Handcuffed Alex Murdaugh led on a leash as he appears in court for first time since double murder trial
Disgraced legal scion Alex Murdaugh was paraded on a leash Thursday as he appeared in a South Carolina court for the first time since being handed two life sentences for the murder of his wife and son.
Murdaugh, 65, appeared before Beaufort County Court Judge Clifton Newman to set a court date for the first of his trials stemming from his alleged $8.8 million fraud.
Murdaugh was brought into the courtroom in an orange prison jumpsuit and handcuffs — and with a leash controlled by three deputies, a livestream showed.
The convicted killer appeared to have lost weight behind bars, and was seen at times grimacing as his lawyers tried to push a trial date until next fall, along with a change of venue.
Murdaugh’s attorney, South Carolina state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, a Democrat, argued in vain that his client would not be able to get a fair trial in the Palmetto State on the 101 financial crime-related state charges against him.
“Where are you going to get a jury? Mars?” Harpootlian asked the judge, who also presided over Murdaugh’s trial for murdering his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul.
“This case was tried and finished six months ago … on national television,” he said of the televised trial, the result of which Murdaugh is appealing on allegations the court clerk improperly influenced the jury.
Newman snapped back at Harpootlian, saying he was “not presuming that a jury cannot be impaneled … based on speculation.”
“You first have to get a jury, according to the law,” the judge scolded, as he set a Nov. 27 trial date in the case the state considered most serious — the alleged theft of some $3.5 million from the estate of Gloria Satterfield, a longtime family maid who died under suspicious circumstances at the Murdaugh residence in 2018.
Murdaugh allegedly set up her children with his cohort, personal injury attorney Cory Fleming, and directed him to send her death settlement checks to his own bank account and tell her family that no settlement was ever reached.
Murdaugh also faces federal charges in connection with the alleged fraud, and was expected to plead guilty to a litany of charges next week in a Charleston courtroom, marking the first time he would cop to any of his misdeeds.
He is accused of money laundering, wire fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection to his alleged decades-long bilking of clients’ settlements.
The admitted opioid addict is also accused of stealing $7 million from his family’s law firm and laundering $2.4 million through a drug ring he helped run.
Murdaugh also allegedly hired his drug dealer to shoot him dead so his surviving son, Buster, would get a $10 million life insurance payout, but the bumbling hitman botched the job and delivered a non-fatal shot to his head. He is also accused of evading nearly a half million dollars in state taxes.
Murdaugh was seen whispering to his lawyers Thursday but did not address the court.
There were also hearings for his co-defendants Fleming — who is awaiting state sentencing after pleading guilty in the Satterfield case — and ex-banker Russell Laffitte, who was convicted by the feds of helping him orchestrate his vast web of fraud and is awaiting state trial.
