Yes,, we wondered that too…….
Everyone trusted Alex Murdaugh.
But for 10 years, without anyone noticing or reporting publicly, the disgraced South Carolina attorney allegedly stole $4 million from clients and embezzled cash from a client trust account held by his former Hampton law firm.
From 2011 to 2021, in 30 different transactions, Murdaugh looted Peters Murdaugh Parker Eltzroth and Detrick’s Client Trust Account of millions of dollars and funneled clients’ money into personal bank accounts, where he laundered the cash for his own use, according to an analysis of theft charges in indictments against him.
In South Carolina’s storied legal profession, strict rules govern how a law firm must keep client money safe.
But for 10 years not one partner in Murdaugh’s firm noticed anything wrong.
How was Murdaugh able to take money out of his firm’s accounts without notice? Several factors might have been in play:
- His firm had few financial controls to guard against in-house embezzlements by lawyers. The firm recently told reporters with The State and the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette that since learning of Murdaugh’s action, the firm has “revamped” its procedures and now has strict financial security controls in place.
- An atmosphere of trust surrounds lawyers in general and Murdaugh in particular. Murdaugh used that trust to keep his clients ignorant of money due to them in various settlements, according to indictments.
- Murdaugh used banks where he had checking accounts that enabled him to launder money stolen from clients, according to indictments. One bank was the Palmetto State Bank, headquartered in Hampton and a few blocks away from where his former law firm is located. The other bank was the Bank of America, where Murdaugh had sham accounts he used to launder stolen cash, indictments said.
“He was a lawyer, and people trust their lawyer,” said state Rep. Justin Bamberg, a lawyer who is representing several of Murdaugh’s alleged financial victims. “Add to that the power of the Murdaugh name. It’s a powerful family name in the area, and a lot of people talk about how big and powerful the Murdaugh firm was.”
In early September, when Murdaugh’s law firm said it discovered he had been taking money, the firm forced his resignation and reported the alleged theft to the State Law Enforcement Division and the South Carolina Supreme Court. Days later, on Sept. 8, the South Carolina Supreme Court suspended Murdaugh’s law license.
Murdaugh was sued by his firm in October. His former partners alleged Murdaugh “submitted false documentation to the firm and to clients that allowed him to funnel stolen funds into fraudulent bank accounts.”
The firm did not explain in its lawsuit how exactly Murdaugh stole clients’ money.
It did not say how much money was missing or how long the thefts had been going on.
“I am immensely sorry to everyone I’ve hurt,” Murdaugh wrote in a Sept. 6 statement released through his lawyers, saying the grisly June shooting deaths of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, caused him to make regrettable decisions.
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