US court pushes for February hearing for Drumm case

A US judge has asked lawyers for former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm and a prosecutor seeking his extradition back to Ireland to pick a date in February for the hearing of the case.

Magistrate Judge Donald Cabell, stressing that he was not deciding on the charges Mr Drumm faces in Ireland, urged them to agree on a date for the hearing of the extradition proceedings. Otherwise the court was going to have "the tail wagging the dog".

Irish authorities are seeking the return of the former banker (49) to Ireland to face 33 charges over transactions conducted while Mr Drumm tried to save Anglo during the 2008 banking crisis.

Addressing Mr Drumm’s legal team, Judge Cabell said he “cannot tell you how much it concerned me” the allusion in their court papers that the case could take years.

Judgment reserved

Reserving judgment on whether to grant bail at a hearing in

Boston

yesterday, the judge asked the parties to pick a date in February for the hearing of the case within a week.

Edward McNally, one of four lawyers representing Mr Drumm, urged the judge not to subject him to “an unrelenting harsh prison experience for two to four years” while fighting extradition on some charges that an Irish judge gave “not one day” in prison to others.

Arguing for his client’s release, Mr McNally said that in December 2008 “as the worldwide financial crisis struck home with full fury”, Mr Drumm resigned from Anglo but “only now has the Government of Ireland gotten around to extraditing him”.

The Government has implicated him in actions it “ratified” at the peak of the financial crisis, he claimed, saying Mr Drumm has been implicated in actions taken to save the Irish banks and economy.

He told the judge that others have faced similar offences but were spared jail because they were found by an Irish judge to have acted at the behest of regulators, who “gave the green light to the transactions”.

“This is not a man who fighting, fearing or fleeing the legal process in the US; he is embracing it gladly and is eager to engage in the hard work ahead,” said Mr McNally.

“He did not run away last winter when he heard he was a wanted man, and he’s not running away now.”

The former banker “came to a land where he would be presumed innocent, where he would not be judged on rumour and innuendo or his politics, a land where the people and law offer a new life, a fair shake and a second chance,” said his attorney.

In a personal plea, Mr Drumm said his family was subjected to “unprecedented media attention” that was “sometimes quite intrusive”, with journalists “looking through the windows, knocking on the door”.

Mr Drumm, who has spent 33 days in jail since his arrest, asked to be released so he could work and “get through this whole legal quagmire”.

Means to flee

Assistant US attorney

Amy Burkart

argued that Mr Drumm was a flight risk and his wealthy lifestyle showed he had the means to flee. He has “a lack of understanding of the severity of what has happened,” she said.

"What he wants to do is stay in the United States, living the same lifestyle that he has somehow managed to maintain for all these years, despite all that's happened," she told the judge.

Ms Burkart said claims by Mr Drumm's wife Lorraine that her daughter would be unable to study abroad if he fled was not a sacrifice that amounted to special circumstances justifying his release.

She rejected Mr Drumm’s assertion that the extradition was politically motivated with Irish elections coming up. The process “began two years ago”, so the argument was “misplaced and irrelevant”.

The judge asked whether Mr Drumm’s two former colleagues – who were convicted in Ireland but not jailed for the same charges he faces – had reported to him at the bank. Ms Burkart said they did.