Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- A judge who will sentence Conrad Black later today said the appropriate suggested range for punishment is 6.5 to 8.1 years in prison for the convicted former Hollinger International Inc. chairman.

U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve may choose a sentence above or below the suggested range for Black's crime. She said she may enhance the sentence called for because Black, 63, had used ``sophisticated means'' -- noncompete contracts -- to commit the crime of defrauding Hollinger of $6.1 million.

Before the sentencing, prosecutors had urged the judge to give Black 19.6 to 24.4 years in prison using 2006 guidelines. Defense lawyers argued she should use more lenient 2000 guidelines being applied to Black's chief accuser F. David Radler, whose plea agreement calls for a 29-month term.

``It's only appropriate that the same version of guidelines apply to Mr. Black as the government agreed to use in Radler's case,'' St. Eve said today at a hearing in Chicago in rejecting the prosecution's argument.

St. Eve also said she'll compute the sentence by using $6.1 million as the loss Black's crime caused, not the $32 million figure prosecutors had urged. Evidence at trial supported the larger figure, prosecutors argued. The jury only found Black and co-defendants stole the lesser amount.

Black was convicted in July of directing a $6.1 million fraud at Hollinger, once the third-largest publisher of English- language newspapers.

Black's conviction was the result of a U.S. government crackdown on corporate crime that followed the 2001 collapse of Enron Corp. Juries convicted several ousted CEOs of fraud, including Enron's Jeffrey Skilling, WorldCom Inc.'s Bernard Ebbers, Tyco International Inc.'s L. Dennis Kozlowski and Adelphia Communications Corp.'s John Rigas.

The case is U.S. v. Black, 05cr727, in the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division (Chicago).

To contact the reporters on this story: Andrew Harris at the federal court in Chicago at aharris16@bloomberg.net; Joe Schneider at the federal court in Chicago at jschneider5@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: December 10, 2007 12:13 EST