Crime Fix with Angenette Levy - Alex Murdaugh and The Search for The Missing Millions

Episode Date: December 28, 2023

Alex Murdaugh, the disgraced South Carolina lawyer serving two life sentences for the murders of his wife and son, also stole millions of dollars from clients and his law firm. Prosecutors and his former firm are working to trace the missing money. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy talks with attorneys Joe McCulloch and Ronnie Richter about the missing millions in this episode of Crime Fix — a daily show that looks at the biggest stories in the world of crime.HOST:Angenette Levy: twitter.com/Angenette5CRIME FIX PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinVideo Editing - Daniel CamachoPodcasting - Brad Maybe Script Writing & Producing - Savannah WilliamsonGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this law and crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. I stole money that was not my money. I misled people that I shouldn't have misled, and I did wrong. Alec Murdoch admitted to stealing millions from clients and his law firm. And while some money has been recovered, millions remain missing. Eddie Smith was a check cashing scheme. Eddie Smith was being paid to cash checks, but that money is still out there and he knows where it is. He didn't spend all that money on drugs.

So where are the missing millions? It's a good question and a search that has been well underway for a while. And it isn't ending anytime soon. I'm Anjanette Levy and this is a special edition of Crime Fix where we're looking at the search for the missing millions of dollars in the Murdoch case. For years, prosecutors say Alec Murdoch swindled clients. He admits to it. He lied and he cheated to steal millions of dollars, as much as $8 million,

possibly more. Murdoch claims much of it was spent on drugs. The jury's heard about testimony of you stealing client funds. Did you do that? I did. Did you steal or divert that Ferris B away from the law firm? I did. How did you get in such a financial predicament that led you to steal money that wasn't yours? No, I'm not quite sure how I let myself get where I got, but it came from, you know, I battled that addiction for so many years. I was spending so much money on pills. I got in a spot I couldn't.

Now, what type of addiction are you referring to? My addiction is to opiate painkillers. At a sentencing for financial crimes where Murdoch agreed to a 27-year sentence, Assistant Attorney General Creighton Waters talked about Murdoch's insatiable need for cash that went on for many years. And after that, he had a number of early large recoveries. And it caused his partners and people around him, because the legitimate fees from those cases were so extensive, to believe that he ultimately had righted the ship. And he did take those legitimate fees, but he was also borrowing so much money, and he then started to steal from those large recoveries.

Now, Murdoch, of course, claims he was in the throes of drug addiction and that that's where all of the money went. But attorney Mark Tinsley, who represents some of Murdoch's financial crimes victims, doesn't buy it. And some of his clients still haven't gotten their money. If he wants to be accountable, he wants to be contrite, he ought to tell these people where their money is. That's not going to happen. The same as he's not going to lay in bed at night and think about the wrongs and feel sorry for what he did.

Now, you'll recall that Tinsley also represented the family of Mallory Beach in that awful boat crash where Paul Murdoch was driving a boat, crashed it, and sadly killed Mallory Beach after she was thrown from the boat. And he, of course, represents other people involved in the Murdoch saga. I don't understand why the label of a white-collar crime is given to these crimes, to the predatory acts that befell all of these people. The money that they were owed was owed because of blood, sweat, and tears. Hakeem Pinckney needed his money. The Badgers, who I represent, six children, two, three, five, eight, nine, and eleven, are left with a single father. And he stole everything. Ellick, you're a broken person.

I don't think you're going to lie in bed at night and have people come to you. I don't think that those people matter. And I don't know when that happened. But clearly it happened where you matter more. I stand up here merely to correct the record that my people have not been made whole. We are going to continue to seek accountability from the people that enabled him, that helped him, that were complicit in the thefts of their money. And so that's the reason I'm here today. Fitz News out of South Carolina reports that Alec Murdoch's former law firm, PMPED, which is now the Parker Law Firm, is hot on the trail of the missing millions. They've actually hired a law firm to track down the money.

The firm wants that money back. Why wouldn't they? It's millions and millions of dollars that they had to shell out to a lot of these clients. Attorney Joe McCullough has tried to find the money. He sued Alec Murdoch on the fatal boat crash that killed Mallory Beach. He represented Beach's friends, Miley Altman and Connor Cook. Do you think there is money to be found somewhere and it will be found? Well, Mark Tinsley, Patrick Carr and I, we worked pretty darn hard trying to find the money. Ultimately, the receivers were appointed who made that same effort. It's very hard to find money if it's buried in PVC pipes.

Somebody over the weekend said, well, don't you think there's money out there buried somewhere in mason jars? And I said, well, you know, now in 2023, people use PVC pipe, it's much better. But it's hard for me to believe and I have not heard a good explanation for where these millions of dollars could have gone. And there may only be one person on the planet who really knows where the money is and where it went. And that's alec murdoch and he apparently is not talking and i i would assume has uh during his cooperation that preceded this plea agreement has talked to prosecutors and and high on the list of their questions are where's the money and and i having represented people for many years in the drug business, shall we say, on the criminal side,

and even in the drug-consuming business on the criminal side, you just don't stuff $6, $7, $8 million worth of OxyContin down your gullet and remain standing and go to work every day. So I'm a firm believer that the money is out there somewhere. And I'm also equally firm in the belief that we're not going to find it the easy way. Do you think he hid it in the Caribbean? There's been kind of talk about that. There has been talk about the overseas accounts hidden in the Caribbean. It's been suggested that he purchased a funeral home in Alabama for some one of his business partners and that the money is in coffins buried in the cemetery next to the funeral home. There are all manner of exotic possibilities. But again, only

one person on the planet perhaps may know exactly what the truth of the matter is, and he ain't talking so far. I also asked Ronnie Richter of the Bland Richter firm about whether he thinks the money will ever be found. Richter and his partner represented some of Alec Murdoch's financial crimes victims, including the family of Gloria Satterfield, the Murdoch's housekeeper who died after falling at their home. Murdoch stole $4.2 million in insurance money meant for the Satterfield family. Yeah, I personally believe that. I don't believe that it's possible to make that much money go away in Hampton County, South Carolina without accumulating some wealth. I don't believe it's possible to spend that much

money on drugs. So excluding those two other avenues, it does make me worry and believe that there is money somewhere. Now, having said that, I am satisfied that the special referee that the court appointed, John Lay and his team, were exhaustive in their efforts to find that money. And they're at a point now where they're at the end of their job. They've recovered what they could recover. And if that money is out there, it's lost treasure. But you can find lost treasure sometimes. I would imagine that folks are going to keep looking for lost treasure.

I don't think the search ever ends for lost treasure. So I think this is a question that will continue. So do you think that SLED possibly has an inkling or an idea of where this money went? Because as part of the plea deal that he made, both in federal court, but particularly the one in state court, Creighton Waters made it sound like, hey, Alec Murdoch has to sit down and tell us what he did and how he did it. Yeah, I think the state did a really good job with forensic economic experts in tracing what they could trace. But having done that, I still think there's a lot of money that's unaccounted for. And I heard the same come from Creighton at that sentencing hearing as well. So I believe that the state believes it. I just don't think that they have that crack, that lead that is going to lead them

to that money, at least not right now. Do you believe that his former law firm, his family law firm, is now trying to figure out where that money went? I mean, if he really stole more than $8 million from his own law firm and law partners, you can't just give up the search for that money. Yeah, I really do believe that he took that money from that law firm. I know many of the lawyers in that firm. I know them to be really good lawyers and good people, too. So I believe that they lost that money. And I just know if I were a partner in that law firm, I wouldn't quit asking the question. I mean, for God's sake, he's a partner, he's a family member, he's a best friend. I mean, if you're going to tell somebody, wouldn't you tell

those closest to you where to find that money? So yeah, I think that their search should continue. So where is the missing money? Is it buried in mason jars somewhere? Is it on Moselle somewhere in PVC pipes? Is it in the Caribbean somewhere in shell companies? Who knows? Will the missing millions ever be found? Will Alec Murdoch detail for state prosecutors and for the feds where that money went? All of it. And is it actually hidden somewhere? Or was it spent on his lavish lifestyle and bad real estate deals? Only time will tell if the money will ever be found.

So as the old saying goes, stay tuned. I'm Annette Levy. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode of Crime Fix. We will see you back here tomorrow. Until then, have a great night.