Former South Carolina legal professional Alex Murdaugh was hit with 23 new fees for a complete of 71 after allegedly ripping off purchasers for greater than $8M.
AP Photograph/Mic Smith
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — A once-prominent South Carolina lawyer now faces 71 fees that he stole almost $8.5 million in wrongful dying and wreck settlements from greater than a dozen folks after one other spherical of indictments in opposition to Alex Murdaugh had been handed up Friday.
The 23 new fees issued by the state grand jury lined new victims however comparable schemes, prosecutors mentioned.
Murdaugh, 53, would negotiate settlement cash for his purchasers with out telling them what they earned, then deposit the checks meant to pay for his or her ache and struggling or the anguish of the dying of a liked one into his personal private accounts — paying off loans or money owed or in methods prosecutors haven't detailed.
The brand new indictments lengthen Murdaugh’s crimes again greater than a decade to 2011 and add a brand new thriller. A number of of them mentioned Murdaugh used cash orders given to an unnamed member of the family to get his palms on the money, prosecutors mentioned.
Murdaugh has been in jail since October for the ever-growing listing of breach of belief, forgery, cash laundering and pc crime fees. A decide set his bail at $7 million and refused to scale back it, at the same time as Murdaugh’s lawyer argued his financial institution accounts had been seized in civil lawsuits and he might barely afford to purchase underwear on the Richland County jail. He has blamed his issues on years of drug dependancy.
Murdaugh’s skilled profession started to unravel after his 52-year-old spouse, Maggie, and 22-year-old son, Paul, had been killed in a capturing on the household’s house in June. Murdaugh’s attorneys have adamantly mentioned he had nothing to do with it and repeatedly mentioned they hope investigators are working as exhausting to search out their killers as they're untangling Alex Murdaugh’s funds.
Murdaugh is the fourth technology of a outstanding authorized household in tiny Hampton County. His great-grandfather, grandfather and father had been all elected prosecutors and his household helped run the largest regulation agency within the county for a century.
Friday’s indictments embrace fees for Murdaugh’s dealing with of the aftermath of a wreck that prompted a deaf man to finish up quadriplegic.
Murdaugh took a $309,000 examine he was supposed to offer to Hakeem Pinckney’s household and as a substitute purchased cash orders that went to cowl cash he took from the accounts of different purchasers, to pay down a mortgage and get money for himself and an unnamed member of the family, in keeping with the indictment.
Then when Pinckney died in a nursing house from the lingering results of his accidents, Murdaugh received a further $89,000 settlement on Pinckney’s behalf, however deposited that examine in his account with out ever telling the person’s household, prosecutors mentioned.
The lawyer for the Pinckney household mentioned the transactions are advanced and exhausting to observe and much more cash might have been stolen. Prosecutors have steered at Murdaugh’s bond listening to that they nonetheless haven’t gotten to the underside of his shady practices.
Pinckney was Black, and most people Murdaugh stole from had been like him — minorities and never properly off, household legal professional Justin Bamberg mentioned.
“Alex gave them simply sufficient cash so they'd drop on their knees and say ‘thanks, Jesus’ and took the remaining,” Bamberg mentioned.
Bamberg mentioned Murdaugh’s longtime regulation agency, which fired him after studying he was stealing cash, his banker associates and different professionals who Murdaugh used as private representatives for harm victims and grieving households or who performed different roles in serving to his schemes go on so lengthy ought to face penalties, too, as a result of even when they aren’t criminally accountable, they need to have requested questions.
“We're coming on your pockets. We’re going to get all the cash these folks had been purported to get,” Bamberg mentioned.
One other indictment Friday particulars how beginning in 2013, Murdaugh collected 14 settlement checks totaling greater than $1.3 million for a person whose spouse died in a wreck and stole all the cash for himself.
Different victims have included a state trooper, household associates and an immigrant dwelling within the nation illegally, in keeping with earlier indictments.
At his bond hearings, Murdaugh’s attorneys blamed years of dependancy to opioids for his conduct, saying he has sought counseling and desires to make issues proper for the purchasers he harm.
Murdaugh’s regulation license has been suspended since his arrest in September after state brokers mentioned he tried to rearrange his personal dying so his surviving son might gather a $10 million life insurance coverage coverage.
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