A confidential pre-sentencing report gives Lord Black of Crossharbour hope of a jail term that is decades shorter than demanded by prosecutors in his US fraud case.

The report, prepared by a probation officer, limits the scope of Lord Black's fraud to $6.1 million rather than the $32.15 million estimated by the prosecution.

The defence insists the former Telegraph chairman, currently free on bail at his Florida home, received only about $3 million in illicit funds.

The report's conclusion will push the judge towards giving Lord Black a sentence closer to the defence estimate of around five years imprisonment, rather than the 24-30 years sought by the prosecution. Under the US system convicts are expected to serve 85 per cent of their sentence for a federal crime.

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Details of the discrepancy are revealed in prosecutors' objections to the pre-sentence investigation report prepared ahead of Lord Black's sentencing on December 10.

The differing estimates of the scope of the crime are attributable to the fact that Lord Black was convicted on three of six fraud charges against him, as well as one count of obstruction of justice.

The prosecution argues that his criminal conduct encompasses money plundered in a wide-ranging conspiracy, including the other counts.

But the defence insists the crime is limited to the specific counts of fraud for which Lord Black was convicted.

Judge Amy St Eve will be guided by the pre-sentencing report, but is not bound by it. Before dismissing the jurors after the verdict in July, she spent almost an hour talking with them privately about their decision.

The prosecution filed its objections to the pre-sentencing report (PSR) yesterday in a 32-page document covering Lord Black and the four other company officers convicted in the case.

"The government... objects to the PSR's conclusion that the loss amount from defendants' fraud scheme is limited to the $6.1 million received by Black, Radler, Boultbee and Atkinson for the APC and supplemental noncompete payments," prosecutors wrote.

"The PSR recognizes that the loss amount attributable to defendants at sentencing can and should be based on not only the counts of conviction but all relevant conduct established by a preponderance of the evidence... And yet, without any discussion of the months of testimony and dozens of exhibits establishing the common scheme among all the U.S. community non-compete payments, the PSR simply states that "a preponderance of evidence is lacking to establish any relevant conduct constituting part of a common scheme or plan as the counts of conviction".

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