Convicted murderer and disbarred attorney Alex Murdaugh received a federal prison sentence on April 1 longer than many of America’s most notorious white-collar criminals from a judge who likened him to the infamous Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff.
In what may be his last major appearance in public for some time, Murdaugh, 55, was hit with a 40-year sentence at the federal courthouse in Charleston. His prison term was far longer than federal guidelines recommended, the judge said, to recognize the seriousness of a lawyer abusing the trust of his “extremely vulnerable victims.”
The punishment imposed by U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel exceeded those given to Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling, Theranos executive Elizabeth Holmes and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, whose frauds generated international headlines. Murdaugh defense attorney Jim Griffin pointed to their cases in arguing for a shorter sentence. Their crimes affected many more people and billions more dollars, he argued.
Gergel had none of it.
“You left off a case,” the judge retorted.
Gergel was referring to financier Bernie Madoff, the mastermind of the largest Ponzi scheme in history, who the judge said he saw as “pretty analogous to our case.” Gergel quoted the trial judge who sentenced Madoff in justifying Murdaugh’s sentence.
The scope of Murdaugh’s thefts is far smaller than Madoff’s, which involved tens of billions of dollars. But Gergel said Murdaugh’s schemes were similarly “methodical” and “reprehensible.” His 22 federal charges included bank fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy and money laundering, and his crimes spanned more than a decade.
Defense attorneys Jim Griffin (right) and Phillip Barber walk out of the courthouse to talk with the media after Alex Murdaugh’s April 1 sentencing hearing on federal financial crimes.
Murdaugh was accused of stealing some $10.8 million from 27 people, including several clients who trusted him in their darkest moments. Many came to him after losing a spouse, a parent or a child in a car wreck.
The question of Murdaugh’s federal prison sentence is, for now, an academic exercise. Murdaugh is already serving two life sentences for the June 2021 murders of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul at the family’s isolated Colleton County estate. The possibility of federal time will only come up if Murdaugh successfully appeals his murder convictions.
Even then, he would stay in state prison for years to come. Murdaugh previously pleaded guilty to financial crimes in state court, accepting a 27-year sentence in South Carolina’s prisons. Even in his best-case scenario, his attorneys estimate he wouldn’t be eligible for release until he is at least 77 years old.
Murdaugh’s federal sentence will run at the same time as the state sentence, but if he is ever let out of state prison — a long shot in its own right — he will still face time in federal lockup.
For more than a year after he was first sent to prison, Murdaugh has kept a prominent place in the public conscience of South Carolina. His financial crime cases and a failed attempt to secure a new murder trial on allegations of jury tampering often put him in front of news cameras and packed courtrooms.
His time in the public eye may have ended in Charleston after delivering a 12-minute monologue to a courtroom filled with lawyers, victims and journalists. He sought to assure those he stole from that he was “filled with sorrow” and “filled with guilt.” He promised that he was genuinely sorry, not just sorry he got caught. He attributed his long-hidden opioid addiction to the shame he was secretly harboring while also asserting that he stole to fund his habit.
Murdaugh said he was sorry for embarrassing the legal profession and for letting down his law partners, his family and the clients he betrayed. Mentioning the law firm his family founded three generations earlier, he began to choke up and rock forward and back; seated in the courtroom, his law partners did not flinch.
He offered to answer the judge’s questions about what he had done. Gergel had none for him.
But just as his trial for the brutal slayings of his wife and son left enduring mysteries about what happened that night by the family’s dog kennels, the conclusion of Murdaugh’s white-collar prosecution leaves important questions unanswered.
For one thing, federal prosecutors said they can’t account for some $6 million of his ill-gotten gains. In meetings with law enforcement, Murdaugh attributed the missing money to his drug habit, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Limehouse.
But that story “didn’t add up,” Limehouse said. For one thing, Murdaugh told authorities his drug use stayed relatively steady over the years, but his money laundering accelerated over time, she said.
After four interviews, the federal government subjected him to a polygraph test about the money; prosecutors said the results indicated deception, though polygraph results are not considered reliable proof of lying.
Gergel indicated that he, too, was wary of Murdaugh’s story. The judge said he didn’t believe someone so impaired could execute such complicated schemes and convince so many people to help him.
Gergel previously sentenced the now-disbarred Beaufort attorney Cory Fleming to nearly four years and former Hampton banker Russell Laffitte to seven years for participating in some of Murdaugh’s schemes. Murdaugh, the judge said, “seduced both of them” with “the siren song of affluence.” Both men benefited financially from their involvement with Murdaugh.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office has indicated in recent weeks that it is still investigating the unaccounted-for money and the involvement of at least one attorney who may have helped Murdaugh, court papers show.
The federal grand jury’s ongoing work suggests that the final chapter of Murdaugh’s criminal case may not yet be written. But the federal sentence offered a moment of at least partial closure for those he stole from.
Pamela Pinckney walks out of Charleston's federal courthouse after the sentencing hearing of convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh on federal financial crimes. U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel imposed a 40-year sentence on Murdaugh.
Inside the courtroom, Pamela Pinckney said only God could judge her former lawyer. But she said she’d continue to love Murdaugh “with the love of Jesus Christ.”
More than a decade earlier, Murdaugh had represented her family after they were involved in a car crash that paralyzed her son, Hakeem. With help from Fleming and Laffitte, Murdaugh diverted hundreds of thousands of dollars from their settlement; he and Fleming used some of the family’s money to charter a plane to the College World Series.
Pinckney had faced Murdaugh at his state sentencing last year and appeared at Fleming’s sentencing, too. Her son’s case was litigated at Laffitte’s federal trial in November 2022.
“I am glad that this journey has come to an end,” Pinckney said in front of a wall of cameras outside the courthouse.
Hopefully, she said, she won’t have to appear in court again.
