KEY POINTS:
It is a rare day when Donald Trump fails to make a head-turning personal appearance, but so it was today as the celebrity billionaire was left without being called as a character witness for his friend and former business associate, the fallen media baron Lord Black of Crossharbour.
While the media circus came to town, in the end the lionised billionaire - and his famously coiffured mane - did not take the stand at the peer's fraud trial in downtown Chicago.
The defence team, which had been discussing calling Mr Trump as late as Sunday afternoon, has decided to cut short its evidence, in the hope that the jury has heard enough already to acquit their man.
Mr Trump's towering property empire, expensive wives and starring role on the US version of The Apprentice have kept him in the public spotlight, and Lord Black had previously called on him for help when he has been in a tight spot.
The jury has already heard how Mr Trump offered supportive words at a restive meeting of Lord Black's media company, Hollinger International, when shareholders were moving to depose him.
Facing 13 fraud and other charges that could put him in jail for the rest of his life, the former proprietor of the Daily Telegraph is accused of using Hollinger as a personal piggy bank and effectively robbing the rest of the shareholders of more than $60m.
One of the expert witnesses that was offered appeared to do more harm than good to the Black defence, offering the prosecution an opportunity to show jurors another peek at the peer's lavish lifestyle.
He and his wife, Babara Amiel Black, spent $4.6m decorating and furnishing Hollinger's New York apartment with antiques.
Extravagances included $33,000 on a 1920s carpet, $9,800 on a diamond vault, $17,710 on a white marble relief of Indian elephants, and $12,500 on a "barbiere", or shaving cabinet, and a porcelain bottle that Napoleon used on his Russian campaign.
- INDEPENDENT
