The son of an Irish immigrant, raised in Port Jefferson, Long Island in the state of New York, McNamara was a devout Roman Catholic who was college educated.
[3] Returning to the single family-owned Pontiac-Buick auto dealership in Port Jefferson which his father started,[3] as President of Sales, McNamara had ambitions in property development and politics.
[3] With access to financing via GMAC, from 1980 McNamara applied for a series of loans to buy non-GM vans, valued at US$25,000 each,[4] which he said would be customized, before being pre-sold and shipped to the Mediterranean island country of Cyprus.
"[1] Brought to trial in 1992 at the United States district court in Brooklyn over various charges of fraud, McNamara faced a maximum sentence of 20 years in jail and $800 million in fines.
[citation needed] A plea bargaining deal with state and federal prosecutors reduced this considerably to five years, on the condition that he provide evidence against the officials he had bribed with regards to his property development projects.
In concluding the case, the judge agreed that McNamara's sentence could be reviewed further, should the value of his evidence prove great and should he choose to enter the United States Federal Witness Protection Program.