What happened to banker's American dream?

The America dream came in a neat package for John and Linda Rusnak.

First there was the handsome Victorian mansion, standing proud on a low ridge in one of the better suburbs of Baltimore. Next came the children. First Alex, a hoped-for boy and later, little Katie.

On Sunday mornings there was church, the family walking down the hill to the stone Sacred Heart. Afterwards, while Linda made lunch, the children would play on the climbing frame behind the house and John would cut the grass on his tractor mower.

Rusnak's job at the bank made it all possible. He was a currency trader, pulling in a steady £55,000 a year and a benefits package that included health care and a pension. Not great money by Wall Street standards perhaps, but enough to pay the bills with a little over.

All hard-earned, and yet, incomprehensibly, now on the brink of being tossed away. The neighbours try to make sense of it all and fail. "It's just unbelievable," said one friend of the couple.

"They are real down-toearth people. Unassuming. You couldn't say anything bad about them."

But like the more than £500 million missing from the books of the Allfirst Bank, something does not add up. The Rusnaks were a couple whose idea of excitement was dressing up the children in Halloween costumes for trick or treat. John McCampbell, the local Anglican vicar said: "He was just a regular guy. You know, they gave little kids parties, rented ponies to ride.'' The couple moved to Mount Washington, a prosperous commuter village a short train ride from Baltimore, in 1994. At $217,500 and over 3,600 square feet, it was cheap and full of potential.

John and Linda looked past the peeling walls and saw the magnificent wraparound porch. This summer they finally painted the the shingled walls in a rich cream with forest green shutters. Local estate agents thought they had probably doubled their money. Not that they planned to move. Mount Washington is a rare place, a village community encircled by a city. Then there is the local Catholic church school. Katie Rusnak had started in kindergarten in September, joining her brother who has attended for two years. Their father was head of the parentteacher association.

At the same time, few admit to knowing John Rusnak, 37, well. "His wife, well she's a really nice woman," said one father collecting his fiveyearold son from the church daycare centre. "I can't really say about him, except that he seemed like an okay guy."

Rusnak had joined the Allied Irish when it was the First National Bank of Maryland, a deputy in a staff of two. Then, as now, his immediate boss was Matt Kozak, the vice president of foreign exchange. In a local newspaper article Rusnak told how he once exchanged a falling dollar for £3 million in German marks to net a quick profit of $3,000. Kozak joked at the time: "If we could do that every time we would be sitting in our bathrobes smoking a pipe."

For a while the facade of suburban life remained intact. But by yesterday the children were at home watching TV instead of taking lessons at school.

While the telephone rang unanswered and the post sat in the letter box uncollected, Linda Rusnak could be seen moving around her eight bedroom castle that was now a prison. An occasional police car rolled past to warn trespassing reporters and TV crews to stay off the front lawn.