Image caption Black's empire once included the Daily Telegraph and the Chicago Sun-Times

A US judge has resentenced former media tycoon Conrad Black to 42 months in prison for fraud and obstruction.

The Canadian-born British peer is likely to serve just 13 months because of time already served.

He was convicted in 2007 of defrauding shareholders in media holding company Hollinger of $6.1m (£3.8m) but freed in 2010 after the US Supreme Court court found an anti-corruption law unconstitutional.

The court let two other charges stand.

In Chicago on Friday, US District Court Judge Amy St Eve ruled that when Black was released in July, more than two years into a six-and-a-half year term, he had not yet served enough time in prison to remain at liberty.

'Greed and lies'

But she rejected prosecutors' request to sentence him to the same term once again. Imposing that sentence again would have left Black with about four-and-a-half more years to serve.

"He fails to acknowledge his central role in destroying Hollinger International through greed and lies, instead blaming the government and others for what he describes as an unjust persecution," prosecutors said recently.

Black, 66, once controlled a media empire that included the Daily Telegraph in the UK, the Chicago Sun-Times and other newspapers in the US and Canada.

But in 2007, he and three other Hollinger International executives were convicted of defrauding shareholders of $6.1m.

Prosecutors said Black defrauded investors by paying himself a tax-free bonus from the sale of newspaper assets without the approval of the company's board.

Black's convictions rested partly on the idea that he had deprived Hollinger of his honest services as a corporate officer.

In June 2010, the US Supreme Court found that "honest services" law unconstitutionally vague, ruling the law could apply only to cases where bribes and kickbacks had changed hands.