Alex Murdaugh faces sentencing today for federal financial crimes as prosecutors seek to quash plea deal
Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh is set to be sentenced today on a slew of federal financial fraud crimes, with prosecutors making an 11th-hour bid to break a plea deal after he allegedly lied on a polygraph test.
The 55-year-old legal dynasty heir will appear in federal court in Charleston at 10am ET on Monday, where US District Judge Richard Gergel will determine what penalty he must face for a sprawling decade-long scheme where he stole millions of dollars from vulnerable legal clients.
From at least 2008 through 2021, Murdaugh swindled several clients at his law firm PMPED out of over $10m in funds.
Among the victims was the family of Gloria Satterfield – the Murdaugh’s longtime housekeeper who helped raise his two sons Paul and Buster.
Satterfield died in February 2018 following a mysterious trip and fall accident down the steps of the affluent family’s Moselle home – the same estate where Murdaugh murdered his wife Maggie and son Paul just three years later.
Murdaugh urged Satterfield’s two sons to file a wrongful death lawsuit then stole the $4m in settlement money from them.
In September, Murdaugh finally pleaded guilty to 22 federal charges over the multi-million-dollar scheme including wire fraud, bank fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud after reaching a plea deal with Justice Department (DOJ) prosecutors.
Under the terms of the deal, he was to face up to 30 years in federal prison to be served concurrently with his state conviction on the same charges. In November, he was handed a 27-year prison term in state court at a highly-emotive sentencing hearing where he was confronted by several of his victims.
The federal plea deal required Murdaugh to cooperate with prosecutors and be truthful about the details of his sprawling fraud.
But now, DOJ prosecutors are saying that the double murderer has broken his end of the bargain.
In a dramatic court filing last week, Assistant US Attorney Emily Limehouse argued that Murdaugh had lied on a polygraph test. The filing also states that an additional $1.3m in stolen money and a further 11 victims of Murdaugh’s financial crimes has been discovered since the deal was reached.
In total, this now takes the extent of Murdaugh’s financial fraud scheme to a staggering 25 known victims and more than $10.5m money stolen. Ms Limehouse argued that these newly-discovered crimes would add nine to 11 years to a prison sentence.
As a result, the DOJ is asking Judge Gergel to scrap the plea deal and is pushing for Murdaugh to be hit with a lengthier sentence to now run consecutively to his state sentence.
Instead of sentencing guidelines of 21 years to run concurrently with his state sentence, Murdaugh could face 20 to 30 years on each of the 22 counts.
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