Murdaugh Murders Podcast - What Happened To The Money? Part One (S01E16)

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

On Tuesday, November 2, 2021 Judge Daniel Hall ordered an injunction and appointed receivers to manage and recover funds that could pay alleged victims currently suing disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh. Hall made his decision four days after attorney Mark Tinsley presented his arguments to appoint two outside parties — attorney John T. Lay Jr. and former U.S. attorney Peter M. McCoy Jr. — to have control over Alex and Buster Murdaugh’s assets, which is known as “receivership” in the court. We also hear from the attorney representing Gloria Satterfield's estate, Eric Bland whose investigation into the handling of Gloria's insurance settlement uncovered a heap of evidence which SLED and the SC Attorney General's office used to charge Alex with fraud and other indictments. And a special thank you to: The Bannon Law Group - From sitting by the fires to setting them, the Bannon Law Group has got you covered. Lauren Taylor Law - Few events are more traumatic and stressful than a divorce - let Lauren Taylor make a plan tailor made for you. Visit Lauren Taylor dot com to learn more. Nature's Highway CBD - Nature’s Highway is dedicated to introducing consumers to the life changing potential of CBD and its family of other relevant cannaboiniods. We pride ourselves on providing the purest, highest quality hemp products at the most competitive prices. Midwood Smokehouse - Your neighborhood smokehouse using nothing but NC hickory hard wood and hard work to make the best barbecue around. Woof Gang Bakery - Woof Gang Bakery® is the leading specialty retailer of pet food, pet supplies and professional pet grooming in North America, with more than 150 locations open or under development across the U.S. Woof Gang Bakery offers the very best in pet care by providing quality products and grooming with a service-oriented approach. For current and accurate updates: Twitter.com/mandymatney Support Our Podcast at: https://murdaughmurderspodcast.com/support-the-show Please consider sharing your support by leaving a review on Apple at the following link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/murdaugh-murders-podcast/id1573560247 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I don't know where all of Alec Murdoch's money went, but a South Carolina judge just made a promising ruling that should lead to answers in this deepening mystery. My name is Mandy Matney, and I've been investigating the Murdoch family for more than two and a half years now, and this is the Murdoch Murders podcast. The Murdoch Murders podcast

On Tuesday, Judge Daniel Hall ordered an injunction to freeze Alec Murdoch's assets and appointed receivers to manage and recover funds that could pay alleged victims currently suing the Murdochs, and that is a big deal. But to understand how big of a deal this is, we need to go back a couple weeks and explain how this ruling happened.

Let's go back to Friday, October 22nd, just three days after Alec Murdoch was denied bond. Eric Blaine called me early in the morning. The audio here is imperfect. As I said before, I'm always a journalist before I'm a podcaster, and in this moment, I was more concerned about breaking the story than it was

about getting perfect audio. You'll also hear from our sweet dog Luna, who tends to get excited when Eric Blaine calls. Friday bombshell week, our filing, Mark Tinsley is filing, and Joe McCullough is filing, all three of us, the same motion to have a receiver appointed for Alec Murdoch

and all of his assets and everything. And it's gonna be John T. Lay, who is a significant defense attorney in this state. The bombshell motion is saying essentially that he's already shown that he's dissipating assets. The receiver has extremely broad powers. To give you an example, Peter Protopis has been appointed by Justice Colt,

and she sits over all the asbestos cases in the state. And essentially, the receiver goes out and sues everybody, recover money for a fund of victims, and already they've recovered $200 billion, and it's just nine months. Same kind of thing that we're doing here. John T. Lay is gonna be an officer, either under Don Bader, or an appointed judge,

and he essentially has the broadest powers of anybody under the law. He literally can walk into any business bank with an order, show them the order, and say hand over everything you got. And so, Mark Tinsley's motion's already filed, in his case, so you can look at it, but this is essentially gonna block Alex to the point

if you won't even be able to buy a cup of coffee. That's quote. And anybody in this family, it'll void the power of the attorney that Buster has, and this guy will go after the money at Bank of America traces. He will unwind every single transaction that Alex has done since 2015,

and he opens a Bank of America account. He'll go to people who have money and say you have to discourse that money. And more importantly, he's gonna trace, and I want you to listen to this, Dick Carputlian and Jim Griffin's fees. Dick Carputlian and Jim Griffin, who are currently representing Alex

in multiple criminal cases, were hired to defend Paul Murdock in the Boe Crash criminal case in either March or April 2019, which would be soon after Alec Murdock transferred a large amount of settlement money to his own account, according to prosecutors. Bland said that the receivers will be able to find out

whether or not Griffin and Carputlian were paid in fees from the Satterfield settlement. Basically, the receivers should be able to find out where all of Alex's money is gone since he opened the Forge account in 2015. It is so oppressive, you cannot believe it. You just cannot believe the powers of a receiver. We have one of them,

the broadest receiver statutes in the country. And I'm telling you, Alex will not be able to buy a cup of coffee. And Dick Carputlian and Jim Griffin should look long and hard on whether they want to start spending their attorney's big money that they're getting from Alex either before or now, because it's coming all back in.

What the receiver does is he goes out and he secures and marshals all of the money and it goes into a fund. And then the court decides on the victims who gets it. Alex is going to absolutely, in his jail cell, when he hears this, he knows the, because he's a lawyer, he knows what is coming. And there's no stopping the receiver.

There's no, they go wherever the money goes. It's absolutely follows the money. He literally comes in and takes over a failed entity or a failed person with tons of money and tons of creditors. He becomes a legitimate, he's like a combination of a judge and the highest ranking law enforcement officer you can imagine.

And he has direct line communication with the judge who will preside over the case. Got it. So keeping up with all the lawsuits against Alec Murdoch is super tricky. And I want to do a quick recap, because Eric Bland, Joe McCullough and Mark Tensley all filed motions to freeze Alec's assets.

So the first lawsuit was Mark Tensley's lawsuit. Mark Tensley has been in this fight against the Murdochs for more than two and a half years. He filed the wrongful death lawsuit against Alec Murdoch, Buster Murdoch and others on behalf of Mallory Beach's mother in March, 2015. And for a recap, in February, 2019,

a highly intoxicated Paul Murdoch, who was 19 years old at the time, was allegedly driving his father's boat when 19 year old Mallory Beach was killed in a horrific crash near Parris Island, South Carolina. At the time of Paul Murdoch's death in June, 2021, he faced three felony boating under the influence charges for that crash.

While Paul Murdoch was charged in that crash, he was never named as a defendant in the civil lawsuit. The lawsuit instead seeks damages from Parker's 55 gas station where the underage Paul Murdoch allegedly purchased alcohol prior to the crash, as well as Murdoch's brother and father who facilitated his drinking, according to the lawsuit. Paul's grandfather ran off Murdoch the third who died just days after Paul and Maggie's murders

was originally a defendant in the suit and then later dropped from the lawsuit in 2019. Ran off the state as well as other parties such as the Woods family that hosted a noisier roast that evening and losers where Paul Murdoch took two shots before crashing the boat, apparently settled in the case while Alec Murdoch, Buster Murdoch and Parker's have refused to settle.

For years, the beach's lawsuit was the only ongoing civil action against Alec Murdoch until September 2021. And now the disgraced lawyer faces a flurry of lawsuits. The second lawsuit against Alec Murdoch was filed on September 15th by attorney Eric Land and his partner Ronald Richter on behalf of Gloria Satterfield Sons. That lawsuit alleges that Alec Murdoch inspired

with his attorney friend Corey Fleming and his banker friend Chad Westendorf to steal millions of dollars from a wrongful death settlement. Alec is the only individual in that lawsuit who has not paid back a dime of the settlement money. And the third lawsuit against Alec Murdoch was filed by attorney Joe McCullough who was representing Connor Cook,

one of the four survivors of the 2019 boat crash. That lawsuit alleges that Alec Murdoch conspired with others including Corey Fleming to frame Connor Cook in the boating accident that killed Mallory Beach. There are three other lawsuits that have been filed against Alec Murdoch and we will get to those later in this episode.

But the three that I just mentioned on behalf of the beaches, Connor Cook and the Satterfields are important because all three of these plaintiff attorneys filed motions to freeze Alec's assets. So a week after these motions were filed, Judge Daniel Hall, who is the judge over Mark Tensley's case,

held a hearing in Chesterfield County which is in the northern region of the state. Mark Tensley took center stage of the hearing in front of about a dozen media cameras. He argued that the receivership in this case is necessary for the many victims to get justice. While Tensley recognized that appointing a receiver is a severe remedy, he argued that the circumstances

in this case met the requirements. Alec's verdict by Dick Carpenter is admission on national came, he has no one. He has no insurance to defend these lawsuits related to the deaths of these months. Nades and nades of dollars, he's admitted to have sold. He is going to jail. There's no question about it.

He was going to jail because you wrote your think bill on national television and said, you've stolen and then you, any other way. Many of us there on Friday looked around the courtroom and noticed that no one was really there for Alec Murdoch. Murdoch's criminal defense attorney, Dick Carpenter, was expected to show up to support his client according to my sources, but he was nowhere in sight.

While Carpenter and Griffin are his criminal defense attorneys and are not involved at the civil side of Alec Murdoch's cases, it was telling to me that neither of them showed up on Friday. Perhaps it means that they aren't all in for their client. Also noteworthy, I didn't see a single representative from NP Strategies, the PR firm that has worked on behalf of the Murdoch family.

And Buster Murdoch, whose own assets were up for debate, didn't show his face on Friday. Not a single member of the Murdoch family showed up at the Chesterfield County Courthouse on Friday. The only person who was on his side was John Tiller, who represents the only insurance company that has agreed to cover just some of the costs, up to $500,000 for the boat crash lawsuit.

There is no one to defend Mr. Murdoch in all due respect to Mr. Tiller. Mr. Tiller was a final lawyer, and I respect him greatly. He's been hired by one particular insurance company, and I sincerely doubt that they're going to pay to defend him on these unrelated claims for a receiver to do that. A receiver can make sure that the Edison

abuse property is not wasted, not lost, not used, because the air conditioners turned off in this time of year when the humidity is such that it causes damage and don't, or because it's going to be lost to the tax. The receiver will be able to go in and unwind, either presumably with the statute of Elizabeth or the assignment statute. There's a number of statutes that they can unwind,

but it's unnecessary for us to waste all that time and all that money on the backside of all of these secret transactions that Mr. Murdoch is undergoing when we can stop them. And the receiver will be able to stop them. Several times, Tensy quoted and questioned Dick Harpate-Leon's claims that Alec was a poor man with no assets.

But obviously, he's living pretty well for somebody who has no assets. He's got a crisis manager, a very expensive law firm, he's got a number of warriors in addition to Mr. Tiller that he's paying for, and he's living pretty good for somebody with no money, and spending a lot of money to not have any. Tensy argued that the Murdochs had been making

a lot of brow-raising financial moves in recent months. Particularly on September 15th, Alec Murdoch rented his power of attorney to his son, Buster Murdoch. He's not gonna be able to earn any more money. He's not gonna, he's going to jail. And so in this case as well, Mr. Murdoch is going to jail. Not only can he not earn more money

than in which to pay these creditors. He has no incentive to do so. And the fear there is, is that he's gonna, as the court says, hide the money in parks unknown. And he's designed to reduce all of his assets to cash and leave the state for parks unknown. That's what they're doing here. We've shown you a copy of the resolution

where the hunting club, this green swamp hunt club, share was sold. I understand it was sold for somewhere in the neighborhood of $250,000. They have a brand new white boat. And this is a share in 7,000 acres of property along the Savannah River got. They listed their boats.

There were a number of farm implements and large tractors at the Mosel property. I understand that Buster Murdoch has sold those for cash. Tensy argued that Buster and Alec Murdoch are purposely liquidating their assets. In court, he brought up Buster's recent Vegas vacation with his uncle, John Marvin,

who, by the way, documented the trip on his public Instagram. FitZnews sources saw both Buster and John Marvin playing roulette and blackjack at the Venetian just hours after Alec was denied bond a few weeks ago. And I believe that unless the court steps in and takes control and allows the point of the receiver, that's what there will be at the end of the day.

The big car put me in this prediction that he's got no money will be the truth at the end of the day. They've got money right now, John. They couldn't do this. They couldn't pay Jim Griffin $750 an hour to get on television to give interviews. They couldn't pay crisis manager if they didn't have money. Those people don't work for free.

There's money, they're assets, but we don't know where they are. And we would simply like them for certain. Mr. Vertic has some claim, some need, something that comes up that where he needs money, he can petition if it's an attorney fee, if there's some other reason that he needs some money, but he's already taken support, a lot of money, not these lawyers, these other lawyers, these criminal lawyers.

This is not a burdensome process. This is a process to do justice. This is a process to protect everyone. Multiple times, Tansley mentioned that there are victims out there who don't know that Alec Murdoch stole from them. And he argued that this process will help those victims get their money back.

It is a way that we protect the assets. It is a way that we protect all the claimants, including these people who haven't even, may not even know their money stolen. If you enter into a structured settlement that indicates that in 10 years, you're gonna start getting your payments, you may not even know he stole $89,000,

or $750,000, or $65,000 from you. You don't even know it yet, but it's coming. Finally, Mark Tansley argued that this case is extraordinary and calls for extraordinary measures because Alec is a different kind of criminal. It is not as simple as Mr. Griffith-Walston contend that we can just go and go. This was a gentleman who's a very sophisticated criminal.

He stole millions and millions of dollars, admittedly stole millions of dollars, and manipulated the system. This is not your average criminal. And so to suggest that, it's just gonna be a simple feat to go in there and be able to undo and figure out what all he's done is intellectually dishonest. Tansley mentioned the number of extensive real estate

transactions between Barrett T. Bullware and Alec Murdoch. In September, Fitzman is exclusively reported on these real estate transactions between Bullware, who is an alleged drug smuggler in Murdoch. We're going to get into all of that and the jellyfish gambit, which is related to that, in another episode. There are a number of properties in which the taxes

are delayed, but not just this beach house in Hampton and Colletton County. There are extensive real estate transactions between Mr. Bullware, the gentleman who or the family that they satisfied the $970,000 debt to. It is not as simple as Mr. Griffith-Walston contend that we can just go and go. This was a gentleman who's a very sophisticated criminal.

He stole millions and millions of dollars, admittedly stole millions of dollars and manipulated the system. This is not your average criminal. And so to suggest that, it's just gonna be a simple feat to go in there and be able to undo and figure out what all he's done is intellectually dishonest. I would rather, as the representative

of one of the claimants against the assets of Mr. Murdoch, receive a portion of those assets than all of nothing. Following Friday's hearing, two additional lawsuits were filed that afternoon, claiming that Ellick Murdoch had borrowed more than $550,000 from his law partner, John E. Parker, and his brother, Randy Murdoch, since March, 2021. In Ellick's brother's lawsuit, he claimed

that he loaned Ellick $75,000 on Thursday, September 2, which would be two days before Ellick's botched suicide for hire incident. In one day before PMPED, which is the law firm started by his family, allegedly confronted Ellick about misappropriated funds. According to Randy's lawsuit, Randy Murdoch paid Ellick $15,000 for his rehab stay.

However, as Tinsley pointed out, Ellick's attorney Dick Harputlian claimed in court twice that Ellick Murdoch's insurance company was paying for his rehab and saying that he was dead broke. So which is it? Randy Murdoch's lawsuit also claimed that Buster has sold various assets belonging to Ellick Murdoch to pay for other debts owed to Palmetto State Bank

and the rehab, including a tractor and rotary cutter that Buster Murdoch gave Randy for a $43,000 debt coverage. Soon after Randy filed his lawsuit, John E. Parker, who is a partner at PMPED, filed his own lawsuit and that claims that he loaned Ellick the following amounts that he had not paid back. $150,000 on March 5th, 2021, $77,000 on May 18th, 2021 and $250,000 on July 25th, 2021,

which would be almost two months after Maggie and Paul were murdered. So that would be $550,000 within five months that Ellick Murdoch allegedly took from friends and family alone. That is a lot of money and considering it's on top of the $3.6 million he allegedly stole from the court, $6 million he allegedly stole

from the Satterfield Settlement just last year. That is an absurd amount of money to go missing so quickly. In a memo filed Monday, attorney Mark Tensley argued that those two lawsuits only support his motion for the court to approve an injunction and receivership. David will read a part of Tensley's memo. These facts raise questions of where Ellick Murdoch spent his additional $550,000 to whom he has given it,

for what purposes and was any benefit received in return. If Ellick's Murdoch is truly broke, it seems strange that his former law partner and his brother who likely has some intimate knowledge of Ellick's Murdoch's assets would take the time and effort to file a lawsuit against him, Tensley wrote. Then just four days after the hearing, Judge Hall posted the news.

He rolled against Ellick Murdoch in granted Tensley's motion which means that the court will order a temporary injunction over Murdoch's assets and he will appoint two receivers who are attorney John T. Lay Jr. and former U.S. attorney Peter and McCoy Jr. as receivers in the case. This decision gives Lay and McCoy broad powers to not only lock up Ellick Murdoch and his son Buster's assets,

but to sue for the recovery of those assets as well. After this decision was made, Eric Bland spoke with me and he told me that he believes that the judge's ruling following Murdoch's bond hearing two weeks ago shows that the tides are changing in the South Carolina justice system. He, there's a clear message being sent, Mandy,

that this justice system that we have here now has had enough of Ellick's Murdoch. Enough of the games, enough of the lawyer imaginations that he wants to employ, they feel like he's clear. The message ever left us two weeks is, one, he's clear and present danger and obviously a potential flight risker or danger to himself. So he was jailed without bonds.

Two, that he represents a very dangerous man with a pen and our courts have said, we don't want that to happen anymore. He, we're not gonna let him decide who gets paid and who doesn't get paid, where money goes and where it doesn't go. He's gonna have to ask permission from daddy from now on. I asked Eric Bland just how rare this is

that a judge orders a receivership over assets in a civil case. It's usually done after a judgment or through a dissolution of a company. It's more, receivers are very common, Mandy, for companies that are unwinding or winding down or things like that, like an Enron or something else like that, very rare for an individual,

very, very rare to apply to an individual, very rare. But the courts looking at Alex, like he's an enterprise and they've had enough of him. And all the courts are sending a signal to him that he should hear loud and clear that I don't think you're gonna be able to get the sweetheart Murdoch deal that you thought you would get by walking into a court.

It's not gonna happen. Yeah, absolutely. I think he's gonna be serving his time underneath the jail. Underneath the courtroom. I mean, he's gonna be serving some significant time when all this is over with. Tuesday's ruling raises a big question in the Murdoch murder saga.

Now the LA Murdoch assets are locked up. Will his quote unquote bulldog attorneys and fancy PR team still work for him? Who will fight for him now? Eric Bland told me that the receivers will have the power to investigate every financial transaction that Eric Murdoch was directly or indirectly connected with. Could that mean that we will finally find out

if Maggie and Paul had life insurance policies when they were murdered on June 7th? Stay tuned. Stay tuned to the Murdoch Murders podcast in fitsnews.com, that's F-I-T-S News.com for the latest updates. Follow me on Twitter at Mandy Matney, that's M-A-N-D-Y-M-A-T-N-E-Y.

And follow me on Instagram at Mandy underscore N underscore Hilton head for more updates. 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 MurdochMurdersPodcast.com

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The Murdoch Murders Podcast is created by me, Mandy Matney and my fiance, David Moses. Produced by Luna Shark Productions. What's that? What's that? That's Luna saying thank you to Wolfgang Bakery and Bluffton, South Carolina

for all of the amazing treats you gave her. Thanks to y'all, Luna has been fully occupied while we worked on this episode. So thank you so much. Stick with us, y'all. We have great episodes in store.