Conrad Black Appeals Prison Sentence

Lawyers for former newspaper mogul Conrad Black appealed his 6½-year prison term for fraud today, arguing that the jury received bad instructions and that the evidence failed to prove he had knowledge of shady dealings, reports Canada's National Post. Black was convicted of bilking about $6 million from Hollinger International, his former Chicago-based newspaper publishing company. He began serving his sentence at a Florida prison last week.

Black helped his legal team draft the appeal, the Canadian Press reports. "He's trained as a lawyer himself, he's a smart guy, and we wanted to get his thoughts," said one of his lawyers. "We didn't really speak too much about how he's doing, but he would say he was doing fine no matter what, because that's his personality." (More Conrad Black stories.)