Alex Murdaugh is sentenced to 40 years in prison for stealing money from law firm on top of life sentence he is already serving for murders of wife and son

Alex Murdaugh has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for stealing money from his law firm – on top of the life sentence he’s already serving for killing his son and wife.

The 40-year sentence will be insurance on top of insurance. Along with the life sentence, Murdaugh pleaded guilty and was ordered to spend 27 years in prison in state court on financial crime charges. The federal sentence will run at the same time as his state prison term and he likely will have to serve all 40 years if his murder convictions are overturned on appeal.

A report by federal agents recommended a prison sentence between 17 1/2 and just under 22 years.

The 22 federal counts are the final charges outstanding for Murdaugh, who three years ago was an established lawyer negotiating multimillion-dollar settlements in tiny where members of his family served as elected prosecutors and ran the area’s premier law firm for nearly a century.

It comes after the disgraced lawyer, 55, was accused of failing a polygraph test that was part of his plea deal with prosecutors for multiple financial crimes.

Prosecutors had asked a court on Tuesday to release the federal government of their deal with the disgraced lawyer – who they say wasn’t truthful about where more than $6 million he stole ended up, and whether another attorney helped him steal from clients and his law firm.

U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel said he sentenced Murdaugh to a harsher punishment than suggested because Murdaugh stole from ‘the most needy, vulnerable people’ like a client who became a quadriplegic after a crash, a state trooper who was injured on the job, and a trust fund meant for children whose parents were killed in a wreck.

‘They placed all their problems and all their hopes on Mr. Murdaugh and it is from those people he abused and stole. It is a difficult set of actions to understand,’ Gergel said.

Murdaugh’s lawyers last week claimed the FBI agent conducting the test threw the murderer off by asking odd questions and sharing that he had just examined Natalee Holloway’s killer Joran van der Sloot.

In their response, Murdaugh’s lawyers said the results were made unreliable by the FBI examiner who just before the exam asked Murdaugh if he could keep a secret, then told him he had just come from Alabama where he tested van der Sloot, who admitted to killing Natalee Holloway in 2005 in Aruba.

The examiner also told Murdaugh he believed he didn’t kill his wife and son and asked him a confusing question about hidden assets, the defense said.

‘There are legitimate questions as to whether the Government intentionally manipulated the results to void the plea agreement and achieve the prosecutors’ stated desire to “ensure that he’s never a free man again,”‘ defense lawyers Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian wrote.

Murdaugh’s lawyers said they might have more objections to the polygraph but they only learned about the prosecution’s allegations Tuesday and hadn’t had time to get their expert to review the results. 

A pre-sentencing motion filed by prosecutors after the Murdaugh’s brief did not answer the defense’s arguments. The matter will likely be taken up at Monday’s sentencing.

The report recommends a 17 1/2 to nearly 22-year prison sentence for Murdaugh on the federal charges.

Murdaugh, 55, is already serving life without parole in state prison after a jury found him guilty of murder in the shootings of his wife and younger son. 

He later pleaded guilty to stealing money from clients and his law firm in state court and was sentenced to 27 years, which South Carolina prosecutors said is an insurance policy to keep him behind bars in case his murder conviction was ever overturned.

The federal case was supposed to be even more insurance, with Murdaugh agreeing to a plea deal so his federal sentence would run at the same time as his state sentences.

Prosecutors now want Murdaugh to face the stiffest sentence possible since the plea agreement was breached and serve his federal sentence at the end of any state sentences.

Each of the 22 counts Murdaugh pleaded guilty to in federal court carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. Some carry a 30-year maximum.

Prosecutors also want to keep secret four statements, including the polygraph, the Murdaugh gave the FBI.

Investigators think Murdaugh is trying to protect an attorney who helped him steal and that his assertion that more than $6 million in the stolen money went to his drug habit is not true. Releasing the statements could damage an ongoing investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

State prosecutors estimated Murdaugh stole more than $12 million from clients by diverting settlement money into his own accounts or stealing from his family law firm.

Investigators said that as Murdaugh’s financial schemes were about to be exposed in June 2021, he decided to kill his wife and son in hopes it would make him a sympathetic figure and draw attention away from the missing money. 

Paul Murdaugh was shot several times with a shotgun and Maggie Murdaugh was shot several times with a rifle outside the family’s home in Colleton County.

Murdaugh has adamantly denied killing them, even testifying in his own defense against his lawyers’ advice.

Federal prosecutors said Murdaugh did appear to tell the truth about the roles banker Russell Laffitte and attorney and old college friend Cory Fleming played in helping him steal.

Laffitte was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison, while Fleming is serving nearly four years behind bars after pleading guilty.