‘Like a father figure’: SC sisters with money managed by Laffitte testify at fraud trial

Two South Carolina sisters who depended on banker Russell Laffitte to manage hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawsuit settlement proceeds after losing their mother in a car accident gave often emotional testimony against the former banker Monday.

Alaina and Hannah Plyler were 12 and 8 years old when their mother and older brother died when a faulty tire caused the car they were riding in to crash into a thicket of trees. It took them years to recover from physical injuries, emotional distress and the unstable home life their mother’s death sent them into, they said.

To provide them financial help and stability, they turned to the man in charge of their legal settlement money, then-Palmetto State Bank executive Russell Laffitte.

On Monday, Laffitte started the second week of a federal trial in Charleston on bank and wire fraud charges.

The government accuses him of stealing money from the Plylers’ settlement funds and other accident victims whose finances he managed, and using that cash for his own personal use and the use of Alex Murdaugh, one of the attorneys on the Plylers’ case.

Murdaugh has become a national sensation since he was charged in the June 2021 murders of his wife and son.

Alaina, now 30, described Laffitte as a father figure who helped her buy a car and a house, who promised her enough money that she would never have to work a day in her life.

“I viewed it as a bottomless pit,” she testified Monday. “I could buy all the cars I wanted, get a beautiful house, and it would never run out.”

But she remembered the banker always being vague about the exact amount of money she could expect to receive.

She and her sister had to ask for a regular allowance to cover their school and living expenses. When he bought a used car for her, Alaina ended up paying high interest rates on a used car purchased at auction, even though she was under the impression that hundreds of thousands of dollars should have been available in her account.

When she turned 18, Alaina said she remembered meeting Laffitte for the last time to receive a bundle of paperwork she didn’t understand, and then unceremoniously handing control of the money over to her.

“I anticipated it would last all day, but I remember thinking the drive was longer than the whole meeting,” she testified Monday.

The only time she said she heard from Laffitte after that day was when he needed to locate her still-underage sister Hannah, whose money he still controlled.

Laffitte is accused of siphoning money from the Plylers’ accounts when Murdaugh requested money for his own use, including money to pay for Murdaugh’s boat and renovations to a family beach house.

When Alaina later lost that bundle of paperwork in a house fire, she remembers receiving a “lighter” packet from Laffitte in the mail to replace it. She said she only received a full copy after Murdaugh was fired from his family law firm and accused of misappropriating funds.

Laffitte told her he was sending it to her because it had also been requested by the State Law Enforcement Division, she said.

Hannah, now 25, said she was unaware of any money being moved from her account, and only received a similar explained set of paperwork when she turned 18. But she said she did remember having to account for any spending she made on a childhood trip to Disney World, being told to keep spending basic for anything for which she couldn’t get a receipt.

“That was hard for a little girl who just lost her mom and brother, and just tried to have a good time,” she said. “I feel like it should have been easy for us.”

FBI analyst explains how Laffitte moved money

A forensic analyst with the FBI testified that as early as 2011, Laffitte was transferring money from Hannah’s account to cover his own debts.

Between 2011 and 2015, when Hannah turned 18, Laffitte made more than a dozen transfers totaling some $240,000 from her accounts to Murdaugh’s two checking accounts. Most of the time, Murdaugh overdrew those accounts within weeks, FBI analyst Cyndra Swinson testified.

Swinson also testified that at one point, Murdaugh law firm attorney John Parker gave a $400,000 loan to Laffitte that was used to help with rapid transfers of money that Laffitte was engineering.

In September 2011, Laffitte withdrew $225,000 from Hannah’s account into his own account, and paid off two outstanding loans of $92,000 and $52,000. Before the transfer, Laffitte had less than $100 available in the account Plyler’s money was transferred to.

In total, nearly a quarter-million dollars was used from Hannah account to pay off outstanding loans to Laffitte, of which $19,000 is still outstanding, Swinson testified.

That was the beginning of a string of money transfers detailed in transaction histories to the jury, with hundreds of thousands of dollars moved from Hannah’s account to accounts associated with Laffitte, Murdaugh, both men’s fathers and Murdaugh’s wife, Maggie.

Before the money transfers, Murdaugh’s account was often heavily overdrawn. But the former Hampton attorney would quickly expend all of Plyler’s money within months if not weeks or days and require another transfer, Swinton testified.

To cover the withdrawals, Laffitte would transfer money from other accounts of accident victims he managed, including Arthur Badger, Hakeem Pinckney and Malik Williams, she said, until both Murdaugh and Laffitte ultimately lost their jobs at Murdaugh’s family law firm and Laffitte’s family-run bank, respectively.

Earlier Monday, in cross-examining Hannah, Defense attorney Matt Austin made the point that Laffitte did successfully manage and even grow the Plylers’ accounts from their legal settlement. Hannah testified that she now lives off her annuity payments from the account, while her sister, Alaina, said she chooses to work as a sheriff’s deputy even though her annuity covers her daily expenses.

“I love working the road, I love being one of the first people on the front line,” Alaina said. “When children get abused, or there’s a wreck I show up on involving children or where lost loved ones, I know what that’s like. Working with single moms making ends meet with nowhere to live, I know what that’s like too. That’s the silver lining when I go to work tonight, that I’ll use my life experiences to help others.”

This is a developing story. It will be updated.

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