Ross McLellan, the former State Street executive who was sentenced to prison for his role in an overcharging scheme, arrived home on Friday after being released early from prison due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Institutional Investor has confirmed.
McLellan had served six months of an 18-month sentence when Judge Leo Sorokin granted McLellan’s request for home confinement due to an ongoing outbreak at FMC Devens, the Massachusetts prison where he was being held. According to Reuters, more than 40 percent of the prison’s 740 inmates had tested positive for the virus; McLellan, serving in a minimum security camp, had been assigned to work in the medical facility.
In his decision, Judge Sorokin pointed to McLellan’s “documented and undisputed health conditions” allowing his immediate release into 10 months of home confinement, according to Law360.com.
Massachusetts is implementing a broader prisoner release program due to the pandemic.
According to Law360, the government attorney in charge of the case disagreed with the decision to release McLellan. “The fact is if Mr. McLellan was released right now, he would literally be going the same or less time than the person who pled guilty, accepted responsibility and testified against him,” according to Assistant U.S Attorney Stephen Frank.
[II Deep Dive: Everybody Hates Ross]
A federal jury had found McLellan guilty on five of six counts of wire fraud, securities fraud, and conspiracy to commit those crimes in June 2018, almost seven years after he — along with other members of the bank’s transition management team — agreed to mislead institutional clients about the services they were paying for.
However, before heading to prison in July 2020, McLellan continued to allege that his superiors at State Street had instructed him that the overcharging of clients was allowed in certain jurisdictions. He also claimed that the Boston-based bank concealed the documentation confirming these instructions. State Street would not respond to a request for comment on the matter.
McLellan did admit, however, that after a British-based client suggested it was being overcharged, he was untruthful in calling them “Inadvertent commissions”.
“‘Inadvertent commissions’ is not a true statement,” he told II before entering prison. “Basically, what I was trying to do was sweep this under the rug.”
