Conrad Black, the onetime press magnate who built Hollinger International into the world’s third-largest publisher of English-language newspapers, was charged with helping to steal $51.8 million from the company.

The 61-year-old former chairman and chief executive officer of Hollinger International, along with three former company executives, was accused of wire fraud and mail fraud in an 11-count indictment unsealed in Chicago yesterday. Prosecutors issued a warrant for the arrest of Lord Black, who’s been a British lord since 2001. He faces as much as 40 years in jail and $2 million in fines if convicted on all charges.

[Hollinger International is a minority investor in The New York Sun.]

Lord Black’s prosecution is the highest-profile criminal case against a former CEO since the arrests last year of WorldCom’s Bernard Ebbers and Enron’s Kenneth Lay. At his peak, Lord Black controlled Britain’s Daily Telegraph, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Jerusalem Post, and 60% of Canada’s dailies, drawing comparisons to News Corporation chief Rupert Murdoch.

“Insiders at Hollinger – all the way to the top of the corporate ladder – whose job it was to safeguard the shareholders, made it their job to steal and conceal,” U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, whose office brought the charges, said in a statement.

Hollinger ex-chief financial officer John Boultbee, 62; former Hollinger general counsel Peter Atkinson, 58, and former Hollinger International corporate counsel Mark Kipnis, 58, were also indicted, along with Ravelston, Lord Black’s former company. Mr. Boultbee was also CFO at Ravelston. Prosecutors said they would seek the forfeiture of $80 million from the four defendants.

Warrants were issued for the arrests of Mr. Boultbee and Mr. Atkinson, who are Canadian citizens. Mr. Kipnis, an American, is free on bail following an August indictment for fraud.

Lord Black and Mr. Boultbee are each charged with eight counts of mail and wire fraud. Mr. Atkinson faces six counts of mail and wire fraud. Mr. Kipnis is charged with nine counts of mail and wire fraud. Each fraud count carries a prison term of five years and a $250,000 fine. Ravelston faces the same seven counts of mail and wire fraud first brought against it in August.

“Officers and directors of publicly traded companies who steer shareholders’ money into their pockets should not lie to the board of directors to get permission to do so,” Mr. Fitzgerald said in a statement. Mr. Fitzgerald offered Lord Black a chance to turn himself in, and said he would seek Lord Black’s extradition if he doesn’t surrender.

A secretary to one of Lord Black’s lawyers, Edward Greenspan, said she didn’t know where Lord Black is and that Mr. Greenspan was in court the rest of the afternoon. Mr. Fitzgerald declined to comment on Lord Black’s whereabouts. Canada and America have an extradition agreement that requires a person to have committed a criminal offense, which must be recognized as such in both countries, and which carries a penalty of more than a year imprisonment, a spokesman at Canada’s Department of Justice, Patrick Charette, said. Under both Canadian and American law, mail fraud and wire fraud are both crimes that carry penalties of more than a year.

An e-mail to Lord Black asking for comment wasn’t immediately returned.

The indictments describe two schemes allegedly carried out by the defendants. The first involved the diversion of $51.8 million from Hollinger International’s $2.1 billion sale of assets to CanWest Global Communications in 2000. The second alleged that Lord Black abused corporate perks provided by Hollinger International, including $40,000 to pay for his wife’s surprise birthday party in December 2000. Lord Black also had Hollinger pay for his use of its corporate jet for a personal vacation to Bora Bora in French Polynesia, prosecutors said in a statement.

“It never ceases to amaze me when people such as some of those named in this indictment, who are of affluent means, choose to steal with both hands, with a greed almost unfathomable to your average American citizen,” the special agent-in-charge of the Chicago office of the FBI, Robert Grant, said.

Lord Black has fought a two-year effort by Hollinger International to neutralize his voting control and influence over the Chicago-based Sun-Times publisher and its Canadian parent, Hollinger. So far, he’s mainly failed.

Hollinger International’s board ousted Lord Black as CEO in November 2003, sued him, and stripped him of the chairman’s title the following January. Hollinger International sued to recover more than $425 million it says Lord Black and associates including a former president, David Radler, stole.

Mr. Radler, 63, was indicted on August 18 on federal charges that he participated in a $32 million fraud. He pleaded guilty to one of the charges in September and is cooperating with the Justice Department. In return, prosecutors plan to recommend that he serve 29 months in jail and pay a $250,000 fine.