Conrad Black, the robber baron, sentenced to 6½ years for his role in £29m fraud

Lord Black of Crossharbour swindled shareholders out of more than $6 million (2.96 million) in a fraud conspiracy with three colleagues.

The jury found the 63-year-old illegally received $3.5 million (1.46 million) as they convicted him of three counts of fraud and one of obstruction in the $60 million (29.3 million) fraud trial at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse in Chicago, Illinois, in July.

Judge Amy St Eve sentenced Black to 78 months in jail and ordered that he surrender to the prison in Florida on 3 March.

He was also ordered to pay a $125,000 (61,100) fine and will be supervised for two years after his release.

Judge St Eve told him: "I cannot understand how somebody of your status, on top of the media empire you were on top of, can put everything at risk."

She added that there was "equal justice" in the US, no matter how "rich, powerful or successful you are."

Prosecutors had argued the former Daily Telegraph owner and once-powerful chief executive of the Hollinger newspaper empire should be held responsible for his role in the entire $32 million fraud scheme and were seeking a sentence of 24-30 years. But defence lawyers insisted that Black's responsibility must be limited to the three specific fraud counts for which he was found guilty.

Judge St Eve said the jury paid "close attention" to the trial and acquitted Black of the charges involving the higher amounts of money.

Black was wished "good luck" by his defence lawyer Edward Greenspan as he arrived in the 12th-floor courtroom for the hearing. He was accompanied by his British wife, Barbara Amiel, and his daughter Alana.

During the complex four-month trial, the court was given details of Black's lavish spending, which the jury heard was partly funded through fraud.

Once the world's third most-powerful newspaper baron, his lifestyle became a byword for extravagance. With homes in New York, Toronto, Florida and London, Black enjoyed the company of the rich and famous with his wife by his side.

The couple owned a sumptuous apartment on Manhattan's Park Avenue, furnished with - among other antiques- Napoleon Bonaparte's shaving stand, a set of marble elephant carvings that cost 8,900 and Louis XVI painted stools with a 4,900 price-tag. Defence lawyers said the US government was trying to sow prejudice among the middle-class Chicago jurors by stressing the wealthy newspaper executive's "champagne-and-caviar" lifestyle.

The prosecution said the $60 million came mainly from the sale of hundreds of Hollinger-owned US and Canadian regional newspapers between 1998 and 2001, in which the buyers paid large sums in return for agreements that Hollinger would not compete with the new owners.

The jurors heard more than 40 witnesses during 14 weeks of evidence before they retired to consider their verdicts and deliberated for 12 days.

Yesterday, Jeffrey Steinback, for Black, read a letter to the court from Sir Elton John and David Furnish in which they described the mogul as a "good friend". They wrote that Black was "incredibly supportive" of their AIDS foundation and "the sort of person who sticks with you through thick and thin".

Black was also accused of cheating Hollinger International by taking the company plane on a holiday to French Polynesia and billing shareholders $40,000 (19,500) for his wife's surprise birthday party. He was cleared of charges relating to these allegations.

Black previously said the prospect of a lengthy jail term was "a bore but endurable". In an e-mail sent to Canadian broadcaster CBC, he said he would not feel ashamed of being jailed. Last month, Black said he would beat the charges against him on appeal.

BLACK ON THE WORLD...

"Humility is a good quality, but it can be overdone"

"It's war. I'm on an inexorable march to victory... my strategy is working"

Outside court, at a previous hearing

"We just got back yesterday from a shambles of a trip to the South Pacific ... we felt like geriatric freaks among a sea of honeymooners; loutish young men and their perky wives"

Describing a trip to Bora Bora in an e-mail to New York Sun editor Seth Lipsky

"Uncompetitive, slothful, self- righteous, spiteful - an envious nanny-state hovering on the verge of dissolution and bankruptcy"

On Canada, which he left to take up his title, dismissing the country of his birth

"I have no doubt that mothers in America use my name to frighten their children into finishing their vegetables ... but this is not a permanent state of affairs"

"I had thought I'd a good many friends in the British media who would give me a fair hearing. They didn't do it. I thought it was disgusting"

"This whole story is a fraud. That is the scandal. The scandal is not in my behaviour. The scandal is the behaviour of my accusers"

"We'll use the innards of our adversaries to grease the treads of our tanks"

A favourite riposte

...AND THE WORLD ON BLACK

"Conrad is in denial. He's unrepentant...he says he will come through"

Princess Michael of Kent on the plight of her friend

"Black has always believed that as a great leader he was entitled to live by different morals from the rest of us"

Biographer George Tombs

"The rules don't apply to Conrad Black. He wanted those documents and he took them. Classic, classic Conrad Black"

Prosecutor Julie Ruder on the removal of 13 boxes of documents from his office despite a ban on taking evidence

"Bank robbers wear masks and use guns. These defendants dressed in ties and suits"

Prosecutor Jeffrey Cramer

"He was a millionaire trying to live like a billionaire, and in the end it caught up with him"

Biographer Tom Bower

"We think they are self-righteous hypocrites and ingrates who give us no credit for a skilful job of building and pruning a company in difficult circumstances"

His wife, Barbara Amiel, is said to have declared

"He is a good friend, who sticks with you through thick and thin"

Elton John

"My father is hopeful, positive, trusting... he wants to believe in the good in anyone"

Daughter Alana

"On a scale of 0-10, with ten being the worst example, I think you'd find that Conrad Black is...around 50"

Jay Eisenhofer, a lawyer hired by a pension fund that claims it was cheated by Black