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Disgraced, disbarred lawyer and convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh has pled guilty to 22 counts of financial fraud and money laundering in court on Thursday.
“He’s been totally cooperative and apologized to the victims of his theft,” Murdaugh’s lawyer, Dick Harpootlian, told reporters. “This is, we believe, the first step for him in putting this behind him. He did not argue with a single fact. He did not argue with me to push back on any allegation.”
“This is, we believe, the first step for him in putting this behind him. He did not argue with a single fact. He did not argue with me to push back on any allegation.”
Murdaugh is currently serving a life sentence after being found guilty of fatally shooting his wife and their youngest son near in June 2021.
Alex Murdaugh is accused of three different schemes to obtain money and property
In May, a federal grand jury returned a 22-count indictment against the former lawyer for bank fraud, wire fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud.
According to ABC News, the indictment accuses Alex Murdaugh, 54, of engaging in three different schemes to obtain money and property from his personal injury clients while he was working as a personal injury attorney at his Hampton, South Carolina, law firm between 2005 and 2021.
Investigators have revealed the alleged schemes involved routing clients’ settlement funds to his own accounts.
Additionally, Alex Murdaugh also routed funds to a fake account under the name “Forge.”
He also is accused of conspiring with a banker to commit wire fraud and bank fraud.
The banker, Russell Laffitte, was convicted on six federal charges in connection with the scheme in November 2022, prosecutors said.
Further, the indictment alleges that Murdaugh conspired with another personal injury attorney to defraud the estate of his former housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died after a fall at Murdaugh’s home in February 2018.
The plea is related to an alleged scheme in which Murdaugh and a bank employee allegedly defrauded his personal injury clients and laundered more than $7 million of funds, according to an indictment.
Prosecutors allege Alex Murdaugh funneled nearly $3.5 million into his fake account “for his own personal enrichment.”
Presently, Murdaugh’s life sentences for the murder of his wife and son run consecutively, Judge Clifton Newman announced in March.