The noble lord may be emerging from jail. But freedom on bail does not necessarily mean vindication for Conrad Black, a convicted felon who is likely to get a sceptical reception even within the conservative circles in Toronto and London that once held him up as a hero.
At a Chicago court hearing, judge Amy St Eve today granted $2m (£1.3m) bail to the former Telegraph press baron, paving the way for his release from Coleman correctional centre in Florida – where he has spent the last two years teaching English to fellow inmates, playing the piano and writing a weekly newspaper column.
For the time being, the disgraced peer cannot leave the US. But eventually, if his fraud convictions are quashed, the peer has expressed a desire to return either to the home of his birth, Canada, or to Britain, where he could re-take his seat in the House of Lords as Lord Black of Crossharbour.
Legal experts point out, however, that even though the US supreme court has cast doubt on his three convictions for fraud, a fourth conviction, for obstructing justice, is likely to stand.
"This is freedom – he may not have to go back to prison but the chances are he'll remain a convicted felon," said Jacob Frenkel, a white-collar crime expert at Washington law firm Shulman Rogers. "You still have the fact that 12 jurors unanimously convicted him. The jurors said that Conrad Black committed a crime and, whatever the statute says, they felt that he ripped off shareholders."
At the end of his three-month trial in 2006, Black and three senior henchmen were convicted of siphoning away $6.1m from investors in the peer's Hollinger International media empire through phoney "non-compete" clauses attached to the sale of newspaper businesses. In a detail that has come back to haunt him, Black was also found guilty of defying a court order by removing a dozen boxes of documents from his Toronto office, under the eyes of a closed-circuit television camera, despite a ruling that potential evidence should remain untouched.
Obstruction of justice has proven critical for other white-collar criminals, such as the television homemaker Martha Stewart, who was jailed for five months in 2004 for making false statements over an alleged insider stock sale. Frenkel said: "Obstruction of justice is often the downfall of these folks. While they otherwise could have the opportunity of complete vindication, it's the decision to engage in obstructive conduct that damages them."
Those who lost money at the hands of Black were unmoved by today's events. Eugene Fox, a fund manager at US investment firm Cardinal Capital Management, which was among Hollinger's short-changed investors, said he did not view Black's release as a victory for the peer: "They can portray it as whatever they like but as far as our position is concerned, nothing has changed."
If his fraud convictions are overturned, Black may be tempted to settle scores with several high-profile enemies, including the writer Tom Bower, whose critical biography of the fallen newspaper baron, Dancing on the Edge, portrayed the peer as a self-destructive victim of a traumatic childhood who became desperate to prove himself. Black sued for libel in 2007 but the case was put on ice pending the peer's criminal trial. Bower declared himself untroubled by the peer's impending freedom: "I'm absolutely cold about it. I couldn't care two hoots about whether he comes out or not."
An eventual return to Britain would allow Black to reclaim his seat in the Lords, which has no bar on membership by convicted criminals. Black was stripped of the Conservative whip when he was dispatched to prison but he would be entitled to sit as a crossbencher. He would be well advised, however, to avoid "either triumphalism or martyrdom", according to Charles Kidd, editor of Debrett's, the journal of societal etiquette. "I should think the majority will shrug and let bygones be bygones. Probably the peerage is more flexible than the House of Commons in terms of human frailty," said Kidd. "That's as long as he doesn't over-egg the pudding and make a great big thing about it."
Still, Black will be returning to a more modest lifestyle of fewer explicit frills. Luxury homes in New York and London have been sold and judge St Eve heard yesterday that Black's Palm Beach property is also on the block. Black's wife, Barbara Amiel, once joked that her "extravagance" knew "no bounds" and in their heyday the couple famously turned up to a fancy dress party dressed as Cardinal Richelieu and Marie Antoinette. Today, Black had to rely on a friend, the conservative philanthropist Roger Hertog, to put up his bail money.
During his trial, the jury heard that Black used a Hollinger corporate jet for a holiday to Bora Bora, with a stop in Seattle on the way home to view a Wagner opera. And the peer billed his company to the tune of $62,000 for a 60th birthday party thrown for his wife at a New York restaurant, attended by luminaries including Michael Bloomberg, Donald Trump and the Dame Edna Everage creator Barry Humphries. Although the jury found that these expense items fell short of fraud, Black did not deny that he had billed them to investors – fuelling his reputation for blurred ethics.
Andrew Cohen, president of a Toronto-based thinktank, the Historica-Dominion Institute, said Canadians have viewed him with decidedly mixed emotions, particularly in light of a 2001 decision to renounce his Canadian citizenship in order to accept a peerage in London.
"He will always have his detractors … he'll be seen as a guy who, even before he went to jail, operated on the line ethically," said Cohen. "He's something of a darling for conservatives in Canada but there will be a mixture of scepticism and probably a respect for his cunning, for his nine lives and for his ability to put his life back together."
Throughout his ups and downs, Black's wife has stood beside him, visiting him regularly in prison. Writing in May for Maclean's, a Canadian magazine, Amiel quoted the singer Lena Horne's lyric "stormy weather, since my man and I ain't together", and expressed sadness at approaching her 70th birthday without her husband.
Black, who once dismissed the case against him as hanging "like a toilet seat" around prosecutors' necks, has never budged in his insistence that he would ultimately prevail. Back in his most bombastic days prior to his trial, Black commissioned a job lot of 150 T-shirts adorned with words "Conrad will win" over an image of his distinctive silhouette in a pensive pose. The T-shirts, distributed to his friends and family, could now become a collectors' item. Their creator, Toronto designer Wendy Tancock, this week knocked up a fresh version – showing Black wearing a suit in prison-issue orange over the word "ExConrad".