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Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh sentenced to another 27 years for financial crimes
For years, South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh looked his anguished clients in the eyes and promised to help them with their medical bills, their suffering or simply to survive. Then he stole some, if not all, of what he won for many of them.
Those clients got to look Murdaugh in the eye Tuesday and tell him how he had destroyed their trust, as the disgraced lawyer was sentenced to 27 years in prison for stealing about $12 million.
“I’m not crying for what he stole from me. I’m crying for what he did to everybody,” said Jordan Jinks, a friend of Murdaugh’s since childhood.
The courtroom drama marked yet another step in the fall of a powerful and respected attorney whose family name dominated the legal scene in a small Hampton County for generations, and whose alleged crimes have been a perennial topic of true crime podcasts and online chat groups.
In court in an orange prison jumpsuit, Murdaugh listened as the victims recounted how the man with a commanding presence and seductive Southern charm had duped them.
Andrew J. Whitaker / AP
Jinks went to Murdaugh after incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills for a neck injury he got when someone rear-ended his car. Jinks paid the bills in advance, having been assured by Murdaugh that he would obtain a settlement to pay him back. Murdaugh got the money, but kept it himself, financially ruining his friend.
“The money you stole from me, I would have gave it to you,” Jinks said. “Why bro? Why?”
State prosecutors and defense lawyers negotiated the 27-year prison sentence for Murdaugh, who is already serving a life term without parole after a jury found him guilty of killing his wife, Maggie, with a rifle, and younger son, Paul, with a shotgun in June 2021. Judge Clifton Newman, who also presided over the murder trial, accepted it.
Murdaugh adamantly denies killing his family members. His lawyers are seeking a new trial, citing allegations that the court clerk tampered with the jury. A different judge will decide whether to grant Murdaugh a hearing in which jurors, the clerk, and maybe even Newman, could be questioned under oath.
The sentence for Murdaugh’s financial crimes is a kind of insurance policy to prevent his release if his murder conviction is overturned. Under South Carolina law, Murdaugh will have to serve almost 23 years of the sentence, even if he is a model prisoner. He would be 76 before he could be released. Murdaugh had to give up his rights to appeal as part of the deal.
Newman said Tuesday that Murdaugh had the emptiest soul of anyone he has seen in his 23 years on the bench, with the exception of a man who was sentenced to death for killing an off-duty police officer and burning his body.
“The question was asked: What kind of animal are you?” Newman said, referring to additional comments Jinks made during his testimony. “You are an enigmatic person. I don’t think you understand yourself.”
For his part, Murdaugh spent nearly 45 minutes apologizing to his family for bringing them shame and dishonor, and addressing all his victims, although he did not cry as much as he did when he testified in his own defense during his murder trial.
“I want each of you who spoke to know I listened to you. I heard you. Your pain and hurt is palpable. … I promise you it resonates with me,” Murdaugh said.
Prosecutor Creighton Waters of the state Attorney General’s Office opened Tuesday’s hearing with a detailed account of all of Murdaugh’s thefts and how he moved around the more than $12 million he stole to avoid detection for nearly 10 years.
He ended more than an hour later with the precise figure: $12,425,254.32.
His clients trusted Murdaugh and he used “the trust of his family name and the law license on that wall” to keep stealing to pay off loans and credit card bills, never catching up to bad investments and heavy spending, Waters said.
Prosecutors initially charged Murdaugh with 101 financial crimes, including breach of trust, money laundering and tax evasion, involving 18 victims.
Under the plea deal, the number was reduced to 22 crimes against each of his clients.
His victims include Gloria Satterfield, the longtime family maid who died in a fall at the Murdaugh home. Murdaugh put his arm around Satterfield’s son at her funeral and promised he would take care of her family. He got about $4 million from his insurers then later admitted to stealing every penny.
Satterfield’s son Tony said he prays for Murdaugh and forgives him, but can’t forget how he was treated.
“I really don’t have the words. You lied, you cheated, you stole. You betrayed me and my family,” he said.
Sandra Taylor was killed in a crash with a drunken driver, leaving behind three children. Murdaugh told her estate he could only get a $30,000 settlement. He took $150,000 himself, prosecutors said.
“They lost a mother. And you stole every dime from them. Do you not have a soul?” asked Satterfield’s sister Ginger Hadwin.
Tuesday’s hearing did not mark the end of Murdaugh’s legal problems. He also is awaiting sentencing on federal financial crime charges, and still faces insurance fraud and other local charges after asking a friend to kill him in September 2021 so his surviving son could get $10 million in life insurance. The shot only grazed Murdaugh’s head.
In his speech Tuesday, Murdaugh again blamed his drug addiction to painkillers for all the thefts. He gave detailed apologies to his surviving son, his family, his in-laws and his law partners. He told any of his victims they were welcome to visit him behind bars.
“I hope that in time that each of you will be willing to talk to me,” Murdaugh said. “I would like as time moves on to continue to reiterate just how sorry I am and how important it is to me that you know that.”
After the speech, Waters told the judge — just as he did before sentencing at the murder trial — that Murdaugh could lie and conjure up false sincerity like no one he has ever seen.
“He’s good. He can look people in the eye. But we’ve seen it all before,” Waters said. “The main thing he was concerned about was how he thinks others perceive him.”
The following is a transcript of an interview with Sen. Mark Kelly, Democrat of Arizona, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Oct. 6, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Joining us now is Arizona’s Democratic Senator, Mark Kelly. He’s in Detroit this morning on the campaign trail for the Harris campaign. Good morning to you, Senator.
SEN. MARK KELLY: Good morning, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to talk to you about Arizona, but let’s start in Michigan, which is where you are right now. And it is going to be such a key state to a potential Harris or Trump victory. Vice President Harris is facing challenges among black men, working class people, as well as the Muslim and Arab populations skeptical of the White House support for Israel’s wars. What are you hearing on the ground there from voters?
SEN. KELLY: Well, my wife, Gabby Giffords, and I have been out here for a couple days. We’ve been campaigning across the country, Michigan, I’ve been in North Carolina, Georgia as well. I’ll be back to Arizona here soon. The vice president was out here speaking to Muslim organizations and the Arab community about what is at stake in this election and addressing the concerns that they have. What we’re hearing, issues about the economy, about gun violence, about, you know, supporting American families and the difference between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. You know, Kamala Harris, who has a vision for the future of this country, Donald Trump, who just wants to drag us backwards.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Today in Dearborn, Michigan, there’s a funeral service for an American man who was killed in Lebanon by an Israeli airstrike. It just underscores how that community you’re talking about out in Michigan feel some of what’s happening in a personal way to their community. Given how close this race is, do you think this war and the expectation it could escalate could cost Democrats both a seat in the Senate and potentially the presidency?
SEN. KELLY: Margaret, nobody wants to see escalation and it’s tragic when any innocent person, whether it’s an American or Palestinian, lose their life in a conflict. Tomorrow’s one year since October 7th, when Israel was violently attacked. Israel has a right to defend itself, not only from Hamas, but from Hezbollah and from the Iranians. But, you know, I and my wife, you know, we feel for the community here who’s been affected by this. And that’s why the vice president was out here earlier, a few days ago, meeting with that community.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But it’s a live issue.
SEN. KELLY: Yeah, sure. I mean, there is an ongoing conflict in the Middle East. Israel is, you know, fighting a war now on, I think it’s fair to say, two fronts and then being attacked by the Iranians as well. And, they- they need to defend themselves, and we need to support our Israeli ally. At the same time, when women and children lose their life, innocent people in a conflict, it is- it is tragic.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You do sit on the Senate Intelligence Committee and so I know you know how intense the efforts are by foreign actors to try to manipulate voters going into November. Just this Friday, Matthew Olsen, the lead on election threats at the Department of Justice, told CBS the Russians are, quote, highlighting immigration as a wedge issue. That is such a key issue in Arizona. Are you seeing targeted information operations really focusing in on Arizonans right now?
SEN. KELLY: Not only in Arizona, in other battleground states. It’s the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, and it’s significant. And we need to do a better job getting the message out to the American people that there is a huge amount of misinformation. If you’re looking at stuff on Twitter, on TikTok, on Facebook, on Instagram, and it’s political in nature, and you may- might think that that person responding to that political article or who made that meme up is an American. It could be- it could look like a U.S. service member. There is a very reasonable chance I would put it in the 20 to 30% range, that the content you are seeing, the comments you are seeing, are coming from one of those three countries: Russia, Iran, China. We had a hearing recently, with the FBI director, the DNI, and the head of the National Security Agency. And we talked about this. And we talked about getting the word out. And it’s up to us, so thank you for asking me the question, because it’s up to us, the people who serve in Congress and the White House to get the information out there, that there is a tremendous amount of misinformation in this election, and it’s not going to stop on November 5th.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Understood. And we will do our best to help parse that for viewers. But on the topic of the border, President Biden did announce just this past week new regulations to keep in place that partial asylum ban that he rolled out back in June. That’s what’s credited with helping to bring down some of the border crossing numbers in recent weeks. It was supposed to be a temporary policy, dependent on how many people were crossing at a time. Do you think this is the right long term policy, or is this just a gimmick to bring down numbers ahead of the election?
SEN. KELLY: Well, the right long term policy is to do this through legislation. And we were a day or two away from doing that, passing strong border security legislation supported by the vice president, negotiated by the vice president, and the president and his Department of Homeland Security, with Democrats and Republicans–
MARGARET BRENNAN: But this is not legislation.
SEN. KELLY: –This is bipartisan. This isn’t. But the legislation was killed by Donald Trump. We were really close to getting it passed. That’s the correct way to do this. When you can’t do that, Margaret, when a former president interrupts the legislative process the way he did, which is the most hypocritical thing I’ve ever seen in my three and a half years in the Senate. After that happened, the only other option is executive actions. And this has gone from what was chaos and a crisis at our southern border to somewhat manageable. And if you’re the border- Border Patrol, you know, this is this- you need this. I mean, otherwise it is unsafe for Border Patrol agents, for CBP officers, for migrants, for communities in southern Arizona. So it’s unfortunate that this was the- these were the steps that had to be taken.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay.
SEN. KELLY: But that’s because the former president didn’t allow us to do this through legislation.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator, we have to leave it right there. Face the Nation will be right back.
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Sen. Mark Kelly says Americans need to know about “huge amount of misinformation” on election
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