--too bad Conrad didn't hire killer attack dogs as his lawyers instead of the Eddies....
-clear from jurors comments that Conrad is lucky he wasn't convicted of more charges...
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RADLER TRIED TO FOOL US, JUROR SAYS
'Covering For Buddy' Black
Barbara Shecter, National Post
Published: Saturday, July 14, 2007
Jurors in the Conrad Black case say they convicted him despite the evidence from the prosecution's star witness, David Radler.

In interviews after delivering their verdict yesterday, the jurors described the tense atmosphere in the jury room, their difficulties in gaining a full understanding of the complex charges and the overall ineffectiveness of the man many of them expected would make the prosecution's case.

"He kept contradicting himself. He was trying to fool the jury," juror Monica Prince said of Radler, Lord Black's former right-hand man.
Shortly after the verdicts were delivered, she told the Chicago Sun-Times she also believed Radler was "covering for his buddy" and trying "to cover for Black" during his week-long testimony in the four-month trial.

Another juror, Tina Kadisak, a 32-year-old hairstylist, said the jury had high expectations that as the prosecution's key witness, Radler would help make the case clear --but he didn't.

"We were kind of hoping he'd come in and tell us the whole story and make it an easy case to figure out, but he didn't do that. He didn't give us something where we could go, 'Oh, look, there's the story. Everybody's guilty.' It was still really difficult," she told the Chicago Sun-Times.

She was among those jurors who spoke to reporters yesterday from their homes. Although the U.S. legal system permits jurors to speak openly after a verdict is reached and there was certainly an appetite for anything they had to say, the jurors chose not to appear as a group to answer questions before the more than 50 journalists who packed the courtroom and an overflow room several floors above to hear the verdicts.

The jury foreman, Jonathan Keag, a family man who lives on the outskirts of Chicago in a well-manicured neighbourhood with his wife and two dogs, said he did not want to discuss what went on behind closed doors because he realizes the convicted men have families, too.

Indeed, Lord Black's wife, Barbara Amiel, was in the courtroom sitting directly behind her husband through much of the trial, as was his 25-year-old daughter, Alana.

"I paid no attention to the media. I focused on the case," Mr. Keag said a few hours after the verdict was delivered and Judge Amy St. Eve polled each juror to make sure the verdict was indeed unanimous.

"Everybody took their duty very seriously, and I was very proud to serve with all of them," he said.

It seemed less than collegial on Tuesday when the jurors sent a note to the judge saying they were deadlocked on a least one of the 42 charges in the case.

The judge sent them back to deliberations and a unanimous verdict finding all four defendants guilty on some of the charges against them was reached less than three days later.

Indeed, other jurors acknowledge there was some friction in the days before the verdicts were reached.

Ms. Prince said they had become hung up on one of the fraud counts involving a newspaper sale. The ultimate outcome was to find the accused not guilty.

She said the jury was "pretty well split" on the alleged fraud, with some jurors intent on "hardcore evidence" on paper and others, including Ms. Prince, willing to weigh the actions of Lord Black and his co-defendants.

It came to a head when we couldn't come to an agreement. They weren't budging on that."

In the end, though, "what they did and what's on paper are two different things," she said. "There was not enough paper evidence."

Ms. Prince said a lack of "paper evidence" was also the reason jurors did not find Lord Black guilty of racketeering.

Ms. Kadisak described the vibe in the room during deliberations this way: "It was stressful, definitely stressful. There were some disagreements, but for the most part we just talked through it all. And it wasn't screaming and yelling. It would just get intense."

She described it as methodical, plodding work: "It was slow, it was one charge at a time, going through it, talking about and sometimes going in circles and talking about the same thing 100 times."

Jurors were often observed doodling during long days of testimony, and there was one particular juror who would frequently nod off, sometimes as early as 10 a.m. Observers also wondered if the jury was sophisticated enough to understand the newspaper transactions and non-compete fees at the heart of the case.

But Hugh Totten, a Chicago lawyer who closely followed the case, said the breakthrough on the deadlock and the final verdicts prove that the jury brought "common sense" to the case. He said the jurors should be commended "for its diligence in working through a mountain of evidence."

Mr. Totten noted the conviction came for non-compete fees in newspaper deals in which the buyers testified that they didn't ask for them and, in some cases, didn't even know who the individuals who signed them were.

"That was always pretty powerful evidence for the prosecution and never was truly taken on by the defendants."