Ex-media baron Conrad Black freed from U.S. prison

CHICAGO, (Reuters) – A U.S. judge yesterday  released former media baron Conrad Black from prison on $2  million bond, while she decides whether to throw out his 2007  conviction for defrauding shareholders.

Adhering to rulings by higher courts, trial Judge Amy St.  Eve of the U.S. District Court set Black, 65, free but  restricted him to the continental United States for the time  being.

Black left the Coleman Federal Prison in central Florida yesterday afternoon, according to prison officials.

He left without being spotted by waiting reporters but was  seen hours later, in sweat pants and a white T-shirt, sitting  cross-legged in the back of a Lincoln Navigator SUV as it  arrived at his ocean-front mansion in Palm Beach, Florida.

The Canadian-born Black, a British peer who once led the  world’s third-largest newspaper publisher, with titles  including London’s Daily Telegraph, Canada’s National Post and  the Chicago Sun-Times, entered a Florida prison in March 2008.  A jury convicted him of three counts of fraud and one count  of obstruction of justice in a scheme that swindled now defunct  media holding company Hollinger Inter-national Inc out of $6.1  million. He was acquitted of nine other counts, including  racketeering.