Friday, January 04, 2008

The Regal American?


Conrad Black has decided that, if he's can't get Canadian citizenship, well becoming a faux-American might be the next best thing for a guy facing prison time in the U.S. of A.

Black seems to have figured out that, as a convicted felon, even He can't claim outright citizenship but He thinks it would be appropriate that the US Bureau of Prisons overlook the technicalities that surely should be reserved only for mere mortals. From the Globe & Mail:

because he is not a U.S. citizen, Lord Black is ineligible to serve his time in a minimum-security facility, or prison camp.

In a four-page letter to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, filed in court this week, Lord Black's legal team asked officials to waive the regulation because of Lord Black's many contributions to the United States.

“Mr. Black's oral and written admiration for and support of the United States is well documented,” the letter said. It added that Lord Black, who is a British citizen, “has been a very productive member of society, extensively investing in the American economy as a business owner over many years.”

The letter, which noted Lord Black's prisoner number as 18330-424, also asked the bureau to send him to a different prison. During a sentencing hearing last month in Chicago, Lord Black's lawyers asked that he serve his time in the Coleman Federal Correctional Complex in Coleman, Fla. That's the largest prison in the United States, comprising four separate institutions and a total inmate population of more than 5,000.


I don't want to see Black suffer the brutal conditions of the worst of America's prison system but it rankles that, pompously denying even the slightest wrongdoing, Black believes himself entitled to special treatment, something befitting a Lord of the Realm.

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