Conrad Black back in jail as appeal fails

DISGRACED media mogul Conrad Black has been sent back to prison after he was sentenced to serve three and a half years.

The Canadian-born businessman was freed on bail from a Florida prison last year as he appealed against his convictions for defrauding investors in Hollinger International.

He served two years of his original six-and-a-half-year sentence.

But he was re-sentenced yesterday by a Chicago judge after a court last year threw out two of Black's 2007 fraud convictions but upheld a third conviction for fraud and for obstruction of justice.

Black's empire once included the Chicago Sun-Times and the Daily Telegraph.

Black, 66, renounced the citizenship of his homeland to become a member of the House of Lords and was known for a grand lifestyle.

With homes in New York, Toronto, Florida and London, the socialite Lord Black of Crossharbour was known to enjoy the company of the rich, powerful and famous, with his glamorous second wife, Watford-born journalist Barbara Amiel, by his side.

Prosecutors depicted him as a devil-may-care elitist who looks down his nose at the rest of humanity.