BEAUFORT, S.C. — The financial victims of convicted killer Alex Murdaugh, a once-prominent South Carolina lawyer accused of swindling millions from his clients for over a decade, addressed him directly at a sentencing hearing Tuesday, scolding him for betraying their trust while also expressing mercy.
“You lied, you cheated, you stole,” Michael “Tony” Satterfield, an adult son of the Murdaughs’ late housekeeper, said. “You betrayed me and my family and everybody else.”
But, he added, “I want you to know that I forgive you. I will pray for you every day.”
A timeline of Murdaugh’s legal troubles
Murdaugh is accused of stealing from the estate of his mother, Gloria Satterfield, as part of a life insurance scheme after she died in a “trip and fall accident” at the Murdaughs’ home in 2018. Murdaugh agreed this month to plead guilty to 22 counts of financial crimes — representing each of the victims. But prosecutors allege the case actually spans 101 financial-related offenses, including money laundering, fraud and breach of trust, and an alleged loss of $8.8 million to those affected by his deception lasting over a decade.
At Tuesday’s hearing in Beaufort County, Murdaugh did not appear to have any family members in the courtroom. During the victim impact statements, Murdaugh peered straight ahead and blinked repeatedly.
Chief prosecutor Creighton Waters of the state attorney general’s office outlined to the court how Murdaugh, 55, exerted his “power, influence and trust” to steal from clients and his family’s law firm along with two co-conspirators.
Waters said it took “true courage” for victims to come forward and help prosecutors expose Murdaugh, given his lineage as the scion of a powerful legal family in South Carolina’s Lowcountry.
“There was a palpable fear because of the power, because of the influence, because of the belief that nothing would be done,” Waters said. “I heard over and over again, ‘Mr. Waters, I have to live there. You don’t know what they are capable of.'”
Murdaugh, who was disbarred in the wake of law enforcement’s financial misconduct investigation, often represented poorer and working-class people seeking injury relief, some of whose family members were killed in car wrecks.
Those whom he pleaded guilty to stealing from include a woman who said she was defrauded twice by Murdaugh — once when she hired him in 2010 after her teenage son became paralyzed from the neck down in a car crash, and then again after he died; a man who was injured in a 2011 car crash in which his wife was killed; and a state trooper who was rear-ended in 2018 and suffered a neck injury.
In exchange for his guilty plea, state prosecutors have suggested a 27-year prison sentence, and it would run at the same time as his federal sentence for similar financial crimes that he pleaded guilty to in September. Murdaugh is already serving two consecutive life sentences for the fatal shootings of his wife, Margaret, and their younger son, Paul, in June 2021.
Waters said Tuesday that the plea deal ensures Murdaugh will “stay in state prison for what is most likely the remainder of his life, and that’s aside from the two life sentences.” Murdaugh’s family law firm has since paid back the “net amounts” from settlements that were owed to victims, Waters added, while noting there still may be other outstanding claims among various victims and parties.
The financial crimes became a central part of the state’s case against Murdaugh in his double murder trial. Prosecutors said he killed his wife and son in order to gain sympathy and distract from his crumbling financial situation, which members of his law firm began to investigate. Murdaugh has said he stole money to feed a 20-year opioid addiction, and state prosecutors said he also used stolen money to pay back loans and other debts.
Circuit Court Judge Clifton Newman said at a hearing this month, just days before the state’s case was set to go to trial, that he intends to accept the plea deal but would like to hear from victims.
Murdaugh, meanwhile, is attempting to win a new trial for the murder charges after his lawyers accused the clerk of court of jury tampering. She has denied the allegations.
Newman, who oversaw that trial as well, agreed to step down in any further proceedings related to the case, as he could potentially be called as a witness and is already planning to retire at the end of this year.
Haylee Barber and Juliette Arcodia reported from Beaufort, and Erik Ortiz from New York.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
