Alex Murdaugh pleads guilty to 10 years of hidden thefts of millions

Thursday was a day of reckoning for Alex Murdaugh, a day a long time coming.

Although revelations about his 10-plus year string of thefts of millions of dollars began to surface two years ago this month, Thursday was the first time that Murdaugh — a convicted killer and disbarred lawyer — pleaded guilty to financial fraud.

Only with his admission Thursday in a Charleston federal courtroom that he was guilty of 22 financial crimes, and with U.S. Judge Richard Gergel’s acceptance, did Murdaugh formally become a convicted thief.

”I am pleading guilty of my own free will because I am guilty… and for other reasons,” Murdaugh told Gergel.

“And what are those reasons?” Gergel asked.

“I want to take responsibility for my actions. … I want my son (Buster Murdaugh) to see that I am taking responsibility. It is my hope that by taking responsibility, that the people I have hurt will begin to heal,” Murdaugh said.

No one from Murdaugh’s family was in the courtroom. One lawyer from Murdaugh’s former law firm, Ronnie Crosby, attended the hearing with firm lawyer Jim May of Columbia. The firm had fired Murdaugh in September 2021 after confronting him with evidence of stealing.

Jan Malinowski, CEO of Palmetto State Bank, the financial institution Murdaugh had for years used to steal and launder money, was in the audience with the bank’s lawyer, Greg Harris.

Murdaugh’s former firm was Peters Murdaugh Parker Eltzroth and Detrick of Hampton. In late 2021, after the extent of Murdaugh’s thefts began to be known, the firm changed its name to the Parker Law Group.

Murdaugh, 55, wore manacles and handcuffs and was dressed in a bright yellow-orange prison jumpsuit. For most of the hearing he stood beside his lawyer Jim Griffin. At times, the newly-convicted thief bobbed slightly up and down. Several times, he took off and put back on his glasses. When he spoke, his voice was energetic and clear. Two other defense lawyers were next to him, Dick Harpootlian and Phil Barber. Four uniformed officers from the S.C. Department of Corrections Special Operations Response Team were behind him.

Lead federal prosecutor Emily Limehouse told Gergel that Murdaugh was admitting to some $9 million in thefts from “dozens of victims” who included his law firm, personal injury clients and “others who trusted him.” But, she said, the government believes the total amount of his thefts is more like $10.5 million.

Gergel, a jovial but serious judge who normally will josh with attorneys during a court session, was all business during the hearing, his jaw visibly clenched as if in pain much of the time. In South Carolina’s legal community, Murdaugh’s stealing from fellow lawyers and clients is regarded as one of greatest betrayals ever by a state lawyer.

The government has documented his thefts going back to 2005, but the specific financial crimes to which Murdaugh pleaded guilty Thursday were from 2011 to 2021, Limehouse said.

Limehouse outlined three separate schemes Murdaugh pleaded guilty to:

▪ Conspiring with former Palmetto State Bank CEO Russell Laffitte from 2011 to 2021 to launder stolen money that Murdaugh had sent from his law firm to Laffitte’s bank. Laffitte was convicted last November of six counts of bank and wire fraud and sentenced to seven years in prison. He is appealing the verdict.

▪ Stealing from his law firm and clients dating back to 2005 by various methods, including filing false expense reports and directing the firm to send money designated for clients to his personal accounts.

▪ Conspiring with fellow former lawyer Cory Fleming to loot the $4.3 million estate of Murdaugh’s late family housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died in 2018 of injuries received in a fall on the front steps of the family home in rural Colleton County. Fleming pleaded guilty in federal court and was sentenced to 46 months in prison. A state judge sentenced him to a total of about 13 years for similar crimes.

“Today was a seminal day in the Murdaugh saga because it was the first time that Alex Murdaugh stood up under oath and admitted to his rampant thievery, lies and deception which caused immeasurable harm to his former clients,” said attorney Eric Bland, who with partner Ronnie Richter represented the Satterfield heirs. “It’s a good start but not the end of him being held accountable.”

Sentencing for Murdaugh’s federal financial crimes will take place at a later date.

Murdaugh will continue serving two consecutive life sentences at the S.C. Department of Corrections for killing his wife, Maggie, and son Paul. A Colleton County jury convicted him of their murders in early March after a six-week trial.

During the murder trial, Murdaugh took the witness stand and admitted to years of thefts from clients, friends and law partners. Murdaugh also admitted in 2022 in a civil court case that he stole the $4.3 million from Satterfield’s estate.

But none of those actions had quite the force of Murdaugh’s guilty plea Thursday in the high-ceiling courtroom bedecked with portraits of bygone federal judges on the fourth floor of the historic Charleston federal courthouse.

The crimes he pleaded guilty to Thursday were money laundering, conspiracy, bank fraud and wire fraud.

After the hearing, defense attorney Harpootlian told reporters Murdaugh wanted to make two things clear: He stole the money but did not kill his wife and son.

Unsaid during Thursday’s hearing was that for many years, until September 2021 when he was first arrested, Murdaugh had lived a secret life, stealing millions and spending at least some of it on an illegal drug habit and at the same time going millions of dollars into debt. Neither his partners at what was billed as one of South Carolina’s most successful law firms or his wife knew the extent of his clandestine lawlessness.

Murdaugh referred to his drug habit on Thursday, telling Gergel he had been “clean” for more than 740 days.

The guilty plea was a win of sorts for federal prosecutors Limehouse, Katie Stoughton and Winston Holiday. They had succeeded in getting Murdaugh to first plead guilty in federal court, beating state prosecutors who had begun to indict Murdaugh for financial crimes nearly two years ago.

Although a state grand jury guided by prosecutors in the office of S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson had started returning financial crime indictments against Murdaugh in the fall of 2021, the state’s cases were delayed by the discovery in spring 2022 of evidence that allowed them to try him for murder.

With state prosecutors’ attention focused on the murder trial, federal prosecutors assembled a financial crimes case against Murdaugh that covered many of the same 100-plus offenses that the state charged Murdaugh with.

In May of this year, a federal grand jury indicted Murdaugh on the financial crimes. Since then, federal prosecutors have worked with Murdaugh’s lawyers to schedule Thursday’s guilty plea.

Murdaugh won’t make an appearance in state court on financial charges until Nov. 27. That date was set last week by state Judge Clifton Newman.

The federal plea, and a subsequent sentencing by Gergel at a date yet to be determined, may eventually allow Murdaugh to serve some of his prison time in federal prison. Federal correctional facilities are generally considered more comfortable, with better food and medical facilities, than state prison. ‘

In the same courthouse last November, Murdaugh’s childhood friend, Russell Laffitte, a banker who had helped him use his bank to steal millions, was found guilty by a federal jury of six counts of fraud. Laffitte is now appealing his conviction.

Murdaugh is now serving two consecutive sentences in state prison for killing his wife and son. Murdaugh faces a total of 130 years in prison for the crimes he pleaded guilty to Thursday, but federal prosecutors have described any federal sentence he gets as a “formality” given that he is serving life sentences for murder.

“Our goal in holding him accountable for the financial crimes in federal court is to ensure that he is never a free man again,” Limehouse told reporters after the hearing.

The case was investigated by the FBI and the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, as well as by prosecutors from the state attorney general’s office.

This story was originally published September 21, 2023 at 11:21 AM.