Alex Murdaugh Indicted on 22 Federal Charges Including Fraud and Money Laundering
Alex Murdaugh is facing new criminal charges.
A federal grand jury has indicted the former South Carolina lawyer—who was found guilty of murdering his wife Maggie Murdaugh and son Paul Murdaugh in March—on 22 financial fraud-related charges that included wire fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.
The May 24 indictment alleged that Murdaugh took part in three separate schemes to get money and property from his clients. One charge in particular accused Murdaugh of conspiring with a personal injury attorney in order to siphon settlement funds in the death of his family's longtime housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died in 2018 after an alleged "trip and fall accident" at the Murdaugh's home, per NBC News. The outlet stated that Murdaugh is accused of ordering the Beaufort county attorney to write blank checks using the settlement funds that totaled to almost $3.5 million for his personal use and not Satterfield's estate as promised.
U.S. Attorney Adair Boroughs went on to explain why charges were brought upon Murdaugh.
"Trust in our legal system begins with trust in its lawyers," he said in a statement the same day. "South Carolinians turn to lawyers when they are at their most vulnerable, and in our state, those who abuse the public's trust and enrich themselves by fraud, theft, and self-dealing will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
Murdaugh's lawyers, Jim Griffin and Richard "Dick" Harpootlian shared in their own statement that their client is fully cooperating with the federal investigation and "anticipate that the charges brought today will be quickly resolved without a trial."
As part of a lawsuit accusing Murdaugh of life insurance fraud in Satterfield's death, his lawyers revealed earlier this month that Murdaugh "invented the critical facts" surrounding her "trip and fall accident" in order to receive millions of dollars in the settlement. Nautilus Insurance Co. has since filed filed a suit alleging it was defrauded, per NBC News.
"No dogs were involved in the fall of Gloria Satterfield on February 2, 2018," the attorney's said in the legal filing. The filing added that after the housekeeper's death, Alex "invented Ms. Satterfield's purported statement that dogs caused her to fall to force his insurers to make a settlement payment."
These new charges come two months after Murdaugh received consecutive life sentences for the murder of his wife and son on March 3. A day prior to his sentencing, a jury found that Murdaugh was guilty on two counts of murder and two counts of possession of a weapon while committing a violent crime in the slaying of Maggie, 52, and Paul, 22, at their Moselle estate on June 7, 2021.
Murdaugh pled not guilty to all charges and testified during the six-week trial that he "didn't shoot my wife or my son any time" while taking the stand. (Read all of his testimony bombshells here.)
Per NBC News, the mother and son duo died on their 1,800-acre property, near the dog kennels, with Maggie being shot with a rifle in the abdomen, leg and head and Paul suffering gunshot wounds to the chest, shoulder and head.
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