US judge compares Drumm to Bernie Madoff
Banker in bail appeal
DAVID Drumm’s suitability for bail cannot be compared to that of convicted Bernie Madoff, a public prosecutor in the US has said.
The comment came after a judge considering a bail appeal by the former Anglo boss raised the issue of how notorious fraudster Madoff had been granted bail in order to work with his lawyers on his case on ‘restrictive terms of release’.
However, US government attorney Amy Burkart said the two financiers could not be compared. Mr Madoff was being prosecuted in his home country whereas Mr Drumm was due to be prosecuted in Ireland. Bail is not generally granted in extradition hearings, she said.
Mr Drumm is seeking to overturn
‘Time in prison is so
harsh and cruel’
a ruling which denied his release on bail while he awaits a hearing on his possible extradition back to Ireland to face 33 charges relating to the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank.
Yesterday, Mr Drumm’s lawyers argued he should be entitled to restrictive release as his case was a complex white-collar extradition hearing which could take years of hearings and appeals and involved millions of records.
He has spent almost three months in a federal prison since his arrest in early October, pending an extradition hearing.
Judge Stearns said that he was averse to delaying matters, but promised a quick decision.
He told the court that he needed at least the weekend to make a decision on whether to grant Mr Drumm bail. The former Anglo CEO’s lawyer argued that Judge Donald Cabell made ‘unreasonable errors’ during the initial hearing in finding that Mr Drumm was not entitled to bail.
Lawyer Edward McNally said the conditions of incarceration, at a maximum-security prison near Boston, were designed to make his custody ‘so harsh and indifferent, so cruel and intolerable’ that he might waive his right to fight extradition and return to Ireland.
US government attorney Amy Burkart told the court that Judge Cabell reached a ‘very reasonable decision’ in refusing to grant bail and in finding no special circumstances warranting his release.
Last month Mr Drumm, 49, offered to hire 24-hour security to monitor him if he is released on bail in the US while awaiting the hearing. He said a security company would ‘stand guard and monitor his activities’ if he were to be released under house arrest.
Although, he admitted that the guards would be paid for by the exbanker’s unnamed US employer and that 12 people had offered cash and their homes as a surety, totalling millions of dollars.
At his bail hearing in November, Mr Drumm gave a speech which reduced his family in the public gallery to tears when he said he would ‘never abandon my wife and children’ by skipping bail’.
Mr Drumm’s supporters at the time filled the public gallery and, in more than a dozen letters submitted to the court, they said he was a respectable member of society.
Three of his friends also offered bonds worth $1million and their homes worth up to $2.8million as sureties.
However he was refused bail last month after a Boston court found that he had failed to provide evidence that special circumstances related to him that merited his release on bail.
Mr Drumm faces a hearing in the US on March 1 to decide whether he should be extradited back to Ireland and face charges.