Murdaugh Murders Podcast - Attorneys At War - Part One (S01E21)

Starting point is 00:00:00 I don't know what the endgame is for Alec Murdoch's defense team, but I know that Dick Harputlian and Jim Griffin are working hard to silence the true tellers in this case. And I don't think that the good ol' boy playbook is going to work this time. My name is Mandy Matney. I've been investigating the Murdoch family for more than two and a half years now. And this is the Murdoch Murders podcast. Alec Murdoch's Bulldog defense attorneys Dick Harputlian and Jim Griffin have apparently launched a war on Satterfield family attorney Eric Bland.

Starting point is 00:00:46 While this might seem like a distraction to some, it's important to take a deeper look at these recent moves by Dick and Jim to figure out what exactly is going on here. So Dick and Jim have done a lot of doubling down in the Satterfield case recently. It started on November 17th when Dick and Jim officially began representing Alec Murdoch in a lawsuit filed by Gloria Satterfield's two sons. Again, Harputlian and Griffin did not have to represent Alec in this civil case. They chose to enter into the arena after Eric Bland revealed a shocking paper trail showing Alec Murdoch's alleged involvement in the despicable scheme to steal millions of dollars

Starting point is 00:01:28 from his dead housekeeper's family. Dick and Jim filed a shocking motion on November 17th that asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit against Alec Murdoch because other parties have already compensated them for this. To Eric Bland, this was a clear message that the good ol' boys were starting a war. But I love it. This is exactly what I want. Battlefield lines have been drawn between Harputlian and Bland and Richter. So just two days after that motion was filed, Alec Murdoch was hit with a whopping 27 charges

Starting point is 00:02:03 related to financial crimes. If you remember, we did a special breaking episode on this and Eric was quoted a lot. It was the right thing to do. You changed the world. You're taking a guy off the street. It was not just harming one person, it was harming a lot of different people. That episode apparently struck a nerve among the Bulldog attorneys because a day after it was published, Dick and Jim amped up their war on Eric Bland and launched another missile.

Starting point is 00:02:37 On Monday, November 22, Dick and Jim filed another shocking motion and this one was seeking a gag order and other sanctions against Eric Bland. This motion asked the court for three things, a gag order against Eric in order to have Eric pay Alec's attorney's fees for their work related to the motion and for the court to refer Eric to the office of disciplinary counsel. Dick and Jim maintained that their client will not be able to get a fair trial because of Eric Bland's public comments, which generally speaking have called out the system for protecting Alec and served as a counterpoint to whatever narrative is being put forth by the Murdoch

Starting point is 00:03:16 camp on any given day. The gag order motion included six pages of Mr. Bland's quotes to the press. While Dick and Jim do throw in a few quotes that appeared in mainstream publications, most of the content they object to was taken from fitsnews.com and from the November 21st episode of this podcast in which Mandy and Eric reflected on how each has played a pivotal role in bringing the Satterfield scheme to light. This was not surprising. From the beginning, fitsnews and this podcast have used our extensive resources to vet

Starting point is 00:03:45 all information before publishing it. In other words, we didn't publish a certain fairy tale about a person of interest in a double homicide being targeted by a random shooter on a rural road because our sources knew better. Again, the core argument of this motion is that Eric's comments have compromised Alec's chance at a fair trial. Left out of the motion is this. Dick and Jim have both portrayed their client as guilty on national television.

Starting point is 00:04:09 And as of right now, there are several writers speeding their way through book deals about Alec Murdoch. A handful of documentary producers speeding their way through filming about Alec Murdoch. And there have been several news specials about Alec Murdoch. If a judge does issue a gag order against Eric Bland, will this be the thing that gives Alec a safe space and allows for a jury that has never heard of him or never formed an opinion about him? Or will it simply stop someone who refuses to play by the good ol' boy roles from speaking

Starting point is 00:04:36 out when he sees something wrong? After this motion was filed, we talked to Eric Bland and asked him what he thought about this. You know, this is full contact litigation, everybody's gotta wear pants, nobody wears shorts and this kind of litigation. So, you know, they obviously feel like they're losing in the court of public opinion, not only do they know they're losing in court in the various courts, but I think they feel like they're losing in the court of public opinion.

Starting point is 00:05:08 And so, they view what I am saying as an additional basis of how their client is getting hurt. And truth be told, nothing I have said could hurt Alec nowhere near what Dick Harpooley and his own lawyer has said, both inside and outside of court. He said that, you know, he knows he's committed these financial crimes and that he's going to go away to jail. I mean, what more prejudicial statements can be made than your own lawyer saying that or your own lawyer confessing to your crime like he did in the bond hearing for the Labor Day shooting matter?

Starting point is 00:05:46 So, nothing I say could prejudice any proceeding. Also, there's no danger of prejudicing a jury because this matters five years away from being tried, so there's no jury to prejudice and I have a right not only to ask for victims and witnesses to come forward, which they have, which I get information every day very relevant information, but I have a right to correct the record that Dick Harpooley and or Jim Griffin have painted both publicly or in court filing such as that he's a 20 year opioid addict. That's not an explanation for a crime.

Starting point is 00:06:25 It certainly hasn't prevented him from being a successful trial lawyer or that, you know, he didn't represent my client Tony Satterfield, which he did or that, you know, he has all these difficulties, which is preventing him from doing the right thing. Dick said he wanted to do the right thing. He was coming back to make all these financial wrongs right. Well, all he seems to be doing is rewarding his family and friends such as Johnny Parker and his brother, but doing nothing for the Satterfields. He hasn't even said an apology yet to the Satterfields, let alone trying to right the

Starting point is 00:07:03 wrong that he's done. So I just view it as this is a litigation tactic that they're trying to do because they're losing in the courts and in public opinion. And the public is not going to like me being silenced because I'm providing them with information. This is a very public case where our justice system is on trial, where the fairness of our system is on trial, and the public wants to know, you know, who are the victims? And nothing I have said has been proven untrue. And I feel like that if there's not sunlight on this and it gets dark, then that's when

Starting point is 00:07:48 strange things can happen. And something strange did happen in this case after the motion was filed. So shortly after the gag order motion was filed, Bland received a letter that said Dick Harputlian had filed a formal grievance with the South Carolina Supreme Court Office of Disciplinary Counsel. Essentially, Harputlian is trying to go after Bland's law license, claiming that he violated the bar's rules of professional conduct for pre-trial publicity. I spoke with Eric after he received this letter.

Starting point is 00:08:32 Well, no, they're gone after my law life. I get it. Like I said, in my statement, lawyers, they argue the facts. No facts, they argue the law. If there's no law, then they pound the table and they try to divert. I can't help it that they don't have a real good defense for us. Opioid defense isn't a defense that's stealing. That's nothing.

Starting point is 00:08:50 Insanity, maybe, but opioid defense, all that is a mitigation factor in some kind of sentencing, but it doesn't excuse a crime. Like I said before, they can get Melvin Belli and Epley Bailey, Jack Squirrely, Pete Strong, and have 50 of the best lawyers in our state, Ron Motley from Motley Royce, put him at the table. They're not going to be able to convince anybody it's okay to steal from clients. And your partners, and your family, I'm not a guy that's going to be intimidated, Dick knows that, but they're just, you know, they're gone for the, it's a headshot, they're gone

Starting point is 00:09:24 for the jugular. You know, I can respect it, they're doing it. I think it's a BS move, and I think it's a move of a guy that doesn't want to win it on the dance floor, but hey, I can understand why he's doing it, he's losing. So I noticed on Twitter that several people asked to hear from a member of the South Carolina Bar Association who is not Eric Bland. So for this issue, I talked to South Carolina attorney Lauren Fox, who told me that this lawyer war scenario is not normal at all.

Starting point is 00:09:58 Attorney on attorney war like that, that's a pretty rare situation. It's one that I'm trying to rack my brain of such a public feud in the state's profession. Okay, granted, I'm only coming up on what like your aid of practice, but I'm having a hard time thinking about such a public taking to task set out because that's what you do. If you're filing a grievance with ODC of that nature, that means that you are setting out to destroy an attorney's career, that you are alleging that they have done something so wrong that they should lose their law license.

Starting point is 00:10:50 I'm sorry, I can't think of one. I asked Lauren if Eric violated any rules of professional conduct, specifically he's been accused of influencing the jury pool in this case. I mean, frankly, it looks like a temper tantrum on paper. I have yet to see where I have found any conduct of Eric's to be questionable from a PR perspective from a professional responsibility or ethical perspective. I've seen no behavior that raises my eyebrows. And frankly, I think that your outlet is the only one that is even covering this.

Starting point is 00:11:32 So are they insinuating that you have captured the audience of an entire state? That makes y'all pretty powerful, doesn't it? You would think that if you're truly changing a jury pool that this would be blasted on every mainstream media outlet, online, TV, et cetera. So I don't buy that argument at all. Now it's funny that Lauren said this because I have been recently racking my brain thinking back on the last few months and how we got to this point with Dick and Jim. And I have to say, I had a lot of respect for Dick Harpulian before September.

Starting point is 00:12:20 We have to remember that Dick and Jim were not always the sloppy and brazen. In 2019, when Dick and Jim represented Paul Murdock in the vocresh criminal case, both lawyers maintained a sense of dignity while working on that case. And Liz and I were honestly impressed by Harpulian. The first thing that struck us about Dick back in 2019 was how thorough he was in his motion for discovery. Mandy and I are both professional writers, so obviously we tend to notice how well something is written or how poorly.

Starting point is 00:12:50 We've both read our fair share of legal documents in South Carolina and let's just say they run the gamut in terms of the effort that is put into them. The motion filed by Dick made it clear to us the huge difference money can make in the courtroom. Not only was it well written, it was intimidating. In a way neither of us had seen before. He had accounted for every molecule of evidence that might exonerate Paul. And there was a definite bullishness to it.

Starting point is 00:13:14 He was looking around every corner and saying boo before anyone else could beat him to it. His power practically jumped off the page. Then there was our first in-person encounter with him during Paul's bond hearing. Paul looked nervous and like a little boy that day. Maggie seemed scared and absolutely out of it. And Ellic entered the courtroom like a boisterous small town politician, acting as if he were there to greet people at a ribbon cutting for a plumbing supply company rather than at a criminal proceeding for his son, who was accused of killing someone.

Starting point is 00:13:47 Ellic's fake and buffoonish presence filled the room. He seemed intent on leaving no oxygen for anyone to breathe. Nevermind say the name Mallory Beach. Then there was Harputlian who stood in stark contrast to everyone else there, including the judge. He had the serious and seasoned heir of a world class surgeon, someone to whom deference is automatically given. He was in complete control of that courtroom.

Starting point is 00:14:10 Back then, like now, Mandy and I were very much on the lookout for any signs of corruption and how the boat crash case was being handled. That day we truly felt we were watching the Broadway version of something that had been scripted and rehearsed far away from the public eye. Harputlian was the master of his universe and everyone else was there to police him or at least not incur his wrath. It was the same Harputlian we saw in the months between Maggie and Paul's murders and whatever happened to Ellic on Labor Day weekend.

Starting point is 00:14:36 Both Mandy and I had heard from a variety of sources that Dick was coming in hot behind the scenes and using his positional power and political access to his client's advantage as expected. In those months, Dick Harputlian and Jim Griffin seemed to be doing what they do best, quietly tending to the facts behind the scenes, rearranging reality to fit their narrative, leaking tidbits to the press that painted their client as a victim, and waiting for the public to stop caring about the double homicide investigation. But as their client unraveled in the public square after the September 3rd alleged shooting

Starting point is 00:15:08 incident, it appears like Dick and Jim unraveled too. Remember the week after the shooting? Harputlian and Griffin shelled out a false narrative, repeatedly to the media. And during all of this time, Fitz News appeared to be the only media outlet holding these lawyers to account and calling out the lies. That's why this gag order motion says a lot about what their frame of mind might be. Again, Dick and Jim are used to being the masters of their universe. When it comes to the media, Dick in particular, is the golden corral of off-the-record tidbits.

Starting point is 00:15:42 He invites reporters to gorge off his cheap buffet of information so that when the juicy steak comes off the grill, no one notices. It's very difficult to be a master of any universe when you can't get certain people to read from your carefully crafted script. They can't control Eric Bland, but they certainly can control how mainstream media regards him. On September 15th, the world saw a different Dick Harputlian who appeared on the Today Show to represent his client.

Starting point is 00:16:29 During this interview, Dick Harputlian admitted on national television that Alec Murdoch used money from the law firm and his clients for personal use. The interview was a disaster for Harputlian. He also told the Today Show his client would be arrested soon, which is a really odd thing to say. And then he tried to claim that him and Griffin were independently investigating some individuals who may have murdered Maggie and Paul Murdoch. I wonder how well that investigation is going.

Starting point is 00:17:13 And we have to mention, Paul Murdoch is Dick Harputlian's former client. He represented him in the bow crash. And now he's representing the only known person of interest in Paul's murder. Going back on this, what has he done to bring awareness and attention to solving Paul and Maggie's murders? In fact, he's done the opposite. We've seen a series of distractions from Dick since this summer. Why is that?

Starting point is 00:17:38 And then the Hampton Bond Hearing happened. What we didn't know at the time was that Dick Harputlian was starting to come undone. And he was showing it. Before this Bond Hearing in September, Harputlian looked around and checked the room, looking for me. When I wasn't there, he made a disgusting comment. In a poor attempt to discredit me, Dick joked that I am my boss's altersexual ego and asked if I really existed.

Starting point is 00:18:09 This is especially funny now because they mentioned my name 12 times in their latest motion. Good attorneys go to war for their clients. Dick and Jim, as we've said many times before, are among the best in South Carolina. So while much of this can be looked at as Dick and Jim are just going to war for Alec, we do have to point out that there are rules of engagement, especially when it comes to ethics. There are some obvious ironies here that Dick and Jim are launching their latest battle

Starting point is 00:18:38 with Eric Bland on the ethics front. Theoretically, is it ethical for an attorney to seek to humiliate a reporter he doesn't like in front of her peers, as Dick did? Is it ethical for an attorney to antagonize a reporter over Twitter, as Jim Griffin did to Mandy in October? Is it ethical for state senators to use their positions of authority and access to make demands of state agencies in order to gain advantages for their clients? And was it ethical to tell a Today Show reporter on national television that your client is

Starting point is 00:19:08 guilty of stealing and lying? If that last move was strategy, then this raises a question. How deeply screwed is your client that your best option to defend him is to unsolicited tell the world he's guilty of an awful crime? It's clear we're witnessing a pattern of strange behavior by Dick Harpulian. It's pretty clear that Dick is losing in the court of public opinion, which apparently upsets him as an attorney who is used to playing the media like a fiddle. But the question now is if Dick has enough power to win at all an actual court.

Starting point is 00:19:45 Will a gag order be placed in the case? Could Eric Bland be silenced? So something happened last week that concerned us and we need to talk about it. On December 1st, we learned that Judge Bentley Price had reassigned the Satterfield case to himself. The case had already been assigned to Judge Marques and attorneys from both sides from what we understand had approved that assignment. Judge Price reassigned the case to himself because if he does say so himself, the case

Starting point is 00:20:22 is a quote-unquote complicated one. We don't know much about Judge Price except that he's young in his 40s. He tried several times to become a circuit court judge before finally being elected in 2019. Before that, he was a part-time municipal judge in Folly Beach for 12 years, and he is apparently known as a judge who tends to favor defendants. We also don't know what prompted Judge Price to volunteer himself for this case, but it happened soon after Dick and Jim called for their client to be dropped from the case,

Starting point is 00:20:47 for a gag order to be placed on Eric Bland, for sanctions against Eric, for a referral to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel, and for their attorney's fees to be paid. And this is definitely concerning. It makes us wonder what the end game is for Dick and Jim. Why are they fighting so savagely in a case where the plaintiffs have been so demonstrably abused by their client? Clearly they want to minimize the damages their client might owe. As a reminder, Eric is a defendant in at least seven civil cases right now.

Starting point is 00:21:14 The more cynical among us might say Dick and Jim want to minimize the damages Eric has to pay because there needs to be money left over to pay Dick and Jim. I think we can also safely say they want to minimize any prison time Eric might get. But as the charges against Eric mount, it's becoming more and more clear that Dick and Jim are going to need more thumbs to plug the holes in that dam. The other question we've been asking ourselves is whether this has become a war of egos. Sometimes it seems like Dick and Jim aren't fighting for their client so much as they are for their own reputations to be reclaimed.

Starting point is 00:21:45 The Good Old Boy system relies on the ability to play games in the dark. In the dark, Bulldog attorneys can misuse the typically secretive disciplinary process to exact revenge on their opposing counsel and pressure them into preemptive silence without anyone being the wiser. That is until the opposing counsel throws on the lights and tells the world what is happening. That Alec Murdoch has a challenging jury seating ahead of him is a foregone conclusion. But by his own measure, Dick shouldn't be worried. He himself offered attorneys some tips on his courtroom practices in a 2013 profile of him

Starting point is 00:22:19 in whistleblowerlaws.com. Here are three of his top five tips. They tell us a lot about who Dick is as a lawyer. Pick a jury not based only on your client's profile but also yours. If the jury hates you, they usually won't like your client. This has caused me to gravitate towards unattractive people on juries. They don't feel threatened by me and are disdainful like attractive people. One of my frequent opponents, when I was the DA, paid me the most eloquent compliment.

Starting point is 00:22:56 She said, Harputlian is like a dog marking his territory in the courtroom. He pisses in every corner and invades your space as frequently as he can. It makes the opposing attorney anxious. Anxiety is your friend. Throw away the script. There is nothing more boring or unproductive than to follow a script checking off the points you want to make to prove the elements of your case.

Starting point is 00:23:24 The jury wants a narrative, a story, an entertaining yarn full of conflict, emotions, sex, violence, yelling, weeping, etc. You get the idea. That means you have to have a general idea of what you want but let the examination flow naturally. See the witness up to confirm fact A and fact C, then box them in to B. The jury will understand where you are going. Remember, these are unattractive people who watch a lot of TV and read most of their evenings.

Starting point is 00:23:57 They have lots of imagination. So yeah, seems like Dick already has his jury strategy all sealed up. So maybe the strategy is bullying and intimidation. He tried to bully and intimidate me, which did not work. Now it seems like he's trying to bully and intimidate Eric Bland, which isn't working either. It's a bully. And the way you, you know, you got to deal with the bullies, you got to slap them down.

Starting point is 00:24:32 He's not going to intimidate me. I mean, I'm 59 years old and he's not going to intimidate me. I'm just going to put my nose down and out lawyer him like I did and follow the rules of professional conduct, which I don't think I'm violating. I, you know, I'm the one with you that I slid to bring in charges. And Eric admitted that this case is so different from every other case and that sunlight has been required in order to get justice. If I would have filed this lawsuit and it just sat in the darkness of a file cabinet in Hampton

Starting point is 00:25:05 County, do you really think we would be where we are today? Honestly, do you really think that five different culpable, potentially culpable parties would have ponied up over seven and a half million dollars? Do you think I would have been one of the factors in Corey Fleming losing his law license? Do you think that Alex Murdoch would have been charged in the Satterfield member? Do you think he would be behind bars for the last month and a half? If I just filed a lawsuit and it stood in the color of darkness and I never said a word, come on.

Starting point is 00:25:39 In fact, Eric Bland filed a bombshell amendment in the Satterfield case this week, adding Bank of America to the list of defendants and accusing the bank's employees of enabling Alex Murdoch's money laundering. The lawsuit is packed with shocking accusations in another paper trail of astonishing checks, which we will analyze in another episode and see fitsnews.com for the latest on those checks. There's one more thing that we have to talk about. Eric Murdoch is scheduled to appear in court this week for a bond hearing on the 27 latest

Starting point is 00:26:13 charges against him. But this time, a different judge, Judge Allison Lee, will preside over the hearing. This has raised several red flags among those watching this case very closely. Why? Because Judge Clifton Newman was handpicked in September to handle all criminal matters related to Eric Murdoch. But last week, the South Carolina Supreme Court issued an order stating that the current responding judge of the state grand jury will handle initial bail matters for Eric Murdoch

Starting point is 00:26:44 on charges that were brought by the state grand jury. While we have been told that this move is standard procedure, we have to wonder if this is a part of Dick and Jim's plan. Judge Lee has a reputation of giving bond to violent criminals. Having a judge who is known for leniency presiding over all of the matters related to the state grand jury for bail could be beneficial to the Murdoch camp. However, we did ask several sources close to the investigation if this even matters. And according to our sources, even if Lee grants bond on Friday, Newman's decision would

Starting point is 00:27:19 stick and Eric Murdoch would remain behind bars. But if you'll remember, Ellick's attorneys recently filed a habeas corpus petition asking the South Carolina Supreme Court to reconsider Newman's decision to keep Ellick in jail. So are they trying to get another judge to rule that Ellick is not a danger so their petition gets a better chance? Again, what is the end game here? We will find out, so stay tuned. And one more thing, we are super excited to announce that the Murdoch Murders podcast

Starting point is 00:28:04 Instagram page, which is Murdoch Murders Pod, that's Murdoch Murders Pod, all one word, and Facebook, which is Murdoch Murders podcast, are up and running. Check the links in the description for those. On Facebook and Instagram, we will share the latest updates on the case, we'll post teasers of episodes before they drop, we'll post exciting announcements about the podcast, and you'll see pictures of Luna, the real boss of the Murdoch Murders podcast. And my childhood best friend, Ali Pavlich, has worked so hard on our social media and we're very proud of it, so please go to those pages and give us a like.

Starting point is 00:28:44 We really appreciate it, and we're really excited to get these communities started. Both of us want to say thank you to the real journalists, the true tellers, and the freedom fighters out there, filing FOIA requests, exposing powerful people, and holding up the Fourth Estate. You are making a difference in your community, and in 2022, we want to support investigative journalists however we can. We want to hear from reporters, armchair detectives, and savvy super sleuths because we are going to give you a voice in 2022.

Starting point is 00:29:17 Ideally, we're looking for stories where true crime and corruption collide. Please visit murdochmurderspodcast.com slash truth to submit your story and learn more about this project. If you have truths you want to expose, visit murdochmurderspodcast.com slash truth to submit your story. There's so much to unpack in this case, and Mandy works tirelessly to expose the truth. But the truth is she works hard and she does get tired. If you believe like I do that Mandy is the best in the business, and I'm a little biased,

Starting point is 00:29:55 visit murdochmurderspodcast.com and click the support the show link to learn how you can help. Get a 5-star review to offset the haters, refer an advertiser and get a finder's fee, or advertise your company, product or service. We can geotarget across the globe and find the right audience to suit your needs. Help us get Luna some treats so she doesn't interrupt the show as much. And absolutely subscribe to fitsnews.com. Mandy and Will are revolutionizing journalism and your subscriptions are invaluable to that

Starting point is 00:30:26 mission. Plus, you get awesome content every day. Don't forget to leave a 5-star review, unless you're going to be nasty and talk about my vocal fry. The Murdoch Murders podcast is created by me, Mandy Matney, and my fiance, David Moses. Produced by Luna Shug Productions.

Murdaugh Murders Podcast - Attorneys At War - Part One (S01E21)

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