COLUMBIA, South Carolina — Convicted murderer and former South Carolina attorney Alex Murdau pleads guilty to federal charges for stealing millions of dollars from clients, court records show. agreed.
Murdoh will be the first to plead guilty to any crime in court if he doesn’t change his mind before he stands before a judge on September 21.
Murdoh, 55, is serving a life sentence for murdering his wife and son in their home two years ago. However, he is appealing the double-murder conviction, claiming on the witness stand at trial that he did not kill them.
According to prosecutors, he decided to kill them because the theft of millions of dollars would soon come to light, and he hoped their deaths would provide sympathy and time to unravel the cover-up.
Even if a murder conviction appeal were granted, the federal guilty plea would almost certainly result in a prison sentence and Murdau would be locked up in prison.
Prior to the killing, state and federal investigators said Murdow had debilitating injuries and stole millions of dollars from clients in need of medical care. He has been charged with stealing from his family’s law firm and cooperating in running a drug cartel to launder money. Authorities said the man asked his friend to kill him on the side of a deserted highway so that his son could receive a $10 million life insurance policy. The bullet only grazed Murdo’s head.
In federal court, Murdoh faces 14 counts of money laundering, five counts of wire fraud, one count of bank fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Court records do not indicate whether there was an agreement to drop charges in exchange for a guilty plea.
Each charge carries a maximum sentence of at least 20 years in prison. Some are sentenced to prison terms of up to 30 years.
Lawyers for Murdau declined to comment on Thursday’s court filing. But after Murdoh was indicted on 22 federal charges in May, officials said he was assisting federal investigators and the charges would be “quickly resolved without trial.”
The federal allegations are similar to Murdough’s current charges in state court.
According to the indictment, she is also charged with stealing about $4 million in insurance payments to the family of Gloria Satterfield, a longtime housekeeper who died in a fall at the Murdeau home.
Investigators say a longtime friend, now a former lawyer, Cory Fleming, helped Murdo steal the money. Fleming was sentenced to nearly four years in prison after pleading guilty earlier this month.
Other indictments allege Murdau and banker friend Russell Lafitte worked together to withdraw money from clients’ accounts, prosecutors said. Mr. Lafite was convicted in November of six counts of wire fraud and bank fraud. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and is appealing.
Murdoh is also charged with creating a bank account with a similar name to a legitimate payment company to steal money from customers.
He was convicted in March of shooting his 22-year-old son Paul with a shotgun and shooting his 52-year-old wife Maggie with a few shots, and is currently in protective custody in a closed state prison. many times with a rifle.
Murdoh is also awaiting trial in about 100 other state charges. Besides theft, it also includes insurance fraud, drug and money laundering, tax evasion, and theft.
A pretrial hearing on these charges is likely to take place in the week before the federal guilty plea, and since Mr Murdau was escorted out of the Colleton County courtroom on March 3 wearing handcuffs and shackles and a prison jumpsuit, he has been on trial for three months. It will be his first appearance outside of prison.
Since then, Murdoh has made only one public appearance, in a series of photos taken with the camera of a prison-issue tablet computer. With the system confirming his identity, Murdoh was able to use the device to make supervised calls, watch approved entertainment, read books, and watch movies. video class.
Photographs showed Mr Murdo sometimes shirtless and wearing reading glasses in his cell.
Prison officials initially released the photos under the state’s Public Records Act, but after a short period of publicity, the photos were taken for security reasons, not official action, and the Freedom of Information Act It was decided that it should not be disclosed based on
