CONTINUATION: US court to investigate Black's assets

in the US, millions of dollars in fines and the possible forfeiture of assets including his $35m ([pound]17m) mansion in Florida, but the balance of jail time and financial penalties will be decided only after an investigation by court officials into the extent of his assets.

The judge, Amy St Eve, pushed back Black's sentencing until 30 November, giving the court longer than usual to carry out its investigations. Prosecuting attorney Eric Sussman said in court on Friday that he was aware of "a large amount of money moving back and forth ... literally millions of dollars".

The court has the power of subpoena if it feels that information is being held back, but Judge St Eve could take obstructive behaviour into account when sentencing Black. "Usually it is in a defendant's best interest to co-operate," one courthouse source said wryly.

The judge has already shown her frustration with Black over the issue of his bail bond, which was originally set at an unprecedentedly high $20m. The judge will rule on Thursday whether his bail will be revoked, although she appeared ready to return his passport and free him to travel to his home in Toronto, if his Canadian lawyers can give watertight assurances that he will return to Chicago for sentencing.

George Tombs, a Quebec-based biographer of Black, said that tracking down all the Blacks' assets will be "so hard it would take a forensic accountant". At the peak of his powers, Black may have been worth several hundred million dollars. Now, faced with millions of dollars in legal fees and fines that could run into millions more, he could well slip towards personal bankruptcy - particularly if other civil lawsuits go against him. The Blacks still have use of their mansion in Palm Beach but it is heavily mortgaged. The government had ordered Black to pay off the mortgage. He has not done so, saying he is in dispute with the mortgage company, and the government says it does not know if Black is refusing to pay, or cannot.

Some of the jurors who haggled over Black's fate for 12 days revealed how they came close to convicting him on an additional - and more serious - fraud charge. Tina Kadisak said that a majority believed that a $4.3m payment shared by the peer and his associates when Hollinger International sold a tranche of local papers was fraudulent, a fact that would have made it possible for them also to convict him of racketeering.

Last Tuesday, the jury told Judge St Eve they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict, but they were told to go back and discuss the issue further. "You get tired of being in the room," Ms Kadisak told Canada's Globe and Mail. "We just kept talking and going in circles sometimes." In the end, she said, the majority were persuaded that there was not enough evidence to convict on that count, and the jury returned a verdict of not guilty on nine of the 13 charges faced by Black.

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