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Conrad the Conman - and a comparison with Richard Pratt

Alan Kohler, one time editor of The Age, makes some comparisons between Conrad Black - sentenced to a term of imprisonment today - and Richard Pratt, recently fined a hefty and record A$36 million in a piece on Crikey "Black goes down, Pratt should count his lucky stars":

"It is kind of breathtaking to reflect on the contrasting judicial treatment of two rich law-breakers who happened, for a while, to be neighbours on Central Park in New York – Conrad Black and Richard Pratt.

Black was sentenced this morning to 6½ years in prison for having improperly taken $6.1 million in fees out of his company, Hollinger Inc, and for obstructing justice. Pratt was fined $36 million, and did not go to jail, after admitting that he conspired to defraud his customers of something like $400 million through an illegal cartel with his competitor Amcor.

In October 2005, before Black was charged, police seized the US$8.5 million in proceeds from the sale of his Park Avenue, NY, home. Pratt still maintains an apartment at the top of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel on 5th Avenue, just around the corner, for when he visits his Staten Island recycling factory.

Such are the vagaries of justice, I suppose, although Dick Pratt must be reflecting today that he got off very lightly.

And even though Conrad Black’s prosecutors were seeking 30 years, he very definitely did not get off lightly. For at least 5½ years he will be wearing khaki and scrubbing pots and pans for less than $1 an hour at Florida's low-security Coleman prison.

It is a spectacular fall for a man who was described as a millionaire who lived like a billionaire. (Pratt, on the other hand, is a billionaire who lives like a … well, a billionaire.)"

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