Disgraced media baron Conrad Black last night began a six-and-a-half year jail term in Florida, imposed for multi-million dollar fraud.
Black, who has appealed his conviction imposed in July by a federal court in Chicago, was ordered to wait out the rest of the appeal in jail.
The 63-year-old, who once ran the world's third largest media empire with such titles in his stable as Britain's Daily Telegraph and the Chicago Sun-Times, is now prisoner 18330-424 in the Coleman jail, about 50 miles northwest of Orlando.
It marked the climax to his spectacular fall which began when Black was charged with raiding the coffers of his once mighty newspaper empire, Hollinger, and trying to cover up his crime.
He was found guilty of four counts of fraud for misappropriating some $60m of shareholder funds during the sale of Hollinger to the Canadian press group Canwest in 2000, and one count of obstruction.
His conviction for obstruction of justice was based on a surveillance tape that caught him loading boxes of documents from his Toronto office into his car after the Securities and Exchange Commission notified him he was under investigation.
Besides his prison term, Black in December was also sentenced to pay a $125,000 fine and a forfeiture of $ 6.1m.
Black has continued to protest his innocence. Two of his co-accused, who were also sentenced at the same trial, were allowed to remain at liberty pending their appeal.
The son of a wealthy brewery executive, Black bought his first newspaper in his 20s and rapidly expanded his reach across the globe, buying such prestigious titles as the Daily Telegraph and the Jerusalem Post to enhance his massive roster of smaller papers.
In December, Black wrote in emails to Canadian public broadcasters CBC that he would be back after serving his term.
'Prison would be a bore, but quite endurable,' he wrote. 'I can get on with anyone and adjust to almost anything and I don't consider it shaming to go to prison. I don't see custody as a dead end,' he wrote, adding he would bounce back like other famous inmates before him.
