A federal grand jury indicted convicted murderer and former South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh on 22 financial fraud-related charges, including that he cheated his late housekeeper’s estate and insurance carriers out of nearly $3.5 million, prosecutors said Wednesday.
“Trust in our legal system begins with trust in its lawyers,” U.S. Attorney Adair Boroughs said in a statement. “South Carolinians turn to lawyers when they are at their most vulnerable, and in our state, those who abuse the public’s trust and enrich themselves by fraud, theft, and self-dealing will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Longtime Murdaugh housekeeper Gloria Satterfield died in 2018 following what had been described as a “trip and fall accident” at the family home.
This month, Murdaugh’s lawyers revealed as part of a lawsuit accusing him of life insurance fraud in the death of Satterfield that he “invented the critical facts” surrounding her initial “trip and fall accident” in order to receive millions of dollars in a settlement. Nautilus Insurance Co. had filed a suit alleging it was defrauded.
Murdaugh’s lawyers said Wednesday he is cooperating with the federal investigation and “anticipate that the charges brought today will be quickly resolved without a trial.”
Murdaugh was convicted in March in the June 2021 slayings of his wife, Margaret, and son, Paul, in a case that grabbed national attention and shattered the immaculate image of the well-connected legal family in South Carolina’s Lowcountry.
This is a developing story, check back for updates