Drumm’s wife ‘totally freaked out’ by Anglo crisis

The court-appointed officer managing the US bankruptcy of former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm said his disclosure of information in her investigation of his finances was "tedious."

On the third day of Mr Drumm’s US bankruptcy trial, his bankruptcy trustee Kathleen Dwyer said that information had to be “drawn out from him over time and a series of requests made so it was tedious”.

She had to question Mr Drumm over several creditors’ meetings, she told the court.

Ms Dwyer said that she only discovered he had failed to disclose asset transfers to his wife in 2008 and 2009 in financial statements he submitted to court shortly after filing for bankruptcy in October 2010 over the following three months when he provided her with bank statements and during her own direct questioning of him at the creditors’ meetings.

She concluded that from his education and working background that he was “very sophisticated in financial matters”. He confirmed to her that he was the primary bookkeeper in the Drumm family.

The trustee found that Mr Drumm was inaccurate in his assertion that he had no past interest in a $831,000 cash deposit used to buy a $2 million family home in Wellesley near Boston. She said that he also owned a BMW car in Ireland, sold for €20,000, which he claimed was his wife's.

The former Anglo Irish Bank, now Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, to which Mr Drumm owes €8.5 million and the trustee are seeking to deny his discharge and a fresh financial start.

They claim that he concealed assets and defrauded his creditors by failing to disclose $1.2 million (€876,000) in asset transfers to his wife in 2008 and 2009 and that he made false oaths in statements to the bankruptcy court by failing to disclose those transfers.

Earlier, the court heard that Mrs Drumm became “totally freaked out” when Anglo started “feeling pain” as the crisis peaked in September 2008 and wanted money of her own.

'Bruised' marriage Stewart Grossman, a US bankruptcy lawyer retained by Mr Drumm before he filed for bankruptcy, said that the Drumms told him that she had wanted her own money when the crisis struck at Anglo.

Mr Grossman told the court that Mrs Drumm grew nervous that “the road was shaky” and that Anglo “had issues”. The Drumms’ marriage was “being bruised,” he said, and that she and their children were very upset because reporters were “swarming around them at all times”.

Mrs Drumm needed security by having her own money, he said. Asked whether he knew Mr Drumm subsequently transferred virtually all of his money and their joint cash so that Lorraine Drumm had all their money, Mr Grossman said: "I don't recall knowing that."

Under questioning by John Hutchinson, representing IBRC, Mr Grossman said Mr Drumm was one of the most experienced financial professionals applying for bankruptcy that he ever represented.

Mr Grossman, a partner at Massachusetts firm Looney & Grossman, said he advised Mr Drumm before he filed for bankruptcy in October 2010 that he had to disclose everything.

He testified that he told Mr Drumm that the former banker could end up in civil and criminal trouble if he left out the transfers to his wife in his statements to the court.

Mr Grossman told Mr Drumm’s lawyer he only discovered that cash transfers to Mrs Drumm were not included in his October 2010 statement after a creditors’ meeting in April 2011. He didn’t attend the meeting and said that Mr Drumm called him afterwards and “freaked out” that there had been “a goof” in not reporting the transfers the previous year.

Mr Grossman said that his goal was to calm down Mr Drumm whom he described as “very animated, very upset” when he learned at the meeting that the transfers had not been disclosed.

The bankruptcy lawyer told the court that Heather Zelevinsky, an employee at Looney & Grossman, was the person primarily responsible in assisting Mr Drumm preparing his financial statements.

Asked by Mr Drumm's lawyer David Mack if Looney & Grossman "goofed" by excluding the cash transfers, he said: "I hate to say it yes, but it should have been included, the cash transactions".

Asked by Mr Hutchinson if Mr Drumm “goofed” by excluding the transfers, he said: “If he understood it, yes, but if he didn’t understand because Heather told him what the answer should be then no.”

Earlier, IBRC’s lawyer read an email that Mr Drumm sent Mr Grossman, ahead of a meeting with creditors on January 5th, 2011, asking his adviser where he thought “the landmines are buried”.

Mr Grossman said that he replied by email to Mr Drumm before the meeting that the “Lorrraine transfers are the only major concerns of mine”.

Family home Hutchinson referred to an email Mr Grossman sent to Mr Drumm on October 6th, 2010 in which he told him: "Don't freak out when you read this," telling him that an agreement he reached with his wife giving her full ownership of their family home in Wellesley might not hold up in the court.

“He was very concerned about the stability of his family,” Mr Grossman said. Mr Drumm wanted to “get rid of” a house in Chatham and to keep the Wellesley house so that his children could continue attending a nearby school, Mr Grossman said.

Asked by Mr Hutchinson whether Mr Drumm was “freaked out” by losing the Wellesley house and that “it would make his kids insane and it would make his wife insane,” Mr Grossman said: “Yes.”

In response to a further question from the bank’s attorney, Mr Grossman said that he was unaware that Mr Drumm had put the Wellesley house up for sale seven months before his October 6th email.

The court was shown another email in which Mr Grossman told Mr Drumm they had to get his wife’s lawyer “up to speed” before meeting creditors as “Lorraine will probably be their target”.

In an email sent after meeting his advisers that month Mr Drumm said that before handing over documents to the trustee he wanted Ms Dwyer to receive details of his earnings from Anglo between 2004 and 2009 when he was paid $18 million by the bank “in order for her to get the big picture”.

Asked what he thought the “big picture” meant, Mr Grossman said Mr Drumm’s bankruptcy involved a “very complicated set of facts” and that “we had to get naked and disclose absolutely everything”.

There were “tonnes of transactions”, said Mr Grossman, and he suggested to Mr Drumm that they give the trustee everything, including bank statements and spread-sheets, showing transfers of assets to his wife and others, and that this would be better in helping to understand the facts of the case.

Mr Grossman said that at this time he thought that all the transfers to Mrs Drumm had been detailed in Mr Drumm’s October 2010 bankruptcy statements and that this was known to everyone.

The court heard that the case is likely to last another two days and that there are three remaining witnesses, including Lorraine Drumm, left to testify.