"I have been horribly defamed and in fact characterized and stigmatized as an embezzler. I am trying to retrieve my reputation as an honest man."
--Conrad Black, a.k.a. Lord Black of Crossharbour, defending himself in court in February against legal action brought by the board of his newspaper conglomerate, Hollinger International. Six months later, an internal report details Black's "aggressive looting" of the company, including more than $12 million spent on leasing a plane to "indiscriminately" shuttle Black and his wife, Barbara Amiel, to their various homes; $9 million to buy presidential papers and memorabilia from the FDR administration; $1.4 million for staff at Black's personal residences; $1.1 million for a no-show job for Amiel; $90,000 to recondition Black's Rolls-Royce; and $42,870 for a birthday party for Amiel at New York's La Grenouille restaurant. Hollinger's investigators estimate that between 1997 and 2003, the "corporate kleptocracy" fostered by Black resulted in the loss of $400 million, or 95 percent of the company's adjusted net income.