniony.

Amaranth, carrot, baby red cabbage and an Asian blend are the other varieties, all $4.99 each and available at D'Agostino supermarkets in New York City and Westchester County. Dave's Marketplace stores in Rhode Island and Eastside Marketplace in Providence also sell them.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com

SUBJECT: GROCERY STORES & SUPERMARKETS (85%); RESTAURANTS (78%) Cooking and Cookbooks

COMPANY: D'AGOSTINO SUPERMARKETS INC (55%)

ORGANIZATION: Farming Turtles (Co)

PERSON: Florence Fabricant

GEOGRAPHIC: PROVIDENCE, RI, USA (57%); NEW YORK, NY, USA (65%) RHODE ISLAND, USA (93%); NEW YORK, USA (79%) UNITED STATES (93%)

LOAD-DATE: March 21, 2007

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

GRAPHIC: Photo (Photo by Tony Cenicola/The New York Times)

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

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National Briefing West: California: Man Indicted In Fire At Wine Warehouse The New York Times March 20, 2007 Tuesday

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The New York Times

March 20, 2007 Tuesday

Late Edition - Final

National Briefing West: California: Man Indicted In Fire At Wine Warehouse

BYLINE: AP

SECTION: Section A; Column 1; National Desk; Pg. 15

LENGTH: 162 words

Federal prosecutors announced a 19-count indictment against a San Francisco Bay Area wine entrepreneur in an October 2005 fire that destroyed a warehouse and millions of dollars' worth of bottled wine. The charges against the businessman, Mark Anderson, include arson, tax evasion, mail fraud, using a fake name and interstate transportation of fraudulently obtained property. They are the first stemming from the fire, which burned the Wines Central warehouse on Mare Island, a former naval base in Vallejo, about 30 miles northeast of San Francisco. It destroyed the inventories of more than 80 vintners, worth about $100 million. Mr. Anderson had stored wine at the warehouse but had removed most of it after being asked to do so by business managers several months before the fire. He had been under investigation partly because he was at the warehouse when the fire erupted. The federal public defender in Sacramento, Matthew C. Bockmon, declined to comment on the case.

URL: http://www.nytimes.com

SUBJECT: FIRES (90%); ARSON (90%); JUSTICE DEPARTMENTS (88%); GENERAL WAREHOUSING (88%); WAREHOUSING & STORAGE (88%); INVESTIGATIONS (87%); TAX FRAUD (73%); ALCOHOLIC BEVERAGES (72%); PUBLIC DEFENDERS (50%); INDICTMENTS (91%) Fires and Firefighters; Arson

PERSON: Mark Anderson

GEOGRAPHIC: SAN FRANCISCO, CA, USA (91%); SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, CA, USA (92%); SACRAMENTO, CA, USA (79%) CALIFORNIA, USA (93%) UNITED STATES (93%) San Francisco (Calif)

LOAD-DATE: March 20, 2007

LANGUAGE: ENGLISH

PUBLICATION-TYPE: Newspaper

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Headline News The New York Times March 18, 2007 Sunday

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The New York Times

March 18, 2007 Sunday

Late Edition - Final

Headline News

BYLINE: By BOB SHACOCHIS.

Bob Shacochis' next novel, ''The Woman Who Lost Her Soul,'' will be published in 2008.

SECTION: Section 7; Column 1; Book Review Desk; Pg. 16

LENGTH: 1314 words

SURVEILLANCE

By Jonathan Raban.

258 pp. Pantheon Books. $24.

To whom shall we entrust the rendering of this moment and its attendant verities -- the artist or the correspondent, the purveyors of fictions or the gatherers of facts? And who gets to play gatekeeper in this game? The question, both plot device and intellectual premise, animates ''Surveillance,'' the gripping new novel by Jonathan Raban, a British writer who for years has embedded himself in America, earning acclaim for his fresh-eyed travelogues and journalism.

Once upon a time the question could be swatted away -- you're talking apples and oranges -- but not anymore. Boundaries have corroded, shapes blurred, genres intermarried. Fabrications are as efficacious as facts.

When we read the Times Op-Ed columnist Bob Herbert on anger -- ''The anger quotient is much too low,'' he wrote recently, addressing the political mood in the country -- and then Raban's observations on the same subject, we find ourselves at the center of a murky debate about the current status of fiction versus nonfiction that occupies much of the thematic space in Raban's novel. ''Tad was angry,'' Raban writes. Tad Zachary is a 50ish, gay, H.I.V.-positive, professional actor in Seattle. ''He was angry with himself, angry with the presidency, angry with the nation, angry with the century. That much was rational, justifiable. ... Decent people now were angry people, and what America needed at this low moment in its history was more anger, not less.'' Tad, however, doesn't seek ''to rescue the administration from its folly: he wanted to see it blown to atomic dust or drowned in a sack.'' Here, at least, the anger quotient, considerably more heated than congressional oversight hearings on the Iraq war, is much too high. +

At the place where Herbert and Raban intersect, do their words complement or cancel one another out, enhance or diminish the force of Herbert's analysis or Raban's make-believe? This is precisely the sort of human algebra that Raban bends his characters around throughout the book, to fascinating yet irresolute effect. Opinions appear to converge on a single truth, but each character has read the thermometer differently, the disparity in this case perhaps explained by the fact that ''Surveillance'' leans out from today's headlines to sniff at a horizon that is within walking distance, a Seattle that might not be 2007 yet edges no further into the calendar than 2008. An overly familiar America, accurately portrayed and perforce underimagined. What's new? One hardly needs a crystal ball: national identity cards, stone-faced soldiers manning checkpoints, an economy in the pits, intensified global warming. Bush still seems to be president, the nation remains divided, Iraq is Iraq. There have been no new terrorist attacks upon the homeland, although extravagant stagings of emergency and disaster drills, spiffed up with actors like Tad, are disruptively common.