Family annihilator Alex Murdaugh was confronted in court by several victims who put their trust in him in their hour of need – only for him to abuse that trust and steal millions of dollars in much-needed wrongful death and personal injury payments.
The disgraced legal scion appeared in Beaufort County Court in South Carolina on Tuesday morning where he was sentenced to 27 years in state prison on a slew of financial charges, after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors earlier this month.
Cuffed and shackled and dressed in a bridge orange prison jumpsuit, the man whose family once reigned over the Lowcountry’s justice system entered the courtroom smiling before taking a seat next to his longtime attorneys and friends Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian.
At the sentencing, he was forced to come face to face with many of the victims that he stole from, including the family of his longtime housekeeper Gloria Satterfield – a woman who helped raise his two children Paul and Buster – and his longtime former friend Jordan Jinks.
For more than a decade, Murdaugh stole over $12.4m in funds from several clients at his law firm PMPED in a multi-million-dollar fraud scheme which went on at least from 2008 through 2021 when he was caught.
As part of the scheme, Murdaugh worked with his co-conspirators and friend’s ex-attorney Cory Fleming and ex-Palmetto State Bank CEO Russell Laffitte to swindle clients out of millions of dollars.
The attorneys would represent the victims in wrongful death suits, with Laffitte and Fleming sometimes acting as conservators to the victims – before the men pocketed the money for themselves.
Much of the stolen money was funneled through a fake “Forge” bank account which sought to imitate the legitimate and totally unrelated business Forge Consulting.
Some of the money was also channeled through checks cut to Curtis’s “Cousin Eddie” Smith – Murdaugh’s distant cousin and alleged drug dealer who also happens to be the alleged accomplice in the killer’s bizarre botched hitman plot.
In an emotional victim impact statement, Jordan Jinks broke down sobbing on multiple occasions as the spoke of how close he used to be to the convicted killer – so much so that he told him he would have given him the money if he had just asked.
“What kind of animal are you?” he asked.
Mr Jinks looked Murdaugh in the eye as he said: “I’ve been waiting on this day to look in your eyes. I wanted to sit down with you one on one… unlike a lot of these people here these victims, I have a lot of intimate stuff that I could say.
“You remember all those wildlife hunts I had for law enforcement? Your entire family was the guest of honour,” he said.
Mr Jinks paused multiple times as he said: “I knew I was going to break.”
“I’m not crying because of what he stole from me. I’m crying from what he did to everybody in this suit. These kids, these people dying,” he said.
“I didn’t want to come up here and bash you. But I’ve got to ask you – What kind of animal are you?”
Mr Jinks said it “hurt” him to see Murdaugh behind bars – and that he didn’t used to believe his former friend could have killed his wife and son.
Now, after hearing the crimes he had committed against so many victims, he now does.
“When I saw you on TV in an orange jumpsuit it hurt me. When all this came about with Paw Paw and Maggie… but after hearing the things you did to these victims here, I changed my mind. So, I ask you again: what kind of animal are you?” he asked.
“The money you stole from me, I would have given to you if you asked me – that’s how I felt about you… you didn’t have to steal it from me, man.”
When Mr Jinks told Murdaugh that he would like to sit down with him and speak to him about “intimate things”, the convicted killer spoke up, responding: “I’d like that.”
Satterfield’s son Tony Satterfield spoke directly to the double murderer as he told him that he forgives him for the years of pain he has put their family through.
“I really don’t have words, you lied, you cheated, you stole, you betrayed me, my family and everyone else and you did that across my mom’s death first of all,” he said.
Mr Satterfield brought up the fact that Murdaugh sent him a “half-hearted sorry letter” some time ago – saying that he knows it was half-hearted as his “actions don’t follow through” with his apology.
He said that he had his own sorry letter to read to Murdaugh.
“I’m sorry you felt you had to betray us,” he said.
“I’m sorry your family has to now go through what they’re going to have to go through for the rest of their life because of your actions, what you did.”
He added: “I want you to know I forgive you. l’ll pray for you every day.”
Satterfield’s sister Ginger Hadwin told Murdaugh how her sibling loved his children like his own – and yet he betrayed her in a way she “will never understand”.
“Gloria worked very hard for you for 20 years. She loved Buster and Paul as her own. She loved Maggie and she trusted you wholeheartedly,” she said.
“She trusted you and your family as her own family. To be betrayed by you, I will never understand. And how you were able to profit from her death, we will never be able to understand.”
To Murdaugh directly, she asked: “Do you not have a soul? I don’t understand it but then I thank God, I don’t understand it as maybe I would be in the same position as you.”
“I’m sorry you through your life away,” she added.
Murdaugh stared ahead at the family members as they spoke and nodded.
Attorney Eric Bland, who represents the Satterfield family, gave a scathing victim impact statement on behalf of the victims where he branded Murdaugh “the Mount Rushmore of all criminals” who stole from the people closest to him.
“This day was coming for two years,” he said.
“This was predatory behaviour… this wasn’t Enron… it wasn’t stealing money from faceless people, from shareholders. This was Alex Murdaugh stealing money from those that were closest to him,” he said.
“Gloria Satterfield who broke bread with him and his family for 22 years, raising his family… Jordan Jinks, a lifelong friend, he grew up playing ball together.”
Mr Bland added: “This is close theft, the unicorn of all thefts… He is the Mount Rushmore of all criminals… And he hit the home run when he was convicted of double murder.”
He went on to slam Murdaugh and his attorneys Mr Harpootlian and Mr Griffin, saying they “still didn’t do the right thing: even after his crimes were exposed – as he tried to vacate his confession and “attacked the jury pool”.
“My clients want their money Mr Murdaugh, when are you planning on paying? They want that $4.3m dollars,” he asked.
Mr Bland also fired back at comments made by Mr Harpootlian at the start of the hearing, where he complained that some of the attorneys were seeking to sell t-shirts and hats and promote their podcasts.
While Mr Bland does have a podcast, he pointed out that so too does Mr Griffin.
Both Mr Bland and Mark Tinsley, an attorney who represents some of Murdaugh’s other victims, brought up Judge Newman’s damning comments when he previously sentenced the killer to two life terms for murder.
“You have to see Paul and Maggie during the nighttime when you’re attempting to go to sleep. I’m sure they come and visit you. I’m sure,” he told Murdaugh back on 3 March.
“I’ll never forget the words you used at the end of his murder sentence of how he will get visitors at night. It’s pierced me,” Mr Bland said.
“I am here to tell you that Gloria Satterfield will visit him… All these people will visit him and let them know that it is not okay. They will visit him and I hope they do as not only do they hurt these people he hurt his family.”
Mr Tinsley disagreed, saying that Murdaugh is a “broken person” and that, to him, the people he stole from and victimised don’t “matter” to him.
“Alex you’re a broken person. I don’t think you’ll lie in bed at night and these people will come to you,” he said.
“I don’t think that those people matter and I don’t know when that happened… but I feel bad for you because of that. I don’t think you’ve always been this way but somewhere along the way you became broken.”
