New indictments allege Alex Murdaugh defrauded clients, former law firm | New

[ad_1]

A state grand jury has entered five indictments totaling 27 offenses against Alex Murdaugh, alleging that the disgraced lawyer was engaged in a multitude of financial crimes in five different counties.

The indictments charge Murdaugh with four counts of breach of trust with fraudulent intent, seven counts of obtaining signature or property under false pretenses, seven counts of money laundering, eight counts of computer crimes and one count counterfeit, said Robert Kittle, spokesperson for SC’s Attorney General’s Office.

Indictments were filed in five counties: Bamberg, Orangeburg, Colleton, Beaufort and Allendale.

In total, state prosecutors allege Murdaugh defrauded victims of approximately $ 4.8 million through various financial schemes.

Amanda Loveday, spokesperson for the Murdaugh family, said she was not surprised by the new charges, which relate to Murdaugh’s handling of client funds and law firm fees.

“We made it clear that Alex regretted that his actions distracted attention from solving the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul,” she said.

Murdaugh, 53, is already being held without bail in Richland County Jail over allegations he defrauded his former housekeeper’s family with millions of dollars and attempted to stage his own suicide over the weekend. end of Labor Day as part of a failed insurance fraud program.

The indictments, filed Nov. 18, dramatically expand the scope of the crimes Murdaugh allegedly committed and represent new threats for the disgraced lawyer who, just months ago, was the much-respected descendant of a powerful Hampton County legal family.

Prosecutors allege Murdaugh used a personal bank account called “Forge” to defraud clients. Murdaugh is also accused of stealing legal fees intended for his former law firm, Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth & Detrick.

The Forge bank account shared a name with Forge Consulting LLC, a legitimate company used by lawyers to facilitate structured settlements, the indictment says.

In January, Murdaugh allegedly stole $ 125,000 in settlement for an SC highway patrolman injured while on duty in Orangeburg County. Murdaugh allegedly forged the soldier’s signature on internal files at his law firm, according to the indictment.

In October 2015, Murdaugh allegedly stole $ 383,056 from a settlement intended for a man and his family in Allendale County.

In October 2016, Murdaugh was charged with stealing $ 75,000 from a man in Colleton County.

Murdaugh is also accused of convincing a lawyer at another firm to pay him $ 792,000 in legal fees directly, rather than to PMPED, in March.

Murdaugh said he would structure the charges due to the civil liability he faced in a boating accident in which a young woman died, referring to a lawsuit against Murdaugh after the death of Mallory Beach in a boat piloted by Murdaugh’s son Paul in 2019.

After staff at his law firm began asking questions about the missing money in July, Alex Murdaugh reportedly told the lawyer he had to return the $ 792,000 to him so they could be returned to him. PMPED, according to the indictment.

Murdaugh allegedly provided only $ 600,000 to the attorney, who was to deposit $ 192,000 of his own money to balance the trust account, the indictment says.

The biggest alleged fraud remains the nearly $ 3.4 million Murdaugh is accused of stealing from wrongful death settlements intended for the family of his longtime housekeeper Gloria Satterfield.

After Satterfield’s death at the Murdaugh family hunting lodge in Colleton County in February 2018, Murdaugh convinced the woman’s sons to hire his friend and fellow lawyer Cory Fleming of Moss, Kuhn and Fleming to represent them in a wrongful death lawsuit, according to court records.

Unbeknownst to the sons, Fleming negotiated multi-million dollar settlements in the case and Murdaugh asked Murdaugh to deposit the sons’ share of the money into a bank account he secretly controlled, records show. .

The sons say they’ve never seen a dime.

Fleming’s law firm and Palmetto State Bank announced earlier this month that a settlement has been reached with the sons. Murdaugh’s attorneys claimed in a court filing on Nov. 17 that the sons were awarded $ 6 million for their losses in settlements.

Murdaugh is also accused of attempting to stage his own suicide over the Labor Day weekend so his other son Buster could collect a $ 10 million life insurance policy. Murdaugh was reportedly shot in the head but survived and was airlifted to a Savannah hospital for treatment, authorities said.

Murdaugh initially blamed the shooting on an unknown assailant, but investigators determined the trigger was Curtis Edward Smith, a former Colleton County lumberjack whom Murdaugh represented in a personal injury lawsuit from 2010.

Smith has denied shooting Murdaugh in interviews.

Murdaugh’s lawyers say their client had suffered from an opioid addiction for decades, which worsened after his son Paul and his wife, Maggie, were fatally shot at the hunting lodge in June.

A forensic psychiatrist who assessed Murdaugh to determine if he could be safely released on bail diagnosed the disgraced lawyer with “severe opioid use disorder,” according to court documents.

The state’s grand jury investigation was conducted by the state’s law enforcement division and SC’s attorney general’s office, Kittle said.

“Attorney General Wilson would also like to acknowledge the involvement of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Attorney’s Office,” Kittle said. “The case will be prosecuted by this agency.”

[ad_2]