SC lawyers say Murdaugh’s ‘false narrative’ is scheme to damage late housekeeper’s sons

From his high-security cell in a South Carolina prison, convicted killer Alex Murdaugh is still capable of sparking a legal uproar.

In federal legal filings last week, Murdaugh said the heirs of his family's late housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died of injuries from a 2019 fall at his house, should be made parties to a lawsuit by the insurance company that paid out $3.8 million for the fraudulent claim made after her death.

That $3.8 million in insurance money from Nautilus Insurance was due to her sons — Brian Harriott and Tony Satterfield — but Murdaugh and accomplices carried out a scheme to divert that money to Murdaugh and others, Murdaugh admitted at his murder trial earlier this year.

On Monday, attorneys for the sons blasted Murdaugh and his attorneys, Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, for proposing that they (the sons) be made parties to the Nautilus lawsuit against Murdaugh.

It is a "false narrative" and a "misinformation campaign" to propose that Satterfield's two sons be on the hook for possibly having to pay compensation to Nautilus, attorney Ronnie Richter told reporters Monday with attorney Eric Bland. Both represent the Satterfield heirs.

In his answer to being named a defendant in Nautilus's lawsuit, filed law year, Murdaugh also proposed that Bland and Richter be made parties to the lawsuit.

While it is a fact that Satterfield's two sons have collected $7.5 million in settlements from others allegedly involved in Murdaugh's scheme to divert the Nautilus $3.8 million to himself, it's also a fact that none of the settlement money the heirs have collected came from Nautilus, Bland said Monday at the livestreamed press conference.

Bland said the $7.5 million is the collective amount from settlements from Murdaugh's former law firm, known as PMPED or Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth & Detrick; attorney Cory Fleming and his law firm; banker Chad Westendorf and his bank, Palmetto State Bank; and the Bank of America. None of those parties admitted any fault.

Therefore, any money Nautilus would get from the Satterfield heirs would come from money they legitimately got in legal settlements unrelated to any money the insurance company paid out for Satterfield's death, Richter said in an interview after the press conference.

Fleming goes on trial Sept. 11 in state court in Beaufort County for his alleged role in the scheme.

Jaan Rannik, a Charleston lawyer who represents Nautilus, said in an Monday email, "Nautilus prefers not to comment on the pursuit of its rights outside of the proceedings in court."

Griffin and Harpootlian, both of Columbia, declined to comment after the press conference.

On Monday, Bland also took issue with a statement made by Murdaugh in his legal answer last week that the Murdaugh family dogs were not involved in tripping Satterfield on the family's front steps, resulting in her death three weeks later.

Murdaugh said, "no dogs were involved in the fall of Gloria Satterfield on Feb. 2, 2018. After Ms. Satterfield's death, Defendant (Murdaugh) invented Ms. Satterfield's purported statement that dogs caused her fall to force his insurers (Nautilus) to make a settlement payment," Murdaugh's May 1 filing said.

Whether dogs were involved is a crucial matter in the legal case, where the homeowner is allegedly to have committed negligence, Bland said.

If a person merely trips through their own negligence, they have no grounds for bringing a lawsuit against the homeowner where the fall took place, Bland said. But if the homeowner has unruly dogs who are known to get in the way of people, and someone is tripped on the stairs by those dogs, that homeowner is liable, Bland said.

It was well known that the Murdaughs had four unruly dogs — Bubba, Bourbon, Sassy and Blue — three of whom weighed more than 50 pounds, were allowed to run loose on the property and had a reputation for getting "under people's feet," Richter said.

Richter and Bland also said the multiple interviews and investigations established that it was certain the dogs tripped Satterfield, who died of head injuries three weeks later in a Charleston hospital.

Paul Murdaugh, Murdaugh's now-deceased son, and his now-deceased mother, Maggie, were asleep in the house at the time of Satterfield's fall, so there were no witnesses, Richter said. No one else was home.

"When Maggie went to the front door," she stated she saw a badly injured Satterfield lying at the bottom of the stairs surrounded by all four dogs, Richter said.

Bland said Murdaugh at the time also told people that the dogs caused Satterfield's fall.

Moreover, Bland said, Murdaugh's statements at this point should not be believed by anyone.

Murdaugh admitted during his murder trial in Colleton County earlier this year that he lied repeatedly, and in a recent court filing by U.S. Judge Richard Gergel, Gergel said Murdaugh was a "serial liar and fraudster," Bland said.

Bottom line, Bland said, "Nautilus has never paid one cent to the Satterfields."