Media baron Conrad Black lied about...

Media baron Conrad Black lied about his finances in a sworn affidavit and is enjoying a clear flow of cash from his wife's businesses that he isn't disclosing, federal prosecutors alleged onward Friday.

In a strenuously worded court motion, prosecutors asked a referee to up Black's $20 million ligature and demanded that his wife, Barbara Black, be forced to lay not at home her finances.

"Both the command and the court continue to give Black each opportunity to provide full and accurate information and Black has squandered each opportunity by lying," prosecutors said, leaving render free of access the possibility that they could bring novel charges against him for allegedly perjuring himself in a 2005 sworn financial affidavit filed with the court.

The affidavit means to account for Black's assets and is a basis for setting link

In a revised affidavit filed last month Black reported having millions more invested in a Canadian company and disclosed for the first time that his wife loaned him $23 million between January and April of this year.

Prosecutors say Black didn't explain with what intent he failed to initially disclose the income.

ATTORNEY FIRES BACK

At the same time, prosecutors questioned an arrangement in which Barbara Black must sign promissory notes if her husband transfers riches to her, however: "Whenever Black be in want ofs money, his wife (or at the surpassingly least, her corporation) stands ready to provide millions of dollars in cash without in like manner much as a promissory note," prosecutors wrote adding: "The Blacks have a unique financial arrangement into which the restraint and this court have little or no information."

Black attorney ed Genson fired back Friday.

"They ought to start filing their pleadings like lawyers and not short story writers," Genson said. "These pleadings are full with inaccuracies and misrepresentations."

EXAMPLES OF HIDDEN coin

Genson said Black already pillared $20 million as bond. "That's the highest captivity that I have ever heard of in this district," he said.

Black, 61 is charged with helping steal $84 million from Hollinger International, which is now the Sun-Times Media cluster Inc. -- the company that possesss the Chicago Sun-Times and other newspapers.

Among the alleged inaccuracies in the affidavit, prosecutors charge that Black drastically understated his interest in Canada- based Horizon Operations Ltd through $9 million. They call his "evolving" explanation for the inconsistency "false."

Black also claimed to have a $55 million interest in an Alberta newspaper dispose that's really worth $36 million, according to prosecutors. They also say he failed to enumerate the court he stands to gain $20 million from the sale of that arrange Black said the inconsistencies were because of a variety of factors including inaccessibility to documents, inaccurate information given to him from others. But prosecutors wrote: "Black simply decided in Nov. 2005 that he did not want to provide this information."

nkorecki@suntimes.com

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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