Murdaugh admits committing state financial crimes. Here are details of his plea deal [The State]

Convicted killer and disbarred lawyer Alex Murdaugh on Friday afternoon pled guilty to a series of financial crimes he committed over more than 10 years in six South Carolina Lowcountry counties.

Judge Clifton Newman said that he would defer final acceptance of Murdaugh’s guilty plea until Nov. 28, when Murdaugh’s numerous victims could assemble in a court hearing in Beaufort and be heard.

But, said Newman, he fully expects to accept the plea at that time and formally pronounce Murdaugh guilty, even though the judge has the right to reject the deal and send attorneys back to hash out a new deal.

The deal was a “negotiated plea,” which means that the prosecutors and defense lawyers agreed Friday on not only the set of charges to which Murdaugh would plead guilty, but also the length of prison time he would serve — 27 years with the possibility of parole after serving 85% of the sentence. Murdaugh is now 55.

The 27 years will likely be the longest prison sentence for white collar crimes in state history, prosecutor Creighton Waters said after Friday’s court session. In many white collar crimes in South Carolina, convicted criminals get less than five years if they have no criminal history and admit to wrongdoing.

Waters told Newman the plea deal — involving 18 victims and 22 of the approximately 100 financial crimes Murdaugh is charged with — was intended to shine light on Murdaugh’s corrupt use of the state’s legal system and to bring some finality to the financial crimes and ensure that Murdaugh gets a lengthy prison sentence for those crimes.

“This former lawyer, Alex Murdaugh, used his power, his influence, his law license and these courtrooms to steal,” Waters told the judge.

Waters said the motive for Murdaugh’s thefts, which involved more than $8 million embezzled from clients, his law firm and even his own brother, Randy Murdaugh, was “an insatiable need for money.” Murdaugh went for years running through funds, stealing millions from clients and at the same time borrowing millions from a bank and plunging deep in debt, Waters said.

Waters spoke for nearly an hour, detailing numerous betrayals of people who trusted him — a list that included taking advantage of people in his now-former law firm, Peters Murdaugh Parker Eltzroth & Detrick, who would make out checks the way he told them to. Murdaugh would then launder the checks through Palmetto State Bank in Hampton and an account at the Bank of America, which he called “Forge” after a respectable money management firm, Forge Consulting, that handles funds for lawyers’ settlements.

Forge was not part of the scheme and did not know of Murdaugh’s appropriation of its name.

At the hearing’s end, Newman asked Murdaugh if he agreed with Waters’ recitation of the charges against him.

Murdaugh, who had listened stone-faced during Waters’ presentation, told Newman, “I agree that I probably took all of that money, your honor, and did all of those crimes. I disagree with some of the narrative.”

Asked by the judge if he believed he would be found guilty if a jury trial were held, Murdaugh said, “I am guilty. Yes, sir, I believe I would be found guilty.”

Murdaugh also told the judge he was glad “to be given the opportunity” to finally plead guilty. “I’m happy to plead guilty to these charges.”

In the theft of $200,000-plus from Randy Murdaugh and his former law firm, Murdaugh was allowed to make what is known as an “Alford plea” — meaning he claims he is innocent but admits a jury would find him guilty if a trial were held. Under the law, an Alford plea is the same as a finding of guilt, Waters said.

Waters told the judge that Murdaugh’s Alford plea was the first one he had done in his many years as prosecutor, and he agreed to it in the interest of putting an end to this chapter of Murdaugh’s criminal deeds.

Another charge with a personal angle that Murdaugh pled guilty to was defrauding his good friend, attorney Chris Wilson. In spring 2021, Murdaugh persuaded Wilson to give him a fee check for $792,000 made out to Murdaugh personally instead of writing the check to Murdaugh’s law firm, as is the custom when lawyers share fees.

After the firm began asking questions about why Wilson hadn’t forwarded a fee check for $792,000 to the firm, Murdaugh borrowed $600,000 from a bank and gave it to Wilson. Wilson then added $192,000 of his own money and sent a $792,000 check to the firm. Murdaugh never paid back Wilson the $192,000 he owed him, Waters told the judge.

Crimes to which Murdaugh pled guilty Friday included 22 counts of money laundering, tax evasion, breach of trust and conspiracy in various counties that took place in Orangeburg, Beaufort, Hampton, Allendale, Colleton and Bamberg counties.

The tax evasion charge was for money that Murdaugh stole but did not pay state income taxes on, Waters told the judge.

The 22 counts represented a sampling of the 101 counts the state grand jury indicted Murdaugh on in late 2021, 2022 and earlier this year, Waters said. In return for the guilty pleas, the state will drop the remaining state grand jury counts. However, local criminal prosecutions against Murdaugh have been brought by counties, including a 2021 botched insurance fraud scheme Murdaugh is alleged to have hatched. They can still proceed, Waters said.

And Friday’s guilty pleas do not affect the two consecutive life sentences Murdaugh is now serving in state prison after being convicted last March of the 2021 double murders of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul, Waters said following Friday’s proceeding.

Waters asked Judge Clifton Newman to delay sentencing until an unscheduled date when Murdaugh’s numerous victims could be present.

Murdaugh also will agree under the plea agreement to waive any appeals of the charges to which he pled guilty to on Friday, Waters said.

Murdaugh admits that he owes restitution, but “the exact” amount is to be set at a later date.

Friday’s sweeping guilty plea came as something of a surprise. It means that a long-awaited financial crimes trial originally scheduled to start Nov. 27 now won’t be held. That trial could have lasted weeks.

Prosecutors and Murdaugh’s defense attorneys — Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin — had originally scheduled Friday’s hearing to discuss pretrial motions for the Nov. 27 trial. That trial involved a set of 13 charges involving the 2018-2019 theft of $4 million in inheritance insurance proceeds generated from the death of longtime Murdaugh family housekeeper Gloria Satterfield. She died in February 2018 in a fall at the Murdaughs’ house, and Murdaugh has pled guilty in federal court to concocting a scheme to divert the money from Satterfield’s heirs to his own pocket.

On Friday, Waters told the judge that when Murdaugh stole from the settlements he won for clients, he usually gave the clients a fraction of the money they were due and kept the rest. But in the Satterfield theft, Murdaugh “stole every dime,” Waters said.

Issues that had been in play in Friday’s hearing were defense motions for a change of venue or delay in the Nov. 27 trial’s start and for Newman to recuse himself for alleged bias against Murdaugh.

As it turned out, defense attorneys dropped their motion to get Newman off the case, a move that allowed Newman to take Murdaugh’s admissions of guilt Friday.

However, Murdaugh’s guilt was not a surprise.

In September, Murdaugh pleaded guilty in federal court to basically the same 10-plus year series of financial crimes. Murdaugh has yet to be sentenced for those federal crimes, which include conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud; bank fraud; wire fraud; and money laundering.

Since then, state prosecutors and Murdaugh’s defense attorneys had been meeting to try to agree on how much of a prison sentence Murdaugh would get if he pled guilty in state court.

Although Newman opened court around 10:25 am Friday, he quickly recessed the hearing to allow prosecutors and defense attorneys to meet behind closed doors to hash out final details of a complex deal that involved various prison sentences for different crimes committed against multiple defendants. Court did not resume again until about 1:30 pm.

Murdaugh’s financial crimes have played a key role in the intertwining of numerous transgressions and social dynamics in what has become known as the Murdaugh saga, a running sensational drama that involves murder, legal corruption, family dysfunction and the fall of a political and law enforcement Lowcountry family dynasty that had lasted more than 100 years.

At Murdaugh’s trial earlier this year, prosecutor Waters told the jury that increasing scrutiny and possible imminent disclosure of his thefts and shaky financial situation created the pressure that motivated Murdaugh to kill his wife and son in an effort to stop people from investigating his finances.

In fact, nearly a year before Murdaugh was charged with the murders of his wife and son in July 2022, the S.C. Attorney General’s office began rolling out the 101 charges of financial crimes in more than a dozen indictments. In all, Murdaugh was eventually charged with more than $8 million in embezzlements, money laundering, computer theft and other fraud.

Two Murdaugh accomplices — disbarred lawyer Cory Fleming and former Hampton banker Russell Laffitte — are already serving sentences in federal prison for their roles in Murdaugh’s financial crimes.

Murdaugh attorney Griffin said after the hearing that the sentence was a good one. Murdaugh now has the financial crimes behind him and, at age 55, Murdaugh has a shot at getting out of prison “before he dies” — assuming he gets his two murder convictions overturned, Griffin said.

Griffin and Harpootlian are appealing the murder convictions. Murdaugh contends he is innocent of the killings. “Now we can stay singularly focused on the murder convictions,” Griffin said.

If Murdaugh does succeed in overturning the murder convictions, he will still have to serve prison time under the deal negotiated Friday.

State Attorney General Alan Wilson, whose office prosecuted Murdaugh, said later Friday, “Today Alex Murdaugh pleaded guilty to his financial crimes. This is a win for the victims and for justice in South Carolina. We hope the families he betrayed and stole from feel a little peace that he is going to serve time for those crimes. No one is above the law in South Carolina.”

Attorneys Eric Bland and Ronnie Richter, who represent some of Murdaugh’s victims, issued a statement that called Murdaugh a “monster” and said in part, “Justice was served in this case. Sentencing for this play of guilt will be in the near future. Alex’s victims will get a chance to look Alex Murdaugh in the eye and his lawyers and tell them how they feel about him, how he manipulated them, and the damage that they have done to them in their lives.”

Waters declined further comment on his case until after the formal sentencing Nov. 28.

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