Newspaper baron jailed

CHICAGO - Former newspaper mogul Conrad Black was sentenced yesterday to 6 1/2 years in prison, far less than the 30 years sought by prosecutors, for swindling shareholders in his Hollinger media empire out of $6 million.

"Mr. Black, you have violated your duty to Hollinger International shareholders," U.S. District Judge Amy J. St. Eve told the silver-haired millionaire member of the British House of Lords, who is known throughout the newspaper industry for his lavish lifestyle and flamboyant use of words.

Prosecutors had asked for as many as 30 years in prison for the Canadian-born Black, saying he had not shown "one shred of remorse" for looting the company that once owned the Chicago Sun-Times, Daily Telegraph of London, Jerusalem Post and hundreds of U.S. and Canadian community newspapers.

Black was defiant to the end.

"I do wish to profess my profound regret and sadness at the severe hardship of all the shareholders at the evaporation of $1.8 billion in shareholder value under my successors," he said. *