Stealing adds 40 years to convicted killer Murdaugh’s jail time

Former prominent lawyer stole millions from needy clients.

CHARLESTON, S.C. — For maybe the last time, Alex Murdaugh, in a prison jumpsuit instead of the suit he used to wear, shuffled into a courtroom Monday in South Carolina and was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison.

Murdaugh was punished — this time in federal court — for stealing from clients and his law firm. The 55-year-old disbarred attorney is already serving a life sentence without parole in a state prison for killing his wife and son.

A report by federal agents recommended a prison sentence between 17½ and just under 22 years.

The 40-year sentence will be insurance on top of insurance. Along with the life sentence, Murdaugh pleaded guilty in state court to financial crime charges and was ordered to spend 27 years in prison. The federal sentence will run at the same time as his state prison term and he likely will have to serve all 40 years if his murder convictions are overturned on appeal.

U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel said he sentenced Murdaugh to a harsher punishment than suggested because the lawyer stole from “the most needy, vulnerable people” including a client who became a quadriplegic after a crash, a state trooper who was injured on the job and a trust fund meant for children whose parents were killed in a wreck.

“They placed all their problems and all their hopes on Mr. Murdaugh and it is from those people he abused and stole. It is a difficult set of actions to understand,” Gergel said.

The 22 federal counts are the final charges outstanding for Murdaugh, who three years ago was an established lawyer negotiating multimillion-dollar settlements in tiny Hampton County, where members of his family served as elected prosecutors and ran the area’s premier law firm for nearly a century.

Murdaugh will also have to pay nearly $9 million in restitution.

Murdaugh took settlement money from or inflated fees or expenses for more than two dozen clients. Prosecutors said the FBI found 11 more victims than the state investigation found and Murdaugh stole nearly $1.3 million from them.

Murdaugh again apologized to his victims at his sentencing Monday, saying he felt “guilt, sorrow, shame, embarrassment, humiliation.”

Murdaugh was convicted a year ago of killing his younger son, Paul, with a shotgun and his wife, Maggie, with a rifle. While he has pleaded guilty to dozens of financial crimes, he adamantly denies he killed his family members and testified in his own defense. There will be years of appeals in the murder cases.

ANDREW J. WHITAKER/THE POST AND COURIER VIA AP Alex Murdaugh, a prominent small-town lawyer in South Carolina, cries during his sentencing last year in state court for stealing from 18 clients. Murdaugh, convicted of killing his son and his wife, was sentenced Monday in federal court for more thefts.