Murdaugh Murders Podcast - TSP #156 [Part Two] - Reasonable Fear of an Unreasonable Justice System: More on Mandy's $176,500 Punishment Without Process

Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode is brought to you by FIFA World Cup, launch edition, on Netflix. It's a fast, fluid game where your phone is the controller and your TV is the stadium. You just launch it on your TV, scan the QR code with your phone, and boom, you're shooting and passing in seconds. Plus, it's included in your Netflix membership

Starting point is 00:00:21 with zero extra costs. Go to the Games tab and play FIFA World Cup launch edition now, only on Netflix. The first ever all-electric 2026 Subaru Trail Seeker is the EV for the trail obsessed, with up to 444 kilometers on a full charge and DC fast charging from 10 to 80% in about 30 minutes in ideal conditions. Plus, ample ground clearance and symmetrical all-wheel drive make the 2026 Trail Seeker the most capable EV Subaru has ever built. Test drive it at your local Subaru dealer or visit Subaru.ca. This is part two of episode 156 of True Sunlight, a podcast exposing crime and corruption, previously known as the Murdoch Martyrs podcast.

Starting point is 00:01:17 True Sunlight is a Luna Shark production written with journalist Liz Farrell. Hoof. Well, it has been a week, but we are still standing. We are still standing up for victims. We are still standing up for the truth, standing up for journalism. And y'all, you are standing up for me. At the beginning of the week, it felt like the wind was knocked out of me. And while it sucks a whole lot,

Starting point is 00:01:47 I'm realizing that this is what they want. They want us to shrink. They want me to look at fake, bought and paid for social media accounts that are celebrating this as some sort of victory for who exactly I'm not sure. Is it a victory for the judge? Who's now outed for being who he is, in front of everyone watching and listening,

Starting point is 00:02:09 Maybe a victory for the felon with a fake news site? Is it a victory for the billionaire who still has to go to trial against Mark the Tiger Tinsley and still hasn't shown one shred of evidence, publicly at least, that he did not do what he's accused of? Maybe it's a victory for those who don't like my politics or my political friends running against them. Is it a victory for proponents of big government who love the idea that the government is redistributing wealth from those who aren't wealthy? me to a billionaire who is. I don't know. But here is what I do know.

Starting point is 00:02:47 Our legal at lunasharkmedia.com email account is filled with lawyers from inside South Carolina and from around the country sharing insight and support, from Texas to Alabama to Washington State and beyond. And get this. We have a meeting in Chicago next week with one of the biggest public affairs and constitutional advocacy firms in the country, which identified my contempt appeal. as one that could potentially go all the way to the United States Supreme Court. You see, over here on Team Sunlight,

Starting point is 00:03:16 we believe that the First Amendment, the Sixth Amendment, the Eighth Amendment, and the concept of due process still matter. I hope Mebby is stocked up on pickle juice for the road because Little Miss Matney might be going to Washington, D.C. to defend the Constitution against a gas hole's vanity mission to bury us. Oh, and our Patreon launch has been wildly. successful. Thank you to all the new premium members and all of the folks switching over from Supercast to check it out. If you haven't checked your email, please consider joining Lunashark

Starting point is 00:03:49 Premium on Patreon. If already a member, consider checking out our new digs on Patreon. They are awesome. Our members at LunasharkMedia.com account is rock chalk full of support comments. And the chats on Patreon are heating up with support and warmth beyond expectations. Thank you to the 100,000. hundreds of people. I think there's over 700 now who have donated to the GoFundMe, which will help us navigate the machinations of an appeal. We love all the pro bono offers, but we also have hard expenses too. And thank you to all the amazing backers who have been supporting our reporting through Supercast donations. Again, this week has been hell, but y'all have been carrying us through. Patreon, GoFundMe, Supercast, all great ways to support our mission.

Starting point is 00:04:39 and keep us going. And there are very special people I would like to think in that regard. To the hundreds of anonymous folks contributing, I know it's scary to support this, but we want you to know that we still appreciate all of you. And we appreciate you, Jennifer G. You, Lisa B. You, Mary Jojurich.

Starting point is 00:04:59 Dan Pavlin, while thank you for always being on the right side. Dan's Endurance Race Services team helped us bring our Walking with Stephen event to life last year. Y'all, he is a champ. And thank you to Lynn CD, to Kimberly Menlove, and Mirth York. And so many more we plan on celebrating in future episodes. All told, the GoFundMe is showing $54,000 raised in just a couple days, and that's for our legal defense. Wow. And that does not count the support flowing into Supercast and Patreon to fund our journalism, which is not going anywhere. Oh, and I've been staying off social media for a bit, but I'm hearing reports that there are a lot of suspicious accounts parenting Team Parker's filings and rhetoric. That sounds familiar for some reason.

Starting point is 00:05:51 Hmm. Oh, that's right. Isn't Mark Tensley and the Beach family accusing Greg Parker of allegedly hiring cyber security companies to influence public opinion to escape accountability? Huh, that's funny. Maybe it's a coincidence. If you can't fund the mission, consider helping us by flagging all of those fake accounts we are seeing on social media. Just find the suspicious account and flag it as suspicious. Nothing bothers a bot farm more than having its accounts flagged and removed.

Starting point is 00:06:20 And I'm sure y'all saw that our dear friend Eric Bland is going to be taking a step back from Cup of Justice. We will announce more plans soon about what we will be doing with Cup of Justice going forward. But stay tuned for a very special COJ next week. And now I'm going to give this one to Liz because she has a lot to say. So, this past week, Judge R. Keith Kelly found Mandy to be in contempt of court for the March 27th deposition that the attorneys for billionaire gas station owner Greg Parker refused to conduct at her attorney's office in Bluffton, where Mandy sat ready, willing, and able to be deposed. Instead of where they wanted to hold it at the small law firm, a short distance way, where a felon who appears to be fixated on Mandy and who's who's. seems intent on ruining her career and who was admitted to working with Parker's attorneys, was threatened to show up. For that act of civic audacity as punishment for wanting to feel

Starting point is 00:07:18 safe in her environment during a deposition with aggressive and hostile attorneys who refused to accommodate her per the rules and common practice, Judge Kelly has ordered Mandy to pay reasonable fees and costs to Greg Parker's attorneys. That's what the law allows them to do, to charge Mandy reasonable attorney fees and costs related to Greg Parker's pursuit of this contempt finding. And those reasonable fees and costs are $171,500. Whoa, whoa, whoa, y'all, that's the discounted price, according to the order. Judge Kelly reduced the apparent $310,000 request from Parker's attorney's Debbie Barbier, Mark Moore, Rhett Ricard, and Jim Bannister by 44.7%. Thank you, Judge Kelly. Oh, and then there's the $5,000 fine, which goes to the court.

Starting point is 00:08:12 As you all know, our position on this has been that Greg Parker pursued this contempt charge recreationally and unnecessarily and in retaliation for past coverage of him that he did not like. And in our opinions, his attorneys were only too happy to oblige that pursuit, given their own histories with us in the Murdoch case. Debbie Barbier represented Eleg's best friend and co-conspirator Corey Fleming. who was currently serving time in prison. And Mark Moore represented Alex Banker and co-conspirator, Russell Lafitte, who was also serving time in prison.

Starting point is 00:08:46 Mark Moore famously filed a brief with federal court whining about how Russell couldn't get a fair trial in Charleston because I was calling him Russell can't admit defeat Lafitte, and Mandy had called him a doofus on social media and in our podcasts. I mean, Russell commissioned. a Barbara Walter style interview of himself by one of his legions of cousins that got posted online right as he was going to trial in 2022. So if that's not a doofus, then I don't know what it is. Anyway, in our opinions, Debbie and Mark aren't just mad at us for our history with them, but for our present with them as well. They don't like us pointing out the inconsistencies and

Starting point is 00:09:28 their arguments, and they don't like Mandy voicing her opinion of their very public behaviors. This whole thing, in our opinions, has been a very expensive and destructive visit to the old ego surgeon for Greg Parker. We hurt his fragile ego, and now Judge Kelly has sutured it back together for him. While giving Mandy a discount! A discount! Y'all, these attorneys say they spent more than $310,000, the price of a house, to prove that Mandy had no right to be fearful on the day of her deposition to the point that she had, had requested something very normal and very common for a non-party deponent to have the

Starting point is 00:10:08 deposition in her attorney's office. And the judge believed them. To the extent that he is charging her $171,500, which is also the price of a house for a fight they electively took on and electively continued long after they got what they wanted her deposition. The judge could have narrowed her financial burden in this to the March 27th deposition that didn't happen and the April 7th hearing, which was one day before her deposition was taken. But no, he went full standing desk commando on her. And in our opinions, Parker's attorney spent most of that time and money diverting Judge Kelly's attention away from the fact that once Mandy ran out of her rightful legal options to quash the subpoena, Mandy cooperated. Her legal team tried to work.

Starting point is 00:10:59 with Parker's team to get a date and time and location settled, but Parker's only wanted it their way to be held on their turf wherever that turf may be, or make Mandy pay for a hotel conference room to have it there. And in light of their relationship with Jim Seidel and Sadale's mission to take down Mandy professionally and Seidel's publishing of our allegedly stolen work-related text messages and Seidel's continued misstatement of facts and contorted theories of the case. And in light of Seidel's ever-increasing fixation on Mandy and his increase in posting about Mandy's deposition, in the lead-up to March 27th, including hinting that he would be there at the deposition, Mandy and her team grew concerned.

Starting point is 00:11:43 Why are Parker's attorney so insistent in having this at a place that's not Mandy's turf, in a place where she will feel vulnerable and not at ease? That is not how this is supposed to work in this circumstance. I thought they wanted information from her. Again, Mandy did the right thing. She asked the judge for help. He denied her that help. He just didn't tell her that he did that.

Starting point is 00:12:06 So she couldn't respond to that development in real time. She couldn't say, okay, I'm out of options. He's making me do this. Let's figure this out. Parker's attorneys were successful at this one thing, really. This diverting of Judge Kelly's attention away from all that and toward Mandy's social media presence and her well-established disdain for a system that so repeatedly lets itself get used,

Starting point is 00:12:29 as a tool of intimidation by the powerful against the powerless. She called you are Kelly, your honor. She hates us, your honor. She has no respect for you, your honor. And he fell for it. Despite Mandy hoping against hope that Judge Kelly would see what the rest of us were seeing, which is that all of this was unnecessary and way over the top. Mandy wanted to believe in Judge Kelly's willingness to see how unnerving it was for her

Starting point is 00:12:58 to see that Seidel was posting about showing up her deposition. Worse than that, Judge Kelly allowed statements to be put on the record with that order that altogether distort the issues and arguments and that reaffirm a woman's state of helplessness when it comes to expressing her fears in a legal system not built for her. And these statements do nothing but give John Monk and the felon, the media, and content creators who are determined to see Mandy through one lens only, and the trolls, pre-packaged, incorrect, and easily manipulated talking points to support their own misinformed takes on the situation. Already, Seidel has posted a Photoshop photo of Mandy with a quote that

Starting point is 00:13:40 he wrongly attributed to Judge Kelly, quote, referring to Mandy Matney in his contempt order. The quote is in the bitchy little footnote of the order, again, which was written by Parker's attorneys, and it's actually from South Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice John Kittredge. talking about the spotlight that's been on the judicial system in the wake of Eleg Mardock's first trial. David, will you read the part that Jim Seidel purposely misattributes to Judge Kelly and purposely mischaracterizes as being about Mandy? Ms. Matney has repeated this narrative that the Parker's attorneys are using this deposition to punish her for Murdoch coverage on her podcasts and on social media,

Starting point is 00:14:25 attacking the Parker's defendant's attorneys and occasionally the court itself. Chief Justice Kitcheridge recently noted the issue facing the judiciary of, quote, have truths and false narratives that circulate on social media, podcasts, and other outlets masquerading as journalism, attacking our justice system, end quote, and observed that ethical restraints prohibit judges from responding, quote, no matter how false or outrageous the allegation may be. So, yeah, Parker's attorneys conflated Mandy's publicly stated opinions of them, the attorneys,

Starting point is 00:15:09 with the South Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice lamenting the spotlight on the judiciary at large, including that judges can't defend themselves against bad publicity. And Seidel, the felon who says he's been working, working with Parker's attorneys and who says he has an email from Judge Kelly thanking him and welcoming him into his courtroom any time misrepresented that as a quote that Judge Kelly said about Mandy's journalism. This is what we're dealing with and this is what is apparently acceptable to Judge Kelly and to cite all supporters and to people like reporter John Monk from state. Anyway, Parker's attorneys used Mandy's social media to make it look like this whole thing was about Mandy outright and willfully

Starting point is 00:15:53 disobeying the judge's order rather than what actually happened. In fear of Seidel making good on his threat to show up at her deposition location, she was choosing to wait on the judge, hoping that he would understand and see what was very clearly happening here and grant her the ability to be deposed in a place that did not further traumatize her. As a non-partied opponent, she deserved the opportunity to testify in an environment that did not immediately cause fear. And in fact, she had asked Parker's attorneys to consider having her deposition at Beaufort County Courthouse. The situation boils down to this. A woman journalist who has been the repeated subject of online harassment at large, including threats on her life over the years, and more recently has faced specific and relentless

Starting point is 00:16:40 harassment from a felon who is on the record saying, he exists because of her, and who has been working with these attorneys against her and who has recorded himself singing Barry Manilow's Oh Mandy to her spoke up and Mandy said hang on I didn't know for sure y'all were working with this felon who's threatening to be here now I know you are or at least he says you are and this doesn't feel right at all can we do this at a place where I feel safe and know for sure he's not going to be allowed in but purpose attorneys told the judge the situation was this that Mandy only came up with these security fears, after all her legal options to quash the subpoena ran out. Therefore, these fears, Hey, John Monk, check behind the benches in the bushes. Is anyone there? No? Then she must be lying.

Starting point is 00:17:29 Can't possibly be real. And he never seemed to understand that this is a familiar place for so many women, where we express fear, show the evidence of what that fear is stemming from, and the men with power to help instead say, nah, that ain't scary. We know that when you're a woman, several opposing things can be true at once because they have to be for survival. And we know that when we express concerns about our safety and well-being that we're immediately met with hostility. Our fears can't exist in the gray area where the potential predators like to reside, right? Predators are protected by their own nuance, but we're not allowed to react to that or to them or to have any sort of opinion about what their actions and words might mean, what they could mean,

Starting point is 00:18:13 until it's too late. Also, in what world would Mandy broadcast her security concerns in open court out in front of these relentlessly bullying attorneys until she knew for sure she was going to have to sit for this deposition, which she learned of on March 16th, just 11 days before the March 27th scheduled deposition. Oh yeah, Parker's attorneys and John Monk like to say that Mandy avoided her deposition for months when in reality she exercised her legal rights to have the judge

Starting point is 00:18:43 judge consider her arguments of throwing out the subpoena what any journalist would do. By March 27th, she was well within the time period the judge had ordered for her deposition. Beyond that, the security threat became more acute the closer they got to the actual deposition happening, with the felon posting more pointedly about it, likening himself to Heath Ledger's version of the Joker and intimating that he'd be watching the deposition with pout corn. And on the day of her scheduled deposition, hinting that he had seen Mandy at her deposition, that he had seen an image of her with her water bottle and a sticker of a Taylor Swift lyric that she had just put on the bottle that very morning in that very office, which means somebody

Starting point is 00:19:23 with access to that feed, showed it to him. How did the judge not see that as scary? How does he not understand that all of these circumstances are what led to her asking for his health? And that she wasn't asking to do anything extraordinary or special for her. She was simply asking that he compel Parker's attorneys to do the same thing they did for non-party deponent Callie Lyons, the woman who was fired from Fitznews and who sold our work text messages to Parker's attorneys for thousands of dollars. Parker's attorneys sure did make her feel comfortable at her deposition. And we'll be right back. My name is Peter Parker, but I'm also Spider-Man.

Starting point is 00:20:10 This July, we're faced with a threat. That can be anyone. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker. I'm just a neighbor, friendly neighbor. But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility. Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big. Spider-Man, brand-new day in theaters July 31st.

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Starting point is 00:21:17 We can be brave and terrified at the same time. We have to be. We can be protective of our peace and joyfully participatory. made in public life at the same time. Why should we be denied the fun of social media because others want to ruin our days? We can be cooperative and respectful of the law while also pointing out the places where it's broken. But not in the good old boy world, apparently. The good old boy world doesn't have the capacity for nuance or duality. All they know is obey and not obey and punish. But let's talk about what's in this order. David, will you read one of the more insidious

Starting point is 00:21:54 the judge allowed to be put on the record with this. At 3 p.m. on March 27th, 2026, Ms. Matney filed a status update on emergency motion to set deposition location, where she relayed that she had appeared at the deposition location she had arranged, with private security and waited until noon. Ms. Matney's social media posts from later that day included pictures of her eating lemon-pound. cake with plaintiff's lead counsel after the attempted deposition was adjourned and toasting herself with a beverage at an outdoor location. She also posted pictures of herself, her counsel, and her husband,

Starting point is 00:22:40 having what appears to be a celebratory meal outing in Savannah. The court observes that Ms. Matney's posts memorializing these activities evidence her intent to defy her obligation to appear at the noticed deposition location. Again, this is the judge falling for Parker's attorney's mischaracterization of the truth. The truth is that Mandy posted pictures of the lunch she had on the way to driving her attorney Rebecca Lindahl to the Savannah airport, after Parker's attorneys decided not to take her deposition on March 27th. It's scary, y'all. Greg Parker is a scary person.

Starting point is 00:23:17 Mark Moore is scary, and he was threatening her with legal action. He refused to acknowledge her attorney Meredith Bannonh. made it seem like she was facing jail time. Mandy did not know why they were so angry and insistent that the deposition get held at the place that Jim Seidel appeared to know about. She had to ask herself, if this is how I'm being treated with two attorneys by my side, then how are others getting treated within this system? Mandy is a public figure. She was a public figure before all this took place. She documents her life online for her fans. This is part of her life, part of her profession. And this is what she's facing as a result of doing her job. Again, two things can be true at once. She can be

Starting point is 00:23:58 respectful of the process and offer up alternatives for meeting her obligation, while also speaking up about the ways it is infringed upon her comfort, safety, and peace of mind. She can celebrate making it through the scary and uncertain day while also respecting the judge's decision on her emergency motion, which again, she was waiting to find out. Wouldn't it have been nice if this order for contempt included the fact that Mandy posted those photos of eating in Savannah after she left Savannah, and that Seidel, seemingly in response to Mandy's posts, immediately posted an AI-generated photo of himself, standing with his arm around an AI-generated version of Buster Murdof outside a Savannah restaurant near the very one where

Starting point is 00:24:40 Mandy had been eating with David and her legal team earlier. Nothing to fear there, though, right? Totally normal behavior. David, will you read this next part of the order, too? In a form four order filed on March 30, 2026, the court denied Ms. Matney's emergency motion and noted that, quote, the parties have had nearly five months since the first notice of this deposition to agree on a location, and Ms. Matney sought to raise this issue less than one week prior to the scheduled deposition, end quote. Again, the judge is allowing something dangerous to be memorialized there. Mandy didn't know until March 16th that she would for sure have to sit for this deposition, and it wasn't until after March 16th that Seidel's posts about the deposition, the one that was now

Starting point is 00:25:31 ordered to happen, started to pop up with increased frequency. It wasn't until then that a source close to Callie Lyons came forward with direct knowledge of how Callie had sold our work product text messages to Parker's attorneys with Jim Seidel's help. Meaning, circumstances change and they change quickly. Fears can be heightened when more facts are known. But the judge ignores that. It completely overlooks the precarious nature of a woman's sense of safety. Why is this so hard? There's documented evidence of these posts increasing from a man whose mission appears to be to destroy Mandy's career and credibility. But Mandy was supposed to have brought this up in November when she didn't know she'd lose her motions with the court and when the felon's post had not presented a meeting.

Starting point is 00:26:20 fears of physical encroachment. How does that make any sense? What is the next horrible thing in this horrible order, David? Oh, wait, read the part in the analysis about deponents and locations of depositions. That feels fitting right about now. If a deponent wishes to be deposed at a different location, it is incumbent upon her to secure either an agreement with the noticing party or seek a protective order from the court, inquiring that the deposition be held in a different location. Um, isn't that exactly what Mandy did, David? Yep, sure is. Exactly. Sorry. Keep reading. It is undisputed that no order of this court stayed, modified, or excused Ms. Matney's obligation to appear for her deposition at the noticed location. But on March 27th, Mandy was waiting for an order.

Starting point is 00:27:17 She was. And there's more. Ms. Matney did not raise any objection to the deposition location in her original motion to quash or her motion to reconsider. And she acknowledged that in her earlier affidavit, she did not identify any safety concerns about the noticed location as a basis for relief. But that's because she didn't know yet for sure that she would be sitting for this deposition because the judge hadn't ruled on that yet. And those weren't her grounds for quashing the subpoena anyway, right? Right. And the concerns about Seidel showing up at Mandy's deposition didn't come to our attention until after March 16th. Right at the time, we were learning that Seidel had been working with Parker's attorneys, according to Callie Lyon's sworn deposition testimony.

Starting point is 00:28:07 Again, the judge is memorializing the facts of this case in a way that displays absolutely zero understanding of how and when these fears materialized and no consideration of, of the logical progression and evolution of thought as a motion makes its way through the docket and the reality of a situation becomes more clear. Keep reading, David. The court notes that it is troubled by Ms. Matney's counsel's tolerance and facilitation of her decision to disobey the subpoena and the court's order. It's not clear which court order is being referred to there. Is it the one the judge signed the morning of March 27th but didn't communicate? to anyone until the afternoon of the next business day after the weekend?

Starting point is 00:28:55 Or is it the one from March 16th that gave Mandy 14 days from March 30th to be deposed? Because last time I checked, March 27 isn't March 30th, which would be the least generous interpretation of what 14 days from March 16th meant. And Mandy's attorneys made Mandy available for deposition on March 30th as well, and on subsequent days, and ultimately she sat for that deposition on April 8th. And are you kidding me? The court is troubled that Mandy's legal team, who were utterly baffled by the bizarre and aggressive behavior of the Parker's attorneys and their refusal to confer about the location issue, feared for their kind of safety,

Starting point is 00:29:37 when Jim Seidel was out there posting about the deposition? And after these same aggressive and hostile attorneys purchased work text messages that included the names of our sources in them, along with strategy about how we do our jobs related to stories that have nothing to do with Greg Parker, you're telling me that if Mark Moore were Maddie's attorney, that he would have allowed Mark Tinsley and Tabor Vox to depose her at that location? I mean, far be it for me to get into Mark Moore's brain to guess at what he'd do, but everything else has gone to hell, so why not? Here's how I think Mark Moore would have responded to Well, Mark Moore.

Starting point is 00:30:21 Okay. Mr. Tinsley and Mr. Vaux. Mr. Vaux. Mr. Vox. Okay. We're going to get to that in a minute, Your Honor, okay? I've been a lawyer, okay? A prosecutor, okay?

Starting point is 00:30:35 And I have never seen anything like this. Mr. Seidel's post, Your Honor, are disturbing. And we're going to get to that, okay? We're going to get to that. We're going to beg the court's indulgence. Mr. Vow, Your Honor. Okay, has been told multiple times, Your Honor, okay, that Mr. Seidel is threatening to attend, okay? Attend.

Starting point is 00:30:55 Your Honor, I can't in good conscience, okay, let my client go to a conference room with one bathroom, by the way, and we're going to get to that, okay? We're going to talk about that. Okay, but Mr. Vaux, Mr. Vox, sorry, Your Honor, Mr. Seidel, okay, says he's going to attend this deposition, okay? And Mr. Tinsley and Mr. Vaux have been... Vox! Mr. Vox! Have been working with this. This... Selling, Your Honor. Okay? Again, I was a prosecutor.

Starting point is 00:31:29 Okay? Wow. That was oddly cathartic, but also I'm scarred for life by this man's deposition of me. I was giving myself PTSD there. Anyway, this judge has allowed for dangerous statements to be memorialized in his order about this. And he allows the order. to mischaracterize Mandy's argument against the location where Parker's attorneys wanted to hold the deposition by stating that this was about the office having one bathroom in the hall, which he says Mark

Starting point is 00:31:58 Tinsley testified had a lock and a code on it, thereby negating Mandy's concern about it being unsafe. You get that, right? First, here's what Mark actually said about that. And are you familiar with the office that the Parker's defendants suggested for Ms. Matney's deposition? I am. I was in attendance of Sarah Glass's deposition. And when it began on my recollections Wednesday that this issue became an issue. I reached out to Mr. Moore. I said it is a cubby home of an office. They had indicated that there were going to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 or 16 people in attendance. including Mr. Parker, Blake Redcoe was here today, Mr. Reicher. Some of those didn't end up showing up on private.

Starting point is 00:32:50 But when we were at Sarah Glasses, all they had that deposition, there's a very small officer with no one. But the problem, the real problem now, it was the bathroom. It is a bathroom, one hole, as we call them, Hunter Anderson. And there's a keypad lock. There is no one in, maybe people working in Attorney Weston's office, but there's no receptionist, there's no one to tell you what the code is.

Starting point is 00:33:16 And if there are 14 people in an all-day deposition and you've had cancer like I've had, and you have to go to the bathroom, you've got to go to the bathroom. And so I raised that to Mr. Moore. He didn't want anything to do with it. And then y'all continued to argue. Then Jim Bannister-cross examined Mark on the safety of the bathrooms. So that date will be in the deposition wherever that deposition resides. All right.

Starting point is 00:33:43 So can we agree that from that moment until this became an issue in the case, that at least there was noticed that the bathrooms were one-holders, as you've described. I'm not sure I thought. It is a one-holder. It is shared to make the dentist office. It has a keypad, but there's no place with the cut in this notice. It's like, sometimes you go to have power of the room. And so there's a while.

Starting point is 00:34:07 That's not the case in the office. this office. I personally had problems when we were there in this is glasses deposition. So the knowledge that the bathrooms were a problem is something you've had since Ms. Glass's deposition, correct? Sure. Okay. And do you agree with me that the first time that the issue of the location became prevalent in this case, or we got some indication that was inappropriate, would have been either the Friday or Saturday before the Friday of the deposition? The first time that I became aware was on the Wednesday that I sent. I think I texted you in addition to sending Mark Moore an email about the accommodations

Starting point is 00:34:48 and how they were unsuitable. And you have to drive by, literally drive by the office that they proposed to get to this office, which is farther out towards him than end. And that Wednesday was the Wednesday prior to the Friday of the notice deposition, correct? No further questions. So really what Mark has said. testified to was that there was one bathroom for the entire building, including a dentist office and its clientele, and that he had trouble using the code to open the bathroom door.

Starting point is 00:35:17 And y'all, this is so dumb, because again, two things can be true when it comes to a woman's sense of safety. That building was open to the public. Is there any scenario in which the judge could possibly imagine Mandy's worry that Jim Seidel could access the building and be loitering in the hall when she went to use the bathroom? lock or no lock, keypad or no keypad. Apparently not, because the judge chose to memorialize that in the order in a way that makes it look like Mandy was grasping its straws rather than including the bathroom issue as an example of how the building was situated in a way that would allow an interloper, a stalker, a felon with a

Starting point is 00:36:00 fixation, to be in proximity of her. It's really sick, especially coming from a judge who has a history of looking out for his own safety and the safety of his courtroom. Even as a legislator, we told you he was a legislator before all this, right? And then he stopped being a legislator? We'll talk more about that in the future, though. The point is, this man cares about safety and yet cannot imagine a scenario in which a woman with a public persona, who has endured years of bizarre and disturbing harassment and who barely left her house for years, has a very real fear of a man with the apparent mission of ruining her professional life.

Starting point is 00:36:37 It boggles the mind. Care for your skin like you care for the game. Dove Men Plus Care is an official sponsor of the FIFA World Cup 2026 and has just dropped their new limited edition deodorin and antipersprint collection for 72 hours sweat and odor protection, helping you stay fresh from kickoff to the final whistle. Visit dove.com slash CA slash E.N slash men dash care to shop now. Twizzlers keep the fun going. Yeah, I know.

Starting point is 00:37:19 I just stopped whatever you were listening to to tell you that Twizzlers keep the fun going. Well, irony isn't my forte, but twisty, chewy, yummy Twizzlers sure is. So think of Twizzlers as a little pallet cleanser for whatever's queued up, which by the way should be coming very soon. Like any second now. Okay, Twizzlers, time to keep the fun going. Okay, one more thing. David, read the worst part of this order. Beyond the extravagant and unprecedented fees, this judge wants me to pay to a billionaire.

Starting point is 00:37:56 While she may have been more comfortable at her desired location, her attorney's office, the court finds Ms. Matney's testimony that she feared for her safety to such an extent that she could not attend a deposition at the noticed location, a law firm in Bluffton, with a security guard and surrounded by her attorneys, is not credible. Moreover, there is no persuasive evidence in the record to support Ms. Matney's assertions that the Parker's defendants and their attorneys pursued her deposition to harass and bully her. Finally, Ms. Matney has stressed in filings and during hearings that she is a non-party who has nothing to do with this case. She has repeatedly represented to the court that she has

Starting point is 00:38:38 no relevant information related to this litigation except for reporting on it, and that the Parker's defendants and their attorneys are using her deposition and this contempt proceeding to harass or punish her for her reporting on the Murdoch case and to silence her. However, these assertions lack evidentiary support. And in denying Ms. Matney's motion to quash and her motion for reconsideration, the court already determined that Ms. Matney's deposition testimony was relevant, and the deposition was to proceed. Depositions are a normal part of the civil discovery.

Starting point is 00:39:13 And again, there is no persuasive evidence before this court, which would support Ms. Matney's allegation. that she is being harassed or unjustfully treated by Parker's defendants or their counsel. I feel like we need a moment of silence for the judge's humanity and impartiality there. Because what a nice gift to the Parker's attorneys, right? A repeated assertion that they did nothing wrong here, that nothing we've experienced over the past years has been real. The existence of this deposition based entirely on a made-up theory, which Parker's attorneys

Starting point is 00:39:48 knew was made up based on my deposition in November, is an example of Mandy's deposition being used to bully her into silence. The sheer amount of the attorney's fees and expenses, over $310,000 they wanted for their pursuit of contempt. For contempt is evidence of the harassment. That is an unreasonably expensive pursuit and disproportionate to the alleged act of contempt itself, which again makes it harassment in our opinions. The judge wouldn't allow Mandy's attorneys to but half of their case on the record. Again and again, he denied them saying that the evidence had nothing to do with contempt,

Starting point is 00:40:24 and over and over again, Mady's attorney said, yes, Your Honor. This speaks to the pattern, this speaks to the motive, this speaks to the tenor of what was happening here. The fact that nothing from Mandy's deposition materialized in their argument for summary judgment is evidence of this being about harassment. The fact that they spent most of that $310,000

Starting point is 00:40:43 arguing about social media posts, about the case and our nicknames for them and that whole binder of photos of Mandy that she had posted from around the world after she left each location that they repeatedly told the judge proved she wasn't afraid for her safety no matter how many times Mandy said to them from the stand I do not announce to the public where I am only where I have been for real though y'all how can a judge order a non-party deponent to pay three major law firms 171,000 $500, the cost of a murder defense, by the way, two murder defenses even, to cover the expenses and fees of pursuing this contempt charge against her and not see what was happening here.

Starting point is 00:41:28 That in and of itself is so abnormal that is kept all of us in shock these past few days. Oh, and how is it that this judge sat through, well, stood through hours of arguments last week from Mark Moore about why his client deserved to have this case moved from Hampton County to Spartanburg County, the home of Judge Kelly and Jim Bannister, and didn't notice that Mark Moore's entire argument was Mandy's social media, okay? Mark Moore called a former FBI agent to the stand at Beaver County Courthouse last Monday, whose purpose was to serve as a yes man. To say yes to every leading question Mark Moore asked him about a messy timeline that Mark Moore's office had put together in some messy effort to prove that Mark Tinsley coordinates coverage with Mandy.

Starting point is 00:42:14 when all he proved was that Mark Tinsley is a lawyer and Mandy is a reporter. Three hours were spent discussing Mandy's in my social media posts. Mark Moore even made a point to tell the court that Mandy left Twitter after President Donald Trump's election in his, in Mark Moore's not-so-slick dog whistle to the conservative Judge Kelly that Mandy's not Maga, Your Honor. There is no doubt in our minds that Judge Kelly got distracted by Parker's relentless drumbeat of Mandy's social media, Mandy social media, Mandy social media, that continued after her contempt hearing in an effort to falsely conflate Mandy's opinions

Starting point is 00:42:53 with Mandy's actions when a very real safety concern, very easily understood and documented, existed. Twice, Mandy told Judge Kelly that had she known that he had denied her emergency motion and petition for relief about the location that morning of March 27th of the deposition, and she would have gone to the location where Parker's attorneys were and made it work. Twice he didn't listen to her or didn't care. Instead, he focused on the manufactured fluff of it all, on the circusry, on the pageantry, and on old notions of what a scared woman looks like

Starting point is 00:43:30 and what a scared woman acts like. How easy would it have been for him to have said to Parker's attorneys on March 27th? If he want the deposition, go the 2700 feet to her. Stop being difficult. Stop making this harder. Stop wasting time by not being cooperative with other lawyers. A pattern for them, by the way, in our opinions. Instead, Judge Kelly said, let the clock keep running. Instead, he said, sure, that totally makes sense, that this pursuit of contempt would cost $310,000. No, that's not a retaliatory action. That's normal. And it doesn't say anything about the man,

Starting point is 00:44:12 willing to spend those resources on this, even after he got the deposition he wanted. It's still so surreal that this is how Judge Kelly ruled. It is still so unbelievable. $171,500 is what he considers to be reasonable attorney fees and expenses. And I'm still stuck on the same question I had from the beginning. Why me? Because I spoke up? Because I do this for a living?

Starting point is 00:44:47 Because I had the audacity to ask the court to allow for my well-being and peace of mind? I was there on March 27th. I was ready. I was willing to be deposed. I just wanted to feel safe and protected from Jim Seidel's threatened appearance. Was I supposed to trust that Parker's attorneys were going to have my best interest there when they would not even say that they wanted me to feel safe to? In the meantime, every day is a slap in the face as the man who had the photos, Greg Roman,

Starting point is 00:45:21 continues to dodge service for his deposition with no apparent repercussions. Every day is a slap in the face considering how the attorneys who subpoenaed Greg Roman on behalf of Parker's co-defendants, private investigators Max Bertotti and Henry Vrizado, had to fight really hard just to get their motion to show cause heard. And me? Oh, Judge Kelly docketed those motions, lickety-split. But Greg Roman, the man who knows the person who gave him the photos of Mallory Beach's body? I wonder if Judge Kelly even knows how this looks.

Starting point is 00:45:59 Or if he cares. And that's the thing I keep going back to. If our judges in South Carolina were elected like the rest of the country, minus Virginia, they would care. They would be forced to care. a whole lot more about what people thought about their decisions. I have said it all along that the number one problem with our justice system in South Carolina is our judges, and we can fix it by allowing the people to elect our judges the way that it

Starting point is 00:46:31 should be. But apparently, judges, maybe like Judge Kelly, don't like that idea. And now I'm being punished for it. Please continue to support us by signing up for Luna Shark Premium on our new Patreon platform and or by going to our GoFundMe. Those links are in the description. Please do whatever you can to shine light in this dark time. Until next time, stay tuned, stay pesky, and stay in the sunlight. True Sunlight is a Luna Shark production created by me, Mandy Matney, co-hosted and reported by journalist Liz Farrell. Research support provided by Beth Braden. Audio production support provided

Starting point is 00:47:26 by Jamie Hoffman and Grace Hills. Case file management by Kate Thomas. Learn more about our mission and membership at LunaSharkMedia.com. Interruptions provided by Luna and Joe Pesky. Years before, the name Elyke Murdoch was splashed across every major media outlet. I was a local South Carolina journalist and I had an instinct that something wasn't right in the low country. The powerful Murdoch dynasty dominated rural South Carolina for generations. Few dared to publicly utter a harsh word against them. From the newsroom to the courtroom to the kitchen table where we recorded the number one global hit,

Starting point is 00:48:11 The Murdoch Murders podcast, I invite you to learn more about my book, Blood on Their Hands. Blood on their hands is a harrowing first-person narrative of battles against systemic subversions of the truth, overcoming institutional sexism, corruption, and threats to my personal safety to expose a network of horrific crimes and give voice to victims. Click the link in the description to order today. Visit any retailers near you or visit lunasharkmedia.com slash book to learn the best way you can stay pesky and stay in the sunlight.

Murdaugh Murders Podcast - TSP #156 [Part Two] - Reasonable Fear of an Unreasonable Justice System: More on Mandy's $176,500 Punishment Without Process

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