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Murdaugh murders timeline: Lawyer’s botched insurance fraud plot
Alex Murdaugh was a prominent South Carolina lawyer at the center of multiple investigations.
STAFF VIDEO, USA TODAY
Alex Murdaugh, the embattled South Carolina attorney at the center of multiple investigations following the deaths of his wife and son in June, is due in court Tuesday on charges related to mishandling funds in a former housekeeper’s wrongful death lawsuit.
Murdaugh is facing a bond hearing in a South Carolina courthouse following his arrest last week in Orlando after he was released from a drug rehabilitation facility.
The lawyer faces two felony counts of obtaining property by false pretenses tied to a wrongful death suit filed by the sons of his former housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield.
Satterfield died after falling at Murdaugh’s home in February 2018, which state police have said they are also investigating. Satterfield’s death was ruled due to “natural” causes at the time, but the Hampton County coroner recently wrote a letter to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division urging it to open an investigation because her death was not reported at the time and an autopsy was not performed.
Money, murder, mystery: Another twist unfolds in case of former South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh
According to arrest affidavits, Murdaugh later coordinated with Satterfield’s family for them to sue him to seek insurance payouts after the woman’s death.
Murdaugh told the Satterfield family to hire attorney Cory Fleming to represent them, the documents say. Fleming, a close friend to Murdaugh, reached settlements but Satterfield’s family was never informed nor received any proceeds, the affidavits say.
Instead, Fleming wrote two checks – one for nearly $3 million and the other for more than $400,0000 – to “Forge,” a company that handles insurance settlements but with which neither the Satterfield family nor Murdaugh is affiliated, the affidavits say.
Meanwhile, Murdaugh had opened a bank account called “Forge” and directed Fleming to write the checks so he could use the funds for himself, the police records say.
Satterfield’s sons, Michael “Tony” Satterfield and Brian Harriott, also also suing Murdaugh over the wrongful death settlement funds. The brothers said they were never paid “a dime,” according to court documents filed earlier this month.
Each charge of obtaining property by false pretenses could bring up to a 10 year prison sentence for Murdaugh. His attorney, Dick Harpootlian, said last week Murdaugh has accepted he will likely spend some time in prison from the various charges he faces.
Murdaugh at center of other investigations
A member of a prominent legal family in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, Murdaugh has garnered international attention as a growing number of cases and state criminal investigations surround the attorney.
In September, Murdaugh was shot on the side of a rural road in Hampton County in what state police later said was an alleged plot to arrange his own murder in order for his $10 million life insurance policy to be paid out to his surviving son.
Murdaugh turned himself in Sept. 16 and briefly appeared in court before posting bail and returning to his drug rehabilitation program.
Murdaugh is facing charges of insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and filing a false police report, stemming from the roadside incident. His former client, Curtis Edward Smith, was also charged with multiple felonies, including assisted suicide and conspiracy to commit insurance fraud.
More on Murdaugh’s second arrest: Alex Murdaugh facing felony charges in housekeeper death settlement funds case
The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division previously said Murdaugh met with Smith on Sept. 4 to have Smith kill him. Harpootlian had said Murdaugh believed his $10 million life insurance policy would not have been paid to his son, Buster, had he died by suicide.
Smith, however, in an interview with the New York Times, denied involvement in the insurance fraud scheme.
The day before the shooting, Murdaugh resigned from the law firm Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth and Detrick PA, established by his great-grandfather more than 100 years ago. The firm said Murdaugh had misappropriated funds, which state police are also investigating. The firm has also since sued Murdaugh to recover the funds.
Harpootlian has said Murdaugh was suffering from an opioid addiction and grieving the deaths of his son and wife, Paul and Maggie, whose homicides are unsolved. The mother and son were shot at the family’s hunting estate in June, where Murdaugh found them dead. His attorneys have denied he had any involvement in their deaths.
During the death investigation of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh, state police also said they were opening an investigation into the death of Stephen Smith, 19, who died in 2015.
Smith was killed in what South Carolina Highway Patrol investigators originally ruled a hit-and-run, but the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said in late June it was opening its own investigation “based upon information gathered during the course of the double murder investigation of Paul and Maggie Murdaugh.”
Smith’s mother, Sandy, told the the Hampton County Guardian, part of the USA TODAY Network, in 2015 that she believed her son’s death was the result of foul play and a possible hate crime because her son was gay.
And lastly, Murdaugh also faces civil action in connection with a boating incident for which his late son, Paul, was facing charges before his death.
Mallory Beach, 19, was killed when a boat being driving by Paul Murdaugh, who was allegedly intoxicated, crashed into a bridge, flinging her overboard. Beach’s family and the family of another person on the boat at the time are suing Alex Murdaugh in connection with the crash.
Contributing: Michael M. DeWitt, Jr., Hampton County Guardian; Daniel J. Gross, Greenville News; The Associated Press
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