For maybe the last time, Alex Murdaugh, in a prison jumpsuit and shackles instead of the suit the lawyer used to wear, will shuffle into a courtroom in South Carolina and wait for a judge to punish him.
Murdaugh is scheduled to be sentenced Monday morning 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 recommends a prison sentence between 17 and 22 years for Murdaugh.
It’s insurance on top of insurance. Along with the life sentence, Murdaugh pleaded guilty and was ordered to spend 27 years in prison in state court on financial crime charges — time he will have to serve if both his murder convictions are overturned on appeal.
The 22 federal counts contained in a plea deal 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.
But now his life is summed up by prosecutors in a court filing asking a judge to revoke their plea deal with Murdaugh and give him a harsher sentence because FBI agents think he is not telling the whole truth about what happened to $6 million he stole and whether a so-far unnamed attorney helped his criminal schemes.
Read more here from The Associated Press.
