The Douglases countersued last month, claiming Mr. Hall bilked the company, paid himself unauthorized bonuses and "brought the Black Dog to the brink of financial ruin."

Mr. Rudd admitted taking the unauthorized 1989 bonus of more than $41,000, knowing the payment had not been approved by the board, Mr. Chertoff said.

In April 2010 Metra's executive director, Phil Pagano, was being investigated for taking an unauthorized $56,000 bonus and was later found to have improperly received $475,000 in vacation pay.

In two days of testimony for the prosecution, Mr. Radler told the jury that he and Mr. Black decided to help themselves to unauthorized bonuses by disguising them as noncompete payments.

Mr. Black and the other defendants - Jack A. Boultbee, Mark S. Kipnis and Peter Y. Atkinson - are accused of helping themselves to unauthorized bonuses.

Ms. Ruder's basic storyline was that Mr. Black and his colleagues helped themselves to unauthorized bonuses and other perquisites.

He is accused of paying himself unauthorized bonuses, of accepting improper payments from buyers of newspapers sold by Hollinger, and of misappropriating company funds for personal use.

He was taken to Bratislava and, though eventually released, was questioned about unauthorized bonuses given to members of his government, which was defeated in 1998.

Mark A. Belnick, a former general counsel of Tyco International, was indicted on three additional charges yesterday, including an accusation that he took an unauthorized $12 million bonus.

The payments from the Canadian deal were unauthorized bonuses disguised as payments demanded by CanWest, the Justice Department charged last year.