Former Anglo Irish Bank Chief Executive David Drumm has appeared in court in Dublin charged with 33 offences including fraud, conspiracy to defraud and false accounting. He has been granted bail subject to strict conditions.
The judgement was handed down by Judge Michael Walsh, at the Dublin District Court, just before 3pm. Drumm will have to surrender his passports. Walsh asked Drumm to give evidence under oath that he did not own a US passport and would not seek one as part of his bail conditions.
Drumm is not allowed to leave Ireland. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) requested that his travel be restricted to inside County Dublin. The judge refused the request and said Drumm’s clean criminal record was to be taken into account.
Read more: EXCLUSIVE: David Drumm says he will never get a fair hearing in Ireland
The judge, in granting Drumm bail, pointed out that the possibility of a speedy trial was unlikely and said anything before 2017 would be optimistic.
Drumm, with an address in Wellesley, Massachusetts and formerly in Malahide, Dublin, will stay in Skerries, north County Dublin.
The former Anglo banker will lodge $55,524 (€50k) with the court and provide an additional $55,524 in independent sureties (in cash and a frozen bank account).
Drumm, who has lived in Boston since 2009, landed in Dublin, on Aer Lingus Flight EI136, at 5.16am on Monday morning, accompanied by police detectives. Police travelled to Massachusetts late last week to collect the 49-year-old banker, once formalities surrounding his extradition were complete.
Detective Sergeant Michael McKenna told the court that Drumm was conveyed to Ballymun Garda Station on Monday morning. McKenna said he had put two charges to Drumm and gave him copies of the charges. He also said that Drumm made no reply to these charges.
The 33 charges Drumm faces are in relating to transactions carried out ahead of the collapse of the ill-fated bank.
Lawyers for the State opposed Drumm’s application for bail citing the seriousness of his offenses and their belief that he would be a flight risk as their reasons.DPP has opposed a bail application by #DavidDrumm describing him as serious 'flight risk' https://t.co/A8OBuyEzF0 pic.twitter.com/AQor5nEFor
— The Irish Times (@IrishTimes) March 14, 2016
Drumm wore a navy suit and blue shirt. His wife, Lorraine, was also present at The Dublin District Courts at The Criminal Courts of Justice.
Having been greeted by the Judge on Monday morning, and invited to sit, Drumm said “Good morning, thank you.” He sat on a bench next to his lawyer, Michael Staines. As the court was called to stand, Drumm blew a kiss, waved and smiled to some supporters in the public gallery.
The court heard evidence from two police officers in relation to Drumm’s arrest and the charges put against him.
Deirdre Manninger, lawyer for the State told the Judge that the Director of Public Prosecutions had directed there be a trial on indictment and that two books of evidence could be submitted to the court. These documents fill two large boxes.
Detective Sergeant Walsh told the court he believed Drumm should be remanded in custody as he was “a serious risk of flight for a number of reasons.”
Drumm resigned from Anglo in December 2008 as the bank was collapsing. In 2009, the year the bank was nationalized, Drumm moved to Boston.
The officer, Walsh, told the court he had numerous grounds for the application to hold Drumm in remand including the seriousness of the charges. Referring to the charges of conspiracy to defraud and false accounting Walsh said “Both of these offences relate to alleged fraudulent transfers between Anglo Irish Bank and Irish Life & Permanent amounting to €7.2bn.”
He told the court the second ground was “the nature and strength of the evidence to support the charges.”
The officer said there was a group of between 110 and 120 witnesses in relation to these two charges. There are also a large quantity of emails, audio recordings, minutes of meetings and other correspondence.
The officers third reason was the likely sentence that would follow a guilty conviction for these two charges. Det Sgt McKenna said the sentence for just some of the charges Drumm faces had a maximum of ten years.
The fourth ground was “the conduct of the accused between 2009 and 2016, in particular his dealings with An Garda Siochana and the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement.” McKenna called his ties to this jurisdiction “tenuous” and said Drumm had gone in to “voluntary exile.” Drumm’s children remain in the US.
The police told the court that Drumm has debts of over $9.4 million (€8.5m) however, he still had the capacity to leave the jurisdiction.
McKenna took time in the court to counter suggestions that Drumm’s extradition for the United States was timed to coincide with the General Election in Ireland, or that it had been delayed. He said the US State Department had signed off on the extradition on March 10. He and his colleagues had travelled to Boston the next day.
Lawyer for the State, Dean Kelly, said that during extradition proceedings it had emerged that Drumm had strong ties with the United States he added that Drumm had said he “would fight tooth and claw” against his extradition.
Kelly said “His position only changes at the point at which the bail door closed for him…
“I say Mr Drumm is a flight risk because one thing and one thing alone brought him back.”
He added that the court could “draw an inference as to whether at any stage or now it is Mr Drumm’s intention to face trial in this country”.
And said “it is the director’s position that he could not be relied upon to show up for his trial.”
Staines, Drumm’s solicitor, said his client would seek bail. He also quested the relevance of the evidence given in the extradition proceedings.
Drumm’s defense had said Drumm was willing to sigh on at a police station twice daily, hand over his passport and put up a cash bail. They also said that Drumm was willing to be tagged. The Dublin court heart that seven people have put their houses on the line for his bail.
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