Alex Murdaugh attorney serving life in prison for the murder of his Stealing $7 Million from Clients

Name: Alex Murdaugh attorney serving life in prison for the murder of his Stealing $7 Million from Clients
Uploaded: 2023-09-27T10:45:43+00:00
Duration: 7 min 2 s
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Alex Murdaugh attorney serving life in prison for the murder of his Stealing $7 Million from Clients
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00:00 Alex Murdaugh pleaded guilty to stealing $7 million from clients.

00:04 Alex Murdaugh, the disgraced South Carolina attorney already serving life in prison for the murder of his wife and 22-year-old son,

00:11 was back in court this past week, admitting he plotted to steal more than $7 million in funds from his clients.

00:17 On Thursday, the convicted murderer pleaded guilty to 22 counts, including money laundering, bank fraud, and wire fraud.

00:24 It marks the first time he has entered a guilty plea to crimes.

00:27 During his murder trial earlier this year, he maintained his innocence, and still does, before a jury convicted him of killing Maggie and Paul Murdaugh.

00:35 "He's been totally cooperative and apologized to the victims of his theft," Alex's lawyer Dick Harputlian told reporters after the hearing.

00:42 "This is, we believe, the first step for him in putting this behind him. He did not argue with a single fact.

00:48 He did not argue with me to push back on any allegation."

00:51 Dubbed South Carolina's "Trial of the Century," Murdaugh, 55, was convicted of two counts of murder and related charges on March 2,

00:58 following a sensational six-week trial that seized the nation's attention.

01:02 Here's what to know about Murdaugh's crimes, where he is now, and what these new guilty pleas could mean for his life sentences.

01:08 Who are Alex Murdaugh and his family?

01:10 Richard Alexander Murdaugh is a member of a prominent legal family in the South Carolina Lowcountry region.

01:16 Three generations of his family, his great-grandfather, grandfather, and father, served over 87 years as solicitor for the state's 14th Judicial Circuit,

01:25 an influential elected position that oversees prosecutions throughout the area.

01:29 Murdaugh met his wife, Margaret Maggie Branstetter, when both were attending the University of South Carolina.

01:35 They married in 1993 and later had two sons, Lester and Paul.

01:39 The Murdaugh family lived in Hampton, South Carolina, before relocating to their sprawling Moselle property in nearby Eilinton.

01:45 At around 1,700 acres, the complex contained their house, dog kennels, a cabin, and stretches of swamp land.

01:53 Maggie met with a divorced lawyer in April 2021, about six weeks before she and Paul were murdered.

01:59 Paul had previously been in the spotlight as the suspected driver in a 2019 fatal boating accident in Beaufort County, South Carolina,

02:06 that resulted in the death of 19-year-old Mallory Beach.

02:09 Why did Alex Murdaugh kill his family?

02:11 It's unknown exactly why Murdaugh killed his family, though observers have speculated it could have been fueled by his drug use

02:18 or that it could have stemmed from the family's responses to his other potential crimes.

02:22 Prosecutors didn't identify a specific motive but suggested he killed them because his life was spiraling out of control.

02:28 Maggie was living separately from Alex at the time she was murdered on June 7, 2021, and hours before her death.

02:35 She texted a friend to say Alex was "up to something" and acting "fishy."

02:39 He had asked her to meet him at the family compound so they could visit his terminally ill father.

02:44 Maggie and Paul's bodies were found near dog kennels on the property.

02:47 Paul had been shot in the head and chest at close range with a shotgun, while Maggie was shot several times with a semi-automatic rifle.

02:54 Alex called the police, claiming he had been at the hospital visiting his father and found the bodies upon his return.

02:59 However, cell phone data and video contradicted Alex's alibi and placed him at the scene of the crime before their deaths.

03:05 He was arrested in July 2022, and his trial began on January 25, 2023.

03:10 Taking the stand in his own defense, Murda denied killing his wife and son, but admitted he lied about his whereabouts,

03:16 blaming paranoid thinking due to drug use.

03:19 After six weeks of testimony, the jury convicted Murda of murder after deliberating for only three hours.

03:25 "Justice was done today," Prosecutor Creighton Waters said after the verdict.

03:29 "It doesn't matter who your family is.

03:30 It doesn't matter how much money you have or people think you have.

03:33 It doesn't matter what you think, how prominent you are.

03:36 If you do wrong, if you break the law, if you murder, then justice will be done in South Carolina."

03:41 Murda was found guilty of two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon during the commission of a violent crime.

03:47 He was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole.

03:51 What are Murda's alleged financial crimes?

03:54 Prior to his wife and son's murders, Murda had already been wrapped up in alleged financial crimes for years.

04:00 According to his indictment, Murda was involved in three different schemes between 2005 and 2021 to obtain money and property from his clients while he was working as a personal injury attorney in Hampton, South Carolina.

04:11 This included diverting his clients' settlement funds to his own personal accounts, as well as conspiring with banker Russell Laffitt to commit wire fraud and bank fraud.

04:20 Laffitt was convicted of these crimes in November 2022.

04:23 Murda has also been accused of defrauding the estate of his former housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, who died after a fall at the Murda home in 2018.

04:31 As part of his September 21, 2023, guilty plea on 22 charges for financial crimes, any federal sentence Murda receives will be served concurrent to any state sentence imposed for the same conduct.

04:43 The agreement also requires Murda to pay restitution for his victims, forfeit $9 million in assets, and work with the government to repay victims and locate missing assets.

04:52 Murda cried as he discussed the guilty plea with a judge, claiming he was entering the plea so that his son Buster would see him take responsibility for his actions.

05:00 Nevertheless, Alex continues to maintain he didn't kill Maggie and Paul, and no sentence he receives for his guilty plea will change the fact that he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

05:10 Where is Alex Murda now?

05:12 Murda is serving his sentence in an undisclosed maximum security prison and has been placed in a protective custody unit for additional protection, as notorious inmates are often at risk when housed in general population.

05:23 He lives in an 8 by 10 foot cell with only a bed, toilet, and sink.

05:27 Murda lost his prison phone and canteen privileges for breaking the rules about phone calls after he read journal entries to his attorney Jim Griffin in June 2023.

05:36 Griffin recorded the call and provided it to the media, the South Carolina Department of Corrections, that this violates rules intended to prevent victims of a crime from having to see or hear the person who victimized them on the news.

05:47 According to an official report, the recording was for the Fox Nation documentary The Fall of the House of Murda, which released its first three episodes on August 31.

05:56 Murda's living son Buster has said he believes his father is innocent and didn't receive fair treatment from the jury during his trial.

06:02 However, he admits that it is "a fair assessment" to say that the lies and manipulative behavior his father has exhibited could be described as psychopathic.

06:10 "Certainly, I think there are characteristics where you look at the manipulation and the lies and the carrying out of that such, and I think that is a fair assessment," said the 29-year-old, who testified at trial about his father's drug addiction.

06:22 Yet, Buster also insists that his father didn't receive a fair shake from the jury.

06:26 "I do not believe it was fair," Buster said.

06:28 "I think, unfortunately, a lot of the jurors felt that way prior to when they had to deliberate. It was predetermined in their minds prior to when they ever heard any shred of evidence that was given."

06:38 In addition to The Fall of the House of Murda, Alex and his family are the subject of another new true crime docuseries, the second season of Netflix's Murda Murders.

06:47 A Southern Scandal was released on September 20. The series debuted on the streaming platform in February 2023, covering not only Alex's trial but also other family scandals, like the death of Mallory Beach.

06:58 Watch the trailer for Murda Murders Season 2.

Alex Murdaugh attorney serving life in prison for the murder of his Stealing $7 Million from Clients

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