Judge to consider David Drumm bid for bail over weekend

A US judge will spend at least this weekend considering whether to reverse a court ruling and release former Anglo Irish Bank chief executive David Drumm on bail pending his extradition hearing.

The 49-year-old Dubliner appeared in the US District Court in Boston for a hearing lasting about 90 minutes, seeking to overturn a ruling by Judge Donald Cabell last month denying his release on bail.

District Judge Richard Stearns said after hearing arguments from lawyers from Mr Drumm and the US government that he would need at least the weekend to consider whether to release the former banker.

“I am adverse to delaying. I promise you a quick decision, but I can’t make it today,” said the judge after earlier telling an attorney for the US government that he could not consider special conditions of bail for Mr Drumm at the hearing if he agreed to his release.

‘Unreasonable errors’

Lawyer Edward McNally, for Mr Drumm, argued that Judge Cabell made “unreasonable errors” in finding that the fugitive Irishman was not entitled to bail when he made his decision on December 10th.

He 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.

Mr Drumm is wanted back in Ireland to face 33 criminal charges relating to transactions at Anglo in 2008 while he was chief executive.

He has been in custody since his arrest at his home in Wellesley outside Boston on October 10th and is being held at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility, about 70km south of Boston.

Restrictive release

Mr Drumm’s lawyers argued he should be entitled to restrictive release as his case was a complex white-collar extradition hearing, could take years of hearings and appeals and involved millions of records.

During the hearing, Judge Stearns raised the case of convicted New York fraudster Bernie Madoff, saying he was allowed out of jail to work with his lawyers on his case on “restrictive terms of release”.

Ms Burkart said the two cases were very different as, unlike Mr Madoff, Mr Drumm was being prosecuted in Ireland and she did not have access to the millions of documents in the US.

Mr McNally denied Judge Cabell’s finding that Mr Drumm had substantial assets. His client relied substantially on financial assistance from others, he said, and his employers continued to pay his salary while he was incarcerated and his legal fees in the extradition case.

He called a decision by the Plymouth prison to refuse Mr Drumm’s 80-year-old mother a visit to her son on Christmas Eve as “curious and capricious”, and said it was hard to imagine how she posed any real threat.

‘Dramatic situation’

Ms Burkart responded by accusing Mr Drumm of creating “a rather dramatic situation” and pointing to it as a special circumstance for his release along with making “hyperbolic” claims in his appeal bid.

One example of the alleged hyperbole was Mr Drumm’s claim that he had been detained in four different facilities in two different states, arguing he was being shuttled around for security reasons.

“There was no shuttling around,” she told the judge.

Another example was Mr Drumm’s claim that there was a delay of a day in a Fedex package being delivered to him in custody.

“I understand Mr Drumm used to be a CEO, now he is a federal detainee. A delay of one day is not constitutional injustice,” she said.

She accused Mr Drumm of creating special rules for himself. She noted he had said he intends to fight extradition “very hard” but that she did not expect the extradition proceedings to last years, as he had claimed. In one filing, he cited cases that took two to nine years.

‘Nothing extraordinary’

“I am not claiming that it will be an easy probable cause hearing but there is nothing extraordinary in it,” she said of the extradition hearing scheduled for March 1st.

Mr McNally said there had been “unbelievable delay” by the Irish Government in seeking his extradition on the Anglo charges.

“Ireland itself has not placed a high premium on its case or the return of David Drumm and therefore there is no real diplomatic need to detain him,” he said.

Ms Burkart replied there was “no magic number” under which undue delay becomes a special circumstance for release on bail.

She accused Mr Drumm of creating the delay by refusing to speak to Irish authorities investigating the collapse of Anglo and of creating the special circumstances under which he now seeks his release.