A South Carolina federal judge has ordered disgraced legal scion Alex Murdaugh and his accomplice to pay millions to an insurance company after they conspired to steal about $4 million in insurance funds from his housekeeper's family following her death.
The judge ordered Murdaugh to pay $14.8 million and Murdaugh's longtime friend and fellow attorney, Cory Fleming, to pay nearly $3.8 million in the federal civil case against Fleming.
Fleming stood trial for two days in Charleston before U.S. District Judge Richard Mark Gergel handed down the settlement order.
"Fleming's unfair and deceptive acts played a critical role in Murdaugh's ability to ultimately steal over $4 million in settlement funds," Gergel wrote in part in the settlement order filed on Jan. 9.
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Murdaugh's housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, apparently tripped and fell on the front steps at the Murdaughs' home on their South Carolina hunting estate, Moselle, and died later in a hospital.
Murdaugh convinced her sons to sue his insurance company, Nautilus, which awarded them more than $4 million - most of which Murdaugh stole, according to court documents.
Murdaugh acknowledged "that he 'invented a story about his dogs causing the death of Gloria Satterfield to create his own liability to the Satterfield beneficiaries' to produce a payment from his insurance carriers which he intended to, and did in fact, steal," Gergel wrote in his Jan. 2 order.
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Gergel noted that the "entry of judgment against Defendant Murdaugh does not impact the claims Plaintiff has against the remaining Defendants, Cory Fleming and Moss & Kuhn, P.A."
Charging documents filed against Fleming allege that the attorney worked with Murdaugh to deposit forged settlement checks into a fraudulent bank account apparently named after an insurance advisory company.
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Fleming argued that he does not owe anything to Murdaugh's former insurance company, Nautilus, in the federal civil suit.
"The Court finds that Defendant Fleming committed a 'willful or knowing violation' of [the South Carolina Unfair Trade Practices Act] and hereby trebles Plaintiff's damages, resulting in an award of $3,750,000.00."
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The federal jury also awarded a total of $1.25 million in damages to Nautilus, Gergel wrote in a Jan. 9 filing.
"Plaintiff established at trial that Defendant Cory Fleming committed multiple acts of unfair and deceptive practices in his handling as an attorney of the wrongful death and survival claims of the Gloria Satterfield Estate," Gergel wrote. "These include multiple unethical communications, as the plaintiff's attorney, with a potential defendant in the case, Richard Alexander Murdaugh, despite the fact Murdaugh was represented by counsel."
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"Further, Fleming made false representations to opposing counsel and the excess carrier regarding alleged communications with one of the beneficiaries of the Satterfield Estate and with a potential issuer of a structured settlement," Gergel continued.
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The $4 million Murdaugh stole from the Satterfield family is part of the 100 financial crimes charges filed against Murdaugh involving millions in stolen funds from his former law firm clients.
Murdaugh had previously been ordered to serve 40 years for his financial crimes in federal court and 27 years for his financial crimes in state court.
Those sentences came on top of his life sentence for killing his wife, Maggie, and youngest son, Paul, in 2021.
A Colleton County jury found the disgraced lawyer guilty of shooting Maggie and Paul near dog kennels on the family's hunting estate in June of that year. Prosecutors say he was trying to create a distraction from his mounting financial crimes, which were beginning to come to light around that time.
