Alex Murdaugh stole nearly $11 million, beginning in 2005, federal prosecutors say

Alex Murdaugh’s thefts began as early as 2005 when he took more than $290,000 from a settlement he negotiated for a client, federal prosecutors have alleged.

In the years since, the disgraced former lawyer stole nearly $11 million from 21 victims, prosecutors revealed in their most complete itemization of Murdaugh’s crimes to date.

The allegations were made in a memo filed Thursday just days before a sentencing hearing begins Monday in Charleston. Murdaugh, who pleaded guilty in September to multiple federal financial crimes, will be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel.

“Murdaugh appeared to live an upstanding life, both personally and professionally. But in reality, he spent most of his career deceiving everyone in his personal and professional circles — unburdened by his own conscience. The scope and pervasiveness of Murdaugh’s deceit is staggering. He ranks as one of the most prolific fraudsters this state has ever seen,” the filing reads.

The motion is an apparent effort to convince Gergel to impose the stiffest sentence possible on Murdaugh, who is currently serving consecutive life sentences for the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul. It comes as prosecutors are attempting to pull out of a plea deal with Murdaugh, saying that he failed a polygraph examination.

Exactly how many years Gergel will sentence Murdaugh to, or if the sentence is consecutive or concurrent with his state sentences for financial crimes, remains in play. But in a previous filing, Gergel indicated that he was considering sentencing Murdaugh to a prison sentence greater than the federal sentencing guidelines.

The guideline sentence for Murdaugh is from 17.5 to almost 22 years. These guidelines consider the nature of the charges as well as characteristics of the defendant, including previous convictions.

Murdaugh pleaded guilty to the federal financial charges in September. The original indictment filed in federal court charged Murdaugh with thefts going back to 2010.

While testifying during his murder trial in Colleton County in February 2023, Murdaugh was evasive when asked how long he had been stealing.

“You would agree with me that for years you were stealing money from clients... that you were stealing from your law firm... and that had been going on since at least 2010?” lead prosecutor Creighton Waters asked Murdaugh.

“I’m not sure the exact date but it’s been going on for a long time... I don’t take a dispute with 2010, I just don’t know that for sure,” Murdaugh replied.

The new filing says he began stealing five years earlier than that when he took $292,179.17 from a client identified only as L.B. after winning them a roughly $750,000 settlement in September 2005. Murdaugh allegedly filed an undated false disbursement sheet in the Allendale Court of Common Pleas in order to divert a portion of the settlement proceeds. He also withheld an additional $2,030.89 in overcharged attorney’s fees, according to the motion.

In 2008, Murdaugh diverted $50,000 from a more than $1 million settlement by filing a false disbursement sheet in Colleton County Court, according to prosecutors. In 2009, Murdaugh negotiated a client’s medical lien down from $35,000 to $18,971.42 and then pocketed the difference.

Other instances describe Murdaugh making fake payments to doctors, medical providers and medical supply companies. In one case he diverted funds through a bank account named “Forge,” which was designed to look like a legitimate structured annuity company with the same name. In a 2014 incident, Murdaugh’s friend and fellow attorney Chris Wilson wrote a $100,000 check intended as legal fees for the PMPED law firm directly to Murdaugh, who then pocketed the money, according to prosecutors.

The State was unable to reach Wilson on Friday.

What’s at stake?

Thursday’s motion defends the government’s estimated value of Murdaugh’s thefts, as well as other findings from a pre-sentencing report prepared by the United States Probation Office.

Prosecutors defended including stolen fees even though Murdaugh has said he paid them back. They also dismissed claims by his attorneys — Jim Griffin, Dick Harpootlian, Phil Barber and Maggie Fox — that he should not be accountable for roughly $1.5 million stolen from his law firm. Murdaugh’s attorneys say that under his firm’s fee structure, he would have been entitled to 92.5% of that sum had he not stolen the money.

“This counterfactual need not be entertained,” wrote Assistant United States Attorney Emily Limehouse in the government’s motion. Limehouse is prosecuting the case along with Kathleen Michelle Stoughton and Winston D. Holliday.

Thursday’s sentencing memo from prosecutors was part of a flurry of motions in the days leading up to Murdaugh’s sentencing in U.S. District Court in Charleston on Monday.

In one motion, prosecutors are seeking to back out of their plea deal with Murdaugh by alleging that he lied during a polygraph examination about $6 million that prosecutors say is unaccounted for. While Murdaugh’s guilty plea will stand, prosecutors want Gergel to consider imposing a jail sentence that will run consecutively to the 27-year sentence Murdaugh receive in state court for his financial crimes. The plea deal called for the federal sentence to be served concurrently.

While Murdaugh was given two consecutive life sentences in the murders of his wife and son, his attorneys are appealing those convictions. If they win and Murdaugh is not reconvicted of the killings, he might be released from jail in his late 70s if Gergel’s sentence runs concurrent to the state sentence. A consecutive sentence from Gergel means Murdaugh most likely will never get out of jail no matter what happens to the murder convictions.

In their own motion, Murdaugh’s attorneys fired back, denying their client lied and calling for the release of the polygraph interview summaries. On Thursday, Judge Gergel weighed in, ordering the prosecutors to release redacted copies of the interviews.

However, Gergel agreed that because the interviews contained sensitive topics related to ongoing criminal investigations, discussion of Murdaugh’s polygraph examination would be narrowly constrained. According to Gergel, the court will limit questioning to whether Murdaugh took the polygraph as requested, if he failed to pass it to the prosecutors’ satisfaction, and if the government is appropriately exercising its rights in voiding the plea agreement.

On Friday afternoon, prosecutors filed a reply, in which they affirmed their position that Murdaugh had broken the conditions of his plea deal.

John Monk contributed reporting to this article.