Conrad Black Out on $2 Million Bail as He Readies New Appeal

Conrad Black is free to walk the streets -- for a while, at least. The Canadian ex-media mogul's plea for bail has been granted, with a federal judge ordering him to post a $2 million bond. Upon doing so, it enabled Black to exit Coleman Federal Correctional Center in Florida, where he's been incarcerated since 2008, pending a new hearing of part of the case against him. Black has been instructed not to leave the continental U.S. while out on bail.

The former head of Hollinger International, whose holdings included the Chicago Sun-Times, Canada's National Post and the London Daily Telegraph, Black was convicted in 2007 of fraudulently enriching himself at shareholders' expense and obstructing justice by removing documents. But the fraud conviction depended on a 1988 law requiring the provision of "honest services," and a Supreme Court ruling handed down last month severely limited the scope of that law, allowing Black to make a fresh appeal.

While in prison, Black has been spending his time reading, exercising, learning to play piano and tutoring fellow inmates.