Allfirst: Rusnak gets 7 1/2 years
A five year premeditated fraud is expected to cost over 1,000 jobs whilst Rusnak gets a temporary get of of jail free card. Confused? You will be...
John M. Rusnak is to spend 7 1/2 years in jail for his actions in losing around GBP430 million from a bank that has been able to withstand the loss, making Nick Leeson's 6 years for losing nearly twice that much and killing Barings in the process look like a lenient sentence. Although there was one factor that militated against anything Rusnak might have said in mitigation - his actions were conducted over a period of some five years: Leeson's were over a period of several months and were, perhaps, less premeditated than Rusnak's.
The fallout from the Allfirst mess, the subject of an analysis in World Money Laundering Report Volume 4 No 3, has claimed the jobs of over 1,000 people as Allied Irish disposes of Allfirst to M + T Bankcorp, expected to be completed in a few weeks.
Although ordered to pay back all the losses, that is a vain hope. Prosecutors do not allege that he stole the money, merely that he lost it in bad trades and concealed his failings by documentary fraud. And that based on his fictitious position gained bonuses exceeding USD430,000 (GBP270,000).
When he comes out of jail, he will undergo five years probation. If he is employed during that time, he must pay USD1,000 per month towards the restitution.
The history of US corporate criminals is that they write books that sell many copies, sometimes from the inside of jail. The USD60,000 that Rusnak will repay from that may well be chickenfeed.
Rusnak left the court but did not go to jail - he has been given a month's leeway to go to a drug and alcohol treatment centre and when he comes out into probation, a gambling problem will be monitored.
US Attorney Thomas DiBiagio said that Rusnak's term is "a very harsh sentence, one of the harshest sentences ever in the state of Maryland" handed down for a "white collar" crime. "This is not a sentence at a halfway house or working on a golf course. He'll be in with the bank robbers and drug dealers and other criminals because that is what he is."
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