Former legal scion Alex Murdaugh has been charged for money laundering, computer crimes, breach of trust and forgery.
AP Photo/Lewis M. Levine, Pool
Disgraced South Carolina legal scion Alex Murdaugh was hit with 21 new charges in connection to his massive alleged scam to defraud victims out of $6.2 million.
A state grand jury slapped the 53-year-old with seven new indictments
Thursday that contained a slew of charges including money laundering,
computer crimes, breach of trust and forgery connected to more than $1
million dollars of theft, according to court documents obtained by The
Post.
Murdaugh — who is also facing charges for trying to stage his own shooting death
to leave his son a $10 million life insurance payout — was already
facing 28 counts in connection to an alleged $5 million theft.
The latest wave of charges allege that Murdaugh created a bank
account under the name ” Richard A Murdaugh Sole Prop DBA Forge,” where
he deposited money that he stole from clients.
“He created this account for the purpose of misappropriating funds belonging to others with the illusion that the money was being paid to the legitimate settlement planning company Forge Consulting, LLC,” the indictments read.
Murdaugh resigned from the prestigious and influential Hampton County law firm that his grandfather founded over 100 years ago in September and checked into rehab for a decades-long opioid addiction.
Alex Murdaugh (right) is accused of staging his death in
order to secure a $10 million life insurance payout for his son, Buster
(left).Facebook
Satterfield, 57, died after Murdaugh said she tripped over his dogs,
but no autopsy was ever conducted and the South Carolina Law Enforcement
Division opened a criminal investigation into her death this summer
after investigators said it was suspicious.
Murdaugh had promised her grown children that he would pay them
$500,000 after suing himself to collect on personal liability insurance,
but instead he collected $4 million and did not give Satterfield’s
family a dime, lawyers alleged.
A big chunk of that money went to Murdaugh’s distant cousin and alleged drug dealer Curtis Edward Smith, lawyers alleged Thursday.
“From approximately 2015 through 2021 Cousin Eddie received either
personal checks from Alex Murdaugh’s individual account and cashier’s
checks from the fake BOA two ‘Forge’ accounts totaling approximately
$2,000,000.00,” lawyers Eric Bland and Ronnie Richter wrote in a
statement to The Post.
Smith, 61, was charged in September after confessing to the botched Labor Day weekend shooting of Murdaugh,
in which the lawyer allegedly hired Smith to kill him so he could leave
his son Buster with $10 million in insurance cash. Smith’s bullet only
grazed him in the head.
Lawyers claim Alec Murdaugh never compensated Gloria Satterfield’s family after her suspicious death.Orange County Department of Corrections/Handout via REUTERS
The disgraced attorney’s legal troubles started after Murdaugh’s wife Maggie, 52 and son Paul, 22, were found murdered on their property in June. No suspects or motive have been publicly identified in the case.
Paul had been waiting to stand trial on charges that he drunkenly
crashed the family’s boat into a bridge, killing 19-year-old Mallory
Beach in 2019.
Alec Murdaugh listens to prosecutors during a bond hearing
in the Richland Judicial Center in Columbia, South Carolina on Oct. 19,
2021.AP Photo/Lewis M. Levine, Pool
“Greed, power, betrayal. All the bad things. It’s like a Grisham novel,” Bland told The Post in September. “He doesn’t have to write fiction, he can just come to South Carolina and write the truth.”
Alex Murdaugh, the embattled South Carolina attorney at the center of multiple investigations
following the deaths of his wife and son in June, was ordered held
without bond pending a psychiatric evaluation as he faces charges
related to mishandling funds in a former housekeeper's wrongful death
lawsuit.
"There is no amount of bond that the
court can set that can safely provide protection to Mr. Murdaugh, to the
community," Judge Clifton Newman said during Tuesday a hearing.
Murdaugh
faces two felony counts of obtaining property by false pretenses tied
to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the sons of his former housekeeper,
Gloria Satterfield. The lawyer was arrested last week in Orlando after his release from a drug rehabilitation center.
Prosecutors
argued Murdaugh duped Satterfield's family when he arranged settlement
payments from the wrongful death lawsuit to be paid to a bank account he
controlled under the guise of a legitimate company. They also argued
the lawyer presented a danger to himself and others following his
alleged scheme to arrange his murder last month in order for an
insurance payout to be made to his son.
The two new charges Murdaugh faces represent "the
tip of the iceberg," said Creighton Waters, a prosecutor for the state
attorney general office. More will be revealed as the investigations
around Murdaugh continue, Waters said.
Newman
said he was not considering a personal recognizance bond for Murdaugh
after prosecutors and attorneys for Satterfield's family made their case
the lawyer had violated the family's trust.
Murdaugh had for years been a staple in the South
Carolina legal community and had recently completed a drug
rehabilitation program for an opioid addiction that fueled his
misconduct, Murdaugh's defense attorneys said.
Murdaugh
arranged for at least two payments – one for nearly $3 million and the
other for more than $400,0000 – to be made to an account he set up to
look like a legitimate settlement planning company after an attorney he
recommended to the Satterfield family reached a settlement in their
mother's wrongful death lawsuit without their knowledge, according to
affidavits from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division.
Waters mentioned at least one other check worth $118,000 Murdaugh misappropriated and suggested other crimes may have occurred.
"We
have never seen such a breach of trust: a man who stole money from the
very family of the housekeeper that helped raise his kids," added
Satterfield family attorney Eric Bland.
Satterfield
died after falling at Murdaugh's home in February 2018, which state
police have said they are also investigating. Satterfield's death was
ruled due to "natural" causes at the time, but the Hampton County
coroner recently wrote a letter to the South Carolina Law Enforcement
Division urging it to open an investigation because her death was not
reported at the time and an autopsy was not performed.
Murdaugh
told the Satterfield family to hire attorney Cory Fleming to represent
them, arrest affidavits say. Murdaugh was a defendant in the family's
lawsuit, but directed the family to hire Fleming, a close friend to
Murdaugh, prosecutors allege.
Satterfield's
sons, Michael "Tony" Satterfield and Brian Harriott, are also suing
Murdaugh over the wrongful death settlement funds. The brothers said
they were never paid "a dime," according to court documents filed earlier this month.
Each
charge of obtaining property by false pretenses could bring up to a 10
year prison sentence for Murdaugh. His attorney, Dick Harpootlian, said
last week Murdaugh has accepted he will likely spend some time in prison
from the various charges he faces.
In a stunning turn of events, a South Carolina man was charged with
assisted suicide and insurance fraud in connection with the shooting of
troubled attorney Alex Murdaugh three months after the deaths of his
wife and son.
Curtis Edward Smith, 61, was also charged with
distribution of methamphetamine and possession of marijuana, the South
Carolina Law Enforcement Division announced on Tuesday.
Police did not say how Smith and Murdaugh know each other, but Murdaugh has already admitted to having a drug problem.
Murdaugh,
53, is the scion of a powerful legal dynasty and was a partner in the
firm Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth, Detrick, which was founded by
his great-grandfather.
In 2019, the clan—which controlled the
local prosecutor’s office for decades—was thrust into the headlines when
Murdaugh’s son Paul was charged with a drunken boating accident that
killed a young woman.
Then in June, Alex Murdaugh discovered Paul Murdaugh, 22, and his
mother Maggie, 52, shot to death near the dog kennels of the family’s
sprawling hunting estate.
As the double homicide remained unsolved, Alex Murdaugh’s life appears to have spiraled out of control.
Two weeks ago, he called 911 from a country road to report that he had been shot in the head, reportedly while changing a tire. The circumstances were shrouded in confusion—and then things got even murkier.
Murdaugh suddenly announced that he was entering rehab for drug
addiction and resigning from his law firm, saying that he had made “a
lot of decisions that I truly regret.”
That intriguing statement
was then followed by the firm’s announcement that Murdaugh was under
investigation for allegedly misappropriating funds—a matter that state
police are also now probing.
HAMPTON COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – An attorney for Alex Murdaugh — the
disbarred South Carolina lawyer whose wife and son were killed just
three months ago — was ousted from his family law firm after
misappropriating company funds, Murdaugh’s attorney says.
Murdaugh’s removal from the law firm came just days before he was
shot in the head while changing a tire. The attorney says that Murdaugh
“is accepting full responsibility for his conduct.”
Murdaugh’s attorney said that “Alex is deeply sorry for his
actions,” and plans to pay back all of the monies he misappropriated,
which was confirmed to be in the millions.
Murdaugh previously issued an apology for a series of recent mistakes
and announced that he plans to enter rehab, which his brother Randy
indicated was for a drug problem.
Murdaugh said that his recent behavior was exacerbated by the June 7
murders of his wife and son, who were found shot to death at a family
hunting lodge.
On Saturday, Alex Murdaugh told police someone shot at him as he
changed a tire on the side of a rural road. A family attorney has
suggested someone cut the tire before Murdaugh left.
The attorney also said that Murdaugh “hopes that his conduct does not
distract from law enforcement’s efforts to find who murdered his wife
Maggie and son Paul.”
