A US judge has released former media baron Conrad Black from prison on a $2m bond, while she decides whether to throw out his 2007 conviction for defrauding shareholders.
Adhering to rulings by higher courts, trial Judge Amy St Eve of the US District Court set Black, 65, free but restricted him to the continental US for the time being.
Black left the Coleman Federal Prison in central Florida on Wednesday afternoon, according to a prison spokesman.
Canadian-born Black, a British peer who once led the world's third-largest newspaper publisher, with titles including London's Daily Telegraph, Canada's National Post and the Chicago Sun-Times, entered a Florida prison in March 2008.
A jury convicted him of three counts of fraud and one count of obstruction of justice in a scheme that swindled now defunct media holding company Hollinger International Inc out of $6.1m. He was acquitted of nine other counts, including racketeering.
Black and three fellow Hollinger executives also convicted in the case arranged to pay themselves tax-free bonuses disguised as non-compete fees as they sold off pieces of the Hollinger empire.
St Eve sentenced Black to six and a half years in prison, of which he has served slightly more than two years.
Black's lawyer, Miguel Estrada, said Black 'does not have assets available to him' and that conservative businessman Roger Hertog would be providing his $2 million bond. Black will travel to Chicago on a commercial flight from Florida and appear before St Eve on Friday.
Last month, Black won a victory when the US Supreme Court limited the reach of the federal fraud law that prosecutors used frequently in corruption cases against government officials and executives like Black and former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling.
The high court stopped short of overturning convictions and sent the cases back to lower courts. The federal law is applied to fraud cases in which a person is accused of depriving others of the intangible right to 'honest services'. It has been criticised as being too vague and overused.
Black still faces numerous civil suits related to Hollinger, and US tax authorities have demanded $71m from him for unpaid taxes.
