Alex Murdaugh sentenced to 27 years in prison for state financial crimes

Beaufort, S.C. (CN) — Alex Murdaugh’s former law clients castigated him for betraying their trust before he was sentenced Tuesday to 27 years in state prison for a bevy of financial crimes.

Murdaugh apologized at his sentencing hearing in Beaufort County courthouse for perpetrating a decade-long fraud scheme that unraveled after his wife and son were fatally shot in June 2021. He maintained Tuesday that he did not commit the murders, despite his conviction at trial earlier this year, while acknowledging the pain the thefts caused his former clients, family and law partners.

“I am pleading guilty for a number of reasons, but none is more prominent than my hopes that seeing me punished will help each of you heal and be able to begin to put this behind you,” he said.

Murdaugh pleaded guilty Nov. 17 to nearly two dozen financial crimes, including money laundering, breach of trust, forgery and criminal conspiracy. Judge Clifton Newman handed down the 27-year prison term, which was negotiated as part of the plea deal.

Newman, who presided over Murdaugh’s murder trial, called the 55-year-old disbarred attorney an “enigmatic person” and questioned whether Murdaugh himself knew why he committed the crimes.

“It’s just unimaginable to me that you have done some of the things you have done,” Newman said. “Whether it was you or someone you become when using drugs — or through the process of committing the crimes over and over during a period of years — I don’t know. I don’t even know who I am speaking to now.”

Murdaugh was the respected scion of a Lowcountry legal dynasty when his wife, Maggie, and son Paul were brutally gunned down in June 2021 at the family’s hunting estate in Colleton County.

Three generations of Murdaughs served as the elected prosecutor for the region while the family ran a high-powered law firm that specialized in personal injury cases. Alex Murdaugh sometimes earned more than $1 million a year from his work at the firm, but profligate spending and bad investments left him in dire financial straits.

Murdaugh stole to stay afloat, state prosecutors said. He created fake bank accounts and roped others into a complex scheme that netted him more than $12 million before his arrest. Many of the victims had suffered tragedies that left them badly injured or lost in grief.

Jordan Jinks choked back tears as he spoke at Tuesday’s sentencing hearing. He hired Murdaugh, a childhood friend, to represent him after he was injured in a 2016 car crash. Murdaugh settled the case against the negligent driver for $830,000, but kept $150,000 for himself, telling Jinks it needed to be held in trust to pay for hospital costs.

In court Jinks said he was crying not because of what was stolen from him, but for the crimes Murdaugh committed against everyone in the case. He said he would have given Murdaugh the money if he’d asked for it.

“What kind of animal are you?” Jinks asked.

Murdaugh stole almost $3.5 million from a settlement intended for the sons of his family’s housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died in a fall at the family’s estate in 2018, prosecutors say.

Satterfield’s sister, Ginger Harriott Hadwin, told the court the betrayal was impossible for the family to understand. Her sister cared for the Murdaughs for 20 years. He stole every dime intended for her children.

“I don’t understand,” Hadwin said. “Do you not have a soul?”

Murdaugh said a decadeslong addiction to pain medication caused him to steal. It was only after he got sober that he realized how much pain he caused others.

“I am committed to trying to be a better person,” he said. “I am going to do as much good as possible and help as many people as I can while I am incarcerated.”

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