Twice-convicted Alex Murdaugh to soon learn federal prison sentence. Will it matter?
Twice-convicted and currently incarcerated former Hampton, S.C., attorney Alex Murdaugh is set to be sentenced once again — this time in federal court.
Months after a plea deal was signed, Federal Judge Richard M. Gergel on March 14 set a sentencing hearing for Murdaugh for 10 a.m. on April 1 in U.S. District Court in Charleston, according to the U.S. Courts database.
On Sept. 21, 2023, Murdaugh, while then facing more than 100 unresolved fraud-related state charges from the S.C. State Grand Jury, pleaded guilty to 22 counts of financial fraud and money laundering in federal court before making a similar deal with state prosecutors.
At the time, Murdaugh pleaded guilty to 14 counts of money laundering, five counts of wire fraud, one count of bank fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud as part of a more-than-decade-long crime spree where more than $10 million was stolen from law clients and fellow attorneys in multiple counties.
Unless there are last-minute legal filings or delays, on April 1, Murdaugh will learn his federal sentencing fate.
Each charge carries a minimum of at least 20 years in prison, while some have a maximum 30-year sentence, and Murdaugh was promised no leniency when he signed the plea deal other than the offer of a sentence concurrent with any state prison time Murdaugh was to later receive.
It appears that prosecutors and the judge are considering a sentence that favors the maximum prison time. On March 15, Judge Gergel filed an order stating that "the Court may consider at the time of sentencing an upward variance from the proposed guideline range set forth in the Presentence Report."
The Presentence Report has not been publicly filed.
Regardless of Gergel's sentencing, with Murdaugh now detained in the McCormick Correctional Institute in upstate South Carolina, a looming stint in federal prison may be a distinction without a difference.
Murdaugh, after being convicted in the June 2021 killings of his wife and son and sentenced to double life, then pleaded guilty to a score of state financial crimes and earned 27 more years, to be served concurrent to his life sentences.
It is expected that Murdaugh's federal sentence will also be concurrent with his state prison time.
However, Murdaugh has already filed a higher-court appeal of his double murder conviction, then levied unsuccessful jury tampering allegations, and is expected to mount additional legal challenges to his murder sentence.
But while Murdaugh will likely never actually set foot in a federal prison, prosecutors see this as an additional safeguard to ensure that the now-notorious criminal spends the balance of his life in one prison or another.
“Our goal in holding him accountable for the financial crimes in federal court is to ensure that he’s never a free man again,” Federal prosecutor Emily Limehouse said after the September plea hearing.
The sentencing hearing will be held in Charleston Courtroom 1, J. Waties Waring Judicial Center, 83 Meeting St, Charleston.
This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Months after plea deal, Alex Murdaugh to be sentenced in federal court
