Murdaugh Murders Podcast - MMP #19 - Alex Murdaugh Charged With 27 New Felonies And Why That Is A Big Deal
Episode Date: November 21, 2021On Friday, November 19th, we learned that prosecutors issued 27 additional felony charges against Alex Murdaugh bringing the total possible jail time to over a hundreds years and our sources believe t...hat could be just the beginning. In this special edition we'll review the 27 new counts and expand on the implications as we introduce our new partner in true crime, Liz Farrell. Liz was there when Mandy first discovered inconsistencies in the only document recorded in the Satterfield settlement which blew the lid off a saga like no other. In this episode you'll hear a moment between Mandy and Eric Bland in which he explains all the dominos that had to fall in order for Murdaugh's litany of crimes to come to light. Stay Tuned, Stay Pesky and Stay in the Sunlight...☀️ Premium Members also get access to ad-free listening, searchable case files, written articles with documents, case photos, episode videos and exclusive live experiences with our hosts on lunasharkmedia.com all in one place. CLICK HERE to learn more: https://bit.ly/3BdUtOE. Check out our LUNASHARK Merch 👕 What We're Buying... https://amzn.to/4cJ0eVn *** ALERT: If you ever notice audio errors in the pod, email info@lunasharkmedia.com and we'll send fun merch to the first listener that finds something that needs to be adjusted! *** For current & accurate updates: bsky.app/profile/mandy-matney.com | bsky.app/profile/elizfarrell.com TrueSunlight.com facebook.com/TrueSunlightPodcast/ Instagram.com/TrueSunlightPod Twitter.com/mandymatney Twitter.com/elizfarrell youtube.com/@LunaSharkMedia tiktok.com/@lunasharkmedia Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
This is Alec Murdoch.
I need police and an ambulance immediately.
Murdoch, Death in the Family Official Podcast, is here.
I'm joining Patricia Arquette, Jason Clark, and the cast to uncover all things Murdoch.
Family first.
To unravel the story piece by piece was really surprising because you don't want to believe it.
Murdoch, Death in the Family Official Podcast, Wednesdays.
And stream Murdoch, Death in the Family on Hulu and Hulu on Disney Plus for bundle subscribers.
Terms apply.
I don't know how many crimes Elyke Murdoch will be charged in,
but this week, the disgraced South Carolina attorney was hit with 27 felony charges.
And that is a very big deal.
My name is Mandy Matney, and I've been investigating the Murdoch family for the last two and a half years.
This is the Murdoch Murdoch's podcast.
So this is the week of Thanksgiving, and I have a lot of people to thank this year.
starting out with our supporters for the Murdoch Murders podcast.
You all have helped lead us to this incredibly exciting moment that is honestly a dream come true for me.
Today, live from the kitchen table studio, I want to introduce you to our new Murdoch Murdoch
podcast co-host, Liz Farrell.
Liz is my best friend, role model, former work wife, and forever partner in true crime.
Liz taught me everything I know about investigative journalism.
She was there with me at the beginning of the story on day one, which was February 24, 2019, the day that Mallory Beach died.
Together, we started polling at strings as we investigated the tangled web of the Murdoch family in Hampton County.
Liz was sitting across from me on the day that we now know was so important, the day that I found the one public document connected with the Satterfield settlement.
We had heard a lot about the Murdoch family and their influence.
We were told by our law enforcement sources, yes, there are good cops in the low country,
that it was already looking like the fix was in on the boat crash investigation.
When Mandy first found that filing, the words wrongful death obviously rang alarm bells.
And it was exciting from a journalist's perspective that our team had discovered a new angle.
But more than that, it was another example of why Mandy is such a good journalist and stands apart from most.
She will go the distance and look under every rock to make sure she is getting to the truth of a situation.
Mandy's immediate instinct was that something wasn't right with the filing.
As we learned more about Ehrlich, there was a clear conflict of interest in who was representing the Satterfield family,
Ehrlich's friend, Corey Fleming.
But we had no idea at that time just how much this one document would end up changing the entire course of Ehrlich Murdoch's story.
Without that moment of Mandy discovering that filing and writing about it,
this past Friday never would have happened.
Friday was a pivotal moment in the Murdoch murder saga, and a day that many of us weren't sure
would ever come.
We ended the last episode that came out just a few days ago on a cliffhanger about how the
South Carolina grand jury was convening in Columbia, South Carolina, to discuss matters
related to the Murdoch murders.
And then Friday came, and Alec Murdoch was indicted on more than two dozen counts.
He stands accused of stealing a total of nearly $5 million from the family of,
of Gloria Satterfield and three clients, including a South Carolina Highway Patrolman who
was injured in the line of duty, according to indictments released on Friday. So when I first
heard the news on Friday, of course one of the first people I spoke to was Eric Bland, the attorney
who has represented Satterfield's family since September and uncovered a paper trail that
blew the story wide open. Lady Justice has been busy the past month for him. Since 2015, he's been
practice in stealing, not practicing law. And you, he has. Because you got to work to do that.
That takes some thought. That takes some work. And you can't be a lawyer and their thief like that
and do it both well. So he chose to do thievery well.
Elyke Murdoch faces 27 new charges and five indictments that were handed down by the South
Carolina grand jury this week. Those new indictments include seven counts of money laundering,
7 counts of obtaining a signature or property by false pretenses, 8 counts of computer crimes,
1 count of forgery, and 4 counts of breach of trust with fraudulent intent.
The 27 counts are a result of a multi-agency state-level investigation involving the South Carolina
state grand jury, the South Carolina law enforcement division, the FVI I, and the South Carolina
Attorney General's office.
But these are all state charges, which is...
Interesting, because the financial crimes are usually investigated by the feds and prosecuted by the feds.
I asked Eric Blaine about this.
He gave such a black guy to this state.
I think it's a combination of his, you know, prosecutorial background.
It's a little bit of a payback, you know, probably against, you know, in a way his law firm and how they have, you know, created this,
what's called
the judicial hellhole there
there's you know whether
there's payback or
I think it's just the state saying
we don't want a lawyer stealing like this
and certainly not a prosecutor
who comes from a long line of prosecutors
we're going to establish
law and order the way it should be
and it's happening
I mean it is you know
like we said in our statement this morning
You know, when the dam of justice breaks, it starts to come like a mighty river.
In a lot of ways, the charges were shocking.
And they made me and Eric Bland really sit back and realize that this is much deeper than anyone could have ever imagined.
And that this is just a beginning.
I can tell you that the charges are not the end.
There are so many more victims.
victims that I've seen.
I've seen the checks.
So there are more victims there.
There are more charges coming.
And, you know, it's a strong statement that should really cause Parpooleon and Griffin to really stop
because the state is not expending all of these resources and all this time just to turn it over to the Fed.
at the end of all of this.
The state of South Carolina is making a statement here.
So we'll go over the five indictments and Liz will explain the meaning behind them.
One of the alleged schemes took place in Bamber County, South Carolina, between March and July
2021.
We will go over why those dates are significant.
In this scheme, Murdoch is accused of convincing an attorney from another law firm who
was working on a case with him to write three checks totaling nearly.
$800,000 for his share of legal fees in the lawsuit. Murdoch told the attorney that he was going to
structure the fees because of his civil liability in the Mallory Beach boat crash lawsuit,
according to the indictment. He lied to the attorney according to the indictment and said that
PMPED was aware of this. And ultimately Murdoch never structured the fees. He just took the money
himself. This indictment gives us a little more insight into ELEC's unraveling between March and July of
2021 and around the time of the murders of Maggie and Paul in June. Attorney's sources have told us that
law firms like PMPED have tight controls over their accounting and that it would have been very
difficult for ELEC to have stolen from the firm for a long time without getting caught. It appears PMPED
had reason to know of ELEC's unorthodox financial practices in July at the very
least. This indictment, however, only gives us a small view of what was happening while
Elick's life was collapsing around him. We don't know the full scope of what the law firm knew
and what they did with that information when they knew it. And we don't know yet how many more
cases there are like this. This brings us to indictment number two. Between January and May
of this year, Murdoch is accused of convincing South Carolina Highway Patrol trooper
Thomas E. Moore, who was injured in the line of duty to sign over his settlement.
proceeds to the Murdoch law firm, PMPED. He's also accused of falsely telling more that the money
would not be available until the lawsuit was complete. Murdoch is then accused of depositing
$125,000 in settlement proceeds into the forge account that he allegedly created to steal
money from clients and others. Of all the indictments, perhaps this one speaks the most to
Elyke's character or lack thereof in the months leading up to the double homicide of Maggie and Paul this
hear. Listen, like I said, I said to you a couple weeks ago. There's no bottom to him. He's, you know, morally
decrepit and proves it again today. He stole money from a policeman. He says solicitor, stealing money
from a client that that's not bad enough. Let's just go a little deeper and steal it from a
policeman. Who doesn't make a lot of money to begin with? He's going to go, you know, everybody
talks about Larry Jean Bell and all these other people.
Gaskins and they're killers. There's no question about it. And there is a difference right now.
But he's as morally bankrupt as they are. That Ely got away with this for so long shows us just how
impenetrable the Murdoch's position in the criminal justice system has been here. The South Carolina
Highway Patrol is the same agency that was bizarrely tasked with investigating the homicide of
Stephen Smith just a few years prior to this alleged theft from one of their own. This should say,
an important message to the rumored Murdoch enablers in law enforcement. The ones who have
allegedly received cash payments in exchange for their off-book services. The ones who are said to have
assisted them in clouding up crime scenes and criminal investigations. The ones who gave them prosecutorial
credentials to flash around the 14th Circuit. The ones behind the gavel who broke the rules for them
or looked the other way. The ones who have allegedly bullied people from speaking their truth.
This is what he thinks of you.
Now we are at the third indictment.
Between August and September 2016 in Colleton County, South Carolina, Murdoch allegedly used
his prestige and reputation as a lawyer to defraud one of his clients who was being compensated
$70,000 for his injuries.
According to the indictment, Murdoch convinced this man to make a $70,000 check out for, again,
his structured settlement, to the infamous Forge account.
And we all know what happened then.
Alec allegedly deposited the money into his own bank account.
The fourth indictment is from the Gloria Satterfield Settlement, which we all know about.
Nine of the new charges are related to the botched Gloria Satterfield Settlement.
That brings us to the fifth indictment, which is in Allendale County between October
2015 and October 2016, Murdoch is accused of defrauding his client, a man named Dion
Deion J. Martin, out of almost $400,000.
again the forged scheme that was uncovered during the Satterfield settlement.
There are a few big takeaways in these indictments.
One is that the public is getting an even better view of the heads or tails reputation of the Murdoch dynasty,
where on the head side, the Murdochs are known for treating people with humanity and generosity.
But on the tail side, they're known for seeing people as nothing more than disposable servants to their needs,
people who are not worth another thought after they've served their purpose to this family.
Another is that four of the five indictments handed down November 18th involved money that was allegedly stolen from clients.
Three of those clients had amounts taken from them that were far less than the million-dollar settlements Murdoch's law firm was famous for.
The smaller amounts are actually much more typical of regular day-to-day insurance settlements.
The kind of meaningful money you might get after a setback.
Money that makes a difference in your life, provides some relief in the face of injury or loss,
fills a need in the family budget and helps you get back on your feet so you can get back to work.
that ELEC is accused of picking pennies from the pockets of ordinary people,
most of whom didn't have the opportunities or privileges or automatic access to power that were afforded to him,
shows us just what kind of selfish, dismissive, and destructive person he is.
So this is obviously a lot of new information,
and it's really jaw-dropping, even from those of us who have thought of ELEC as a bottomless pit for a very long time.
Now, just an hour before details of the indictment were announced by the second,
Carolina Attorney General's office on Friday, Elyke Murdoch's attorney Jim Griffin told
the island packet, quote, this doesn't appear to add anything new to the case other than
additional charges.
I'm sorry, what?
The depth of the new charges filed against Ehrlich Murdoch clearly contradict Griffin's
assessment.
And this is yet another confusing move on behalf of Ehrlich Murdoch's defense team, quote-unquote,
unquote, the Bulldogs, Jim Griffin, and Dick Arputtland.
On November 17th, Dick Harpoutlian and Jim Griffin filed a shocking motion, asking the court to dismiss the Gloria Satterfield lawsuit.
Harputlian and Griffin, who are now representing the disgraced attorney in multiple criminal cases and lawsuits,
argued in a motion to dismiss the lawsuit saying that Gloria Satterfield's sons have been fully compensated for their alleged losses.
Therefore, Eleg Mardock, who was allegedly the ringleader in the scheme,
should not have to pay any money back.
Now, for a reminder,
Satterfield Sons have settled with five parties
connected to the botched wrongful death settlement
since their attorneys filed a lawsuit in September.
Eleg Murdoch is the only remaining party in that case
who has not paid them a dime.
And their attorneys, since they filed the lawsuit,
have recovered more than $6.5 million
from five other parties allegedly connected to the scheme.
And this week, Harputian and Griffin had the, as Eric Blan puts it, Boles to file this motion
claiming basically that Ehrlich Murdoch deserves to escape civil accountability in this case
because he is entitled to a credit for more than the $6 million paid by all the other
alleged settling tortfeasers.
End quote.
So it probably feels like we're rewining here, but this was such a big moment on Wednesday
people were furious after everything that's come out in the glorious Satterfield settlement in the last few months,
and then Ehrlich still wants to escape fault and not admit that he's wrong and not be held accountable.
And of course, one of those people who was extremely furious on Wednesday was Eric Blan.
As you can tell, I'm a little bit upset here.
I'm pissed.
Not surprising.
Not surprising.
I told you he was going to do it.
But I didn't expect the first argument that I,
I get to keep the money because I'm declaring that the Satterfields have been fully paid.
I didn't think anybody had the set of balls to actually put that in a plea.
Yes, if I took the money, I get to keep it because somebody else repaid it for me.
Bland was blown away by this motion and confused as to why Dick and Jim,
two previously highly respected lawyers in South Carolina, would stick their necks out for someone like L.A.
Murdoch. It's just another
action that
you're scratching, your left
scratching your head and say, is
there a master strategy here,
or are they just wing in it?
The bail, you know, the habeas
corpus before the Supreme Court,
or gone in the
Magister Court and the deal was
already cut for the bail. All
this stuff, you're wondering, you know,
is he that much smarter than everybody
else? He sees this
battlefield differently, or
is it really, they're just winging it.
I could see him laughing saying, hey, this is great.
I'm going to make a motion that says,
plaintiff doesn't have any damage just because they've been fully paid.
What he didn't really think about is, what I'm really saying is,
my thief gets the cake to money.
We were all puzzled coming up with theories as to why Dick and Jim
would make such a brazen, ballsy move as the eyes of the world were on this case.
Here's Liz.
Okay, so there are a couple of theories here.
The first would be the most obvious and perhaps most despicable,
and that is Ehrlich actually believes he doesn't owe glorious sons any money.
Another theory would be that the charges are piling up now,
and this is another sign they may be exploring ways to pin the missing Satterfield money on someone else,
like Ehrlich's best friend, Corey Fleming,
and they want to create some space for Elex's innocence in the future.
Yet another theory is one that is very puzzling to us,
A researcher and several lawyers believe the filing could be a Trojan horse in that state
Senator Harpoolian and Mr. Griffin know that their arguments to dismiss Ehrlich have no legal
standing, and their real objective here is to delay the case.
The reason this seems so bizarre to the both of us is that it's akin to letting your face on fire
to get out of gym class, when you could save everyone the drama and just say you have cramps.
Is there a plan here?
Because every move Dick and Jim have made.
made in the last month has appeared to be self-inflicted. I asked Eric Bland's question.
Mike Tyson said, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. They got punched
in the face last month when that bail got denied. They got punched in the face when Judge
Hall granted the motion for a receivership. They got punched in the face when Judge Newman denied
Bond for the second time. They're getting punched in the face at every time. They're getting punched in the
face at every turn. It's not their fault. They didn't make up the facts. Now, they chose to dive into
this deep end. They didn't have to. They could have just as easily have said, hey, we're representing
Alex Murdoch on a limited basis on this criminal charge, dealing with the Labor Day shooting,
or even the glorious outfield stuff. But they chose to dive into these civil cases. And now that
they're in, it's going to be difficult for them to get out.
I don't think there's a plan, by the way.
I don't think there's this grand strategy that, you know, Dick sees this field at 30,000 feet
and everybody else is down here at the 5,000 foot level.
There are certainly cases that he does, and there's certainly cases that I've seen that
he has pulled monkeys out of a hat and, you know, really gotten an amazing.
result. It just isn't going to happen here. It isn't going to happen because he can't do what he
does best, which is leverage relationships and good deeds that he's done over the years and good work.
You're not getting credit for that here. There's two months sunlight. You're not, Mandy, Mattie is not
going to let that happen. No judge is going to be the judge that signs awful.
and stuff that happens in the darkness of a judge's chamber.
It's not going to happen.
He's not going to be able to plead to just one count of obtaining money by false pretenses
and one count of, you know, money laundering and he's going to get three years.
It's not going to happen, Mandy.
The outrage, forget the rank and fly people.
The bar is not going to let it happen.
We as lawyers are on trial right now.
And I can't tell you how many lawyers, defense lawyers,
that used to hate me and still do because I sue lawyers, Mandy.
I get phone calls and emails, keep up the good work, keep up the fight.
They want to clean it up.
They're not happy with what happens in Hampton County when their corporations and defense clients get sued.
They're not happy with Alex Murdox.
stealing money. I'm not. No lawyer is. It's a pollution of our profession. The thing that doesn't get
talked about enough in this case is the magnitude of state Senator Dick Harputlian's influence.
Not only legally and legislatively, not only locally and federally, but in the mainstream media, too,
they love them some Harpo. When you are paying for Senator Harputlian to represent you as your
attorney, you are paying for that power. He has influence over who becomes a judge, how much
money Sled gets in its budget, and most of all, he has access to information about ongoing
investigations involving his clients that other attorneys, and public defenders especially,
simply do not have. On the surface, it appears that Senator Harputlian and Mr. Griffin were
blindsided by these indictments. That now famous quote in a low-country newspaper just an hour
or so before the details of the indictments were announced to the public, sure seems like
they didn't know what was going on. Their audacious and desperate-seeming tactics of late also
seem to point to an increasing inability to execute the same old tricks that have brought them this
far in their careers. If that is the case, if ELEC's attorneys were truly not aware of what was happening,
this is encouraging and could be another sign that the good old boy system might fall to its knees
for good this time. So Eric and I had a moment on Friday, as we looked back on all the dominoes
that had to fall in order to get to this moment where Ehrlich is facing a lifetime of charges.
Now the stories of the Murdoch Martyr Saga is going to be told over and over by Netflix people and documentary douchebags.
I will talk about them later.
And helicopter journalist from the Wall Street Journal, etc., etc.
But none of them are going to include in their stories what Eric said to me today, no matter how many times he tells them.
And I don't want to tube my own horn here, but I do one other small-town journalist to know that all of this started out with a couple local reporters.
at a dying newspaper who just shared a common instinct that something was wrong.
But you did it. You. You uncovered the petition. You wrote the article. You were the spark that lit the fire.
Eric Harriet saw your article and went to his sister, Ginger, and started asking questions.
And then the family asked questions. And then they went to Mark Tinsley. And then Mark Tinsley sent him to me.
but Mandy Matney
you lit the spark
you took down Alex Murdoch
I couldn't have done up with her
I helped I helped
I help I help I help
I help you definitely helped
a whole lot
but yeah
it is crazy and but also
I mean I do give the credit
a lot of credit
No it's a heavy it's a
it's a lot
it's a heavy
thought
it is
that in your life in your lifetime
you did something
that will be
transformative, it will be generational, that was the right thing to do. You changed the world
because you're taking a guy off the street. It was not just harming one person. He was harming
a lot of different people. This is a serial criminal, a serial thief, a serial pen slinger. I call him a
pen slinger. You could call them a gun slinger. I call them a serial pen slinger. You do not know
that when people don't get money and they don't get treatment for their injuries and in
personal injury cases that they're not, that they're not fiscular. But now, you know, I was with
them yesterday. And I will tell you this, money has a way, obviously, making a psalving wounds.
But they're smiling because they do realize.
that their sister, this quote, housekeeper that everybody likes to just call a housekeeper, didn't
die in vain. Mallory Beach didn't die in vain. They were responsible their deaths for bringing
down Alex Murdoch. Yeah. How many more people would he have continued to victimize?
Yeah, absolutely. And again, I'm not sharing this because I want praise. I'm sharing this
because oftentimes the good old boys make people like me feel like bringing down an entire system
is so impossible and way too complicated. But at the heart of it, it isn't. And I say this because I know
a lot of journalists are out there listening and I want them to know that they too can change the world.
Every day, journalists have choices. They can take the easy route. The story spoon fed by a defense
attorney because you know you will need him for quotes in other spoon-fed stories later on.
Or you can take on the story that makes you proud when you go to bed every night.
The story that you can't shake until the truth is out.
The story that can change an entire justice system and make people's lives better.
The story that can change the world if you don't give up.
I hope you take the hard story.
I hope that you too change the world through the goodness of your heart and the power
of your voice. There are so many questions that we have to answer in this never-ending Murdoch
murder saga. Who killed Maggie and Paul? Who killed Stephen? What happened to Gloria? How many
victims are out there? He's loaded up to, you know, over hundreds of years of time. This is even
before you get to the end of the white collar crimes. There's other victims, Mandy. I have seen
the checks that have come from the murder law firm to forge.
There's individual bank accounts that have not been publicly discussed.
So we haven't gotten to the end of the white collar stuff.
You haven't gotten to Cousin Eddie.
You haven't gotten to the point of, okay, why is he receiving all these payments?
What are they for?
Are those crimes?
Yeah.
Are there laundering crimes going on there?
Yeah.
You haven't gotten to the Maggie and Paul killings.
Not that he had anything to do with it.
But somebody's going to have to determine and make a final statement on how they occurred.
It's just not going to sit out there that they got shot and killed and their crimes are going to go unsolved.
Yeah.
This is really serious stuff.
and I believe after talking with Creighton Waters, it's a lot of information this grand jury was processing,
and they're being given it to them in increment meals instead of just throwing it all at them at once.
You know, it's a lot to process when you process, you know, obtaining the money by false pretenses, a computer crime
and a money laundering for this, you know, for each separate victim.
It can all really be daunting when I stop and think that we're just scratching the surface here,
but because you all believed in us and because you invested in accountability journalism.
We now have another truth seeker, which is Liz Ferrell, working for us around the clock
to find answers to these questions.
And I'm more confident than ever that we will get answers in this, no matter how long it takes.
Happy Thanksgiving to all of the Murdoch Murders Podcast fans out there.
And again, subscribe and check out Murdochmurterspodcast.com so you too can support our mission.
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,
visit Murdochmurterspodcast.com and click the support the show link to learn how you can help.
Leave a five-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 and your subscription.
descriptions are invaluable to that mission.
Plus, you get awesome content every day.
And don't forget to leave a five-star review, unless you're going to be nasty and talk about my vocal fright.
The Murdoch Murder's podcast is created by me, Mandy Matney, and my Beyonce, David Moses.
Produced by Luna Shark Productions.
