Conrad Black cannot return to Canada yet, federal judge Amy St Eve ruled in Chicago Friday.
Judge St Eve said she still wants more information from Lord Black's lawyers before making a ruling. She gave him two more weeks to pull it together.
"I want more certainty," she told Lord Black's lawyers, referring to the financial information she had received.
Judge St Eve also read Lord Black the conditions of his release but restricted him to the United States. She has given Lord Black's lawyers to Aug. 16 to give her the information.
Lord Black responded with a firm yes as to whether he understood the conditions.
He stood before the judge as she made her ruling. He then signed some papers.
His wife Barbara Amiel Black sat nearby in a front-row.
Lord Black's lawyer Miguel Estrada told the court one reason Lord black should be allowed to return to Toronto is the health condition of his wife. Mr. Estrada said the condition was not serious but it was difficult for her to live in Palm Beach.
Lord Black was released on bail from a Florida prison Wednesday after his close friend Roger Hertog put up $2-million (U.S.) for a bond. Lord Black had served just over two years of a six-and-a-half year sentence for fraud and obstruction of justice. Judge St Eve, who presided over Lord Black's trial in 2007, had to set the conditions for his release and on Wednesday she ordered him to stay in the United States while court officials gathered information about Lord Black's financial status.
Lord Black's lawyers have said the former newspaper baron doesn't have any assets to pledge for bail. The title to his ocean front mansion belongs to a Connecticut based investment fund and the property is up for sale. Lord Black only has a contractual interest in the house, his lawyers said without providing details. Lord Black's Toronto house is also tied up by a Canadian court ordered asset freeze which was put in place in 2006 as part of a civil suit.
Lord Black and four other former executives of Chicago-based Hollinger International Inc. were convicted of fraud over the misappropriation of $6.1-million. Lord Black was the only defendant convicted of obstruction of justice. All of the defendants are now out of jail either on bail awaiting appeal or because they have finished their sentences.
A federal appeal court in Chicago will now review the fraud convictions in light of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month. That decision narrowed the application of a law used in several corporate fraud cases including Lord Black's.
Paul Waldie