Former Anglo Irish Bank chief David Drumm released from prison

David Drumm, the former chief executive of Anglo Irish Bank who was jailed for his role in a €7.2 billion banking fraud, has been released from prison after serving two years and eight months in prison in Ireland.

The 55-year-old was freed from the low-security prison at Loughan House in Blacklion, Co Cavan, at 10.30am on Monday.

Drumm spent the first few months of his six-year sentence in the high-security Mountjoy Prison before he was moved in January 2019 to Loughan House which holds prisoners “requiring lower levels of security”.

The former banker also spent a further five months in prison in the United States while he fought extradition.

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Shortly after his conviction, he was expelled from the Chartered Accountants Ireland and fined €15,000 after a disciplinary tribunal found he had “brought discredit” on himself and his profession.

In June 2018, a jury at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court found him guilty of false accounting and conspiracy to defraud after an 87-day trial, one of the State's longest criminal trials.

In her sentencing, Judge Karen O’Connor said Drumm engaged in “grossly reprehensible behaviour” and his motivation to keep Anglo open did “provide any excuse for fraud and dishonesty”.

In an eight-page ruling, the judge said Drumm, as chief executive of the bank, held “a position of trust, when he authorised, directed and was actively involved in this dishonest and fraudulent scheme”.

“This offending was premeditated and planned, and in fact the evidence was that significant planning went into this fraud,” she said.

The judge stressed she was not sentencing Drumm for “causing the financial crisis” or “for the recession that occurred”. The offending did not cause the bank to collapse, she added.

Extradition from the US

He had resisted the State’s attempts to extradite him from the United States, but eventually gave up his battle after serving five months in a US federal institution. He has been given credit for that time by the Irish authorities.

Drumm, who was the most senior banker at the defunct lender to be convicted over transactions conducted during the 2008 financial crisis, had pleaded not guilty to the charges.

He was convicted for orchestrating a series of transactions that inflated Anglo’s deposit book, making it look like it had €7.2 billion more in cash than it had as it struggled to survive.

Shortly after sentencing, Drumm pleaded guilty to charges of authorising unlawful financial assistance. Separately, the Director of Public Prosecutions did not proceed with 21 remaining charges.