Conrad Black finishes first year of prison

COLEMAN, Fla., March 3 (UPI) -- Former newspaper mogul Conrad Black was completing his first full year of prison life Tuesday in a minimum-security Florida prison.

The Canadian-born Black, 64, was convicted last year in Chicago of swindling his publishing empire of $6.1 million and then trying to hide evidence. He was sentenced to 6 1/2 years in prison.

In an e-mail interview with Canada's National Post, which he founded in 1998, Black said prison life keeps him busy intellectually and socially.

"My circle hasn't so much changed as expanded," he wrote. "The people I mainly see here are often not unlike people I might know outside."

Black renounced his Canadian citizenship in order to gain a seat in Britain's House of Lords, where he is known as Lord Black of Crossharbour. In a personal interview with Sun Media last week, he said he is trying to be transferred to a British prison, where he would be eligible for parole sooner.

Meanwhile, he teaches inmates and prison staff politics and history, is writing a book and taking piano lessons, the Sun report said.

Regardless, Black said he can never forget he's incarcerated.

"Yes, time is strange here," Black said. "You lose track of days and dates and they all blend together."