A South Carolina federal decide has ordered disgraced legal scion Alex Murdaugh and his confederate to pay thousands and thousands to an insurance coverage firm after they conspired to steal about $4 million in insurance coverage funds from his housekeeper’s household following her demise.
The decide ordered Murdaugh to pay $14.8 million and Murdaugh’s longtime buddy and fellow legal professional, Cory Fleming, to pay almost $3.8 million within the federal civil case towards Fleming.
Fleming stood trial for two days in Charleston earlier than U.S. District Decide Richard Mark Gergel handed down the settlement order.
“Fleming’s unfair and misleading acts performed a important position in Murdaugh’s capability to in the end steal over $4 million in settlement funds,” Gergel wrote partially within the settlement order filed on Jan. 9.
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Alex Murdaugh was sentenced to 2 consecutive double life sentences for the murders of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh, his spouse and son. (South Carolina Division of Corrections)
Murdaugh’s housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, apparently tripped and fell on the entrance steps on the Murdaughs’ residence on their South Carolina searching property, Moselle, and died later in a hospital.
Murdaugh satisfied her sons to sue his insurance coverage firm, Nautilus, which awarded them greater than $4 million – most of which Murdaugh stole, based on court docket paperwork.
Murdaugh acknowledged “that he ‘invented a narrative about his canine inflicting the demise of Gloria Satterfield to create his personal legal responsibility to the Satterfield beneficiaries’ to supply a fee from his insurance coverage carriers which he meant to, and did in actual fact, steal,” Gergel wrote in his Jan. 2 order.
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Former lawyer Cory Fleming in state court docket on Aug. 23, 2023. (The State)
Gergel famous that the “entry of judgment towards Defendant Murdaugh doesn’t affect the claims Plaintiff has towards the remaining Defendants, Cory Fleming and Moss & Kuhn, P.A.”
Charging paperwork filed towards Fleming allege that the legal professional labored with Murdaugh to deposit cast settlement checks right into a fraudulent checking account apparently named after an insurance coverage advisory firm.
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The Murdaugh household mentioned their housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, fell on the entrance porch steps at their South Carolina searching property in 2018. She died within the hospital. (Eric Bland)
Fleming argued that he doesn’t owe something to Murdaugh’s former insurance coverage firm, Nautilus, within the federal civil swimsuit.
“The Court docket finds that Defendant Fleming dedicated a ‘willful or understanding violation’ of [the South Carolina Unfair Trade Practices Act] and hereby trebles Plaintiff’s damages, leading to an award of $3,750,000.00.”
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Michael Tony Satterfield, son of Gloria Satterfield, factors out Alex Murdaugh throughout Murdaugh’s double homicide trial on the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, South Carolina, Feb. 3, 2023. (Sam Wolfe/The State, Pool)
The federal jury additionally awarded a complete of $1.25 million in damages to Nautilus, Gergel wrote in a Jan. 9 submitting.
“Plaintiff established at trial that Defendant Cory Fleming dedicated a number of acts of unfair and misleading practices in his dealing with as an legal professional of the wrongful demise and survival claims of the Gloria Satterfield Property,” Gergel wrote. “These embody a number of unethical communications, because the plaintiff’s legal professional, with a possible defendant within the case, Richard Alexander Murdaugh, regardless of the very fact Murdaugh was represented by counsel.”
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Alex Murdaugh cries whereas listening to testimony throughout his double homicide trial on the Colleton County Courthouse on Feb. 27, 2023. (Jeff Blake/The State/Pool)
“Additional, Fleming made false representations to opposing counsel and the surplus provider concerning alleged communications with one of many beneficiaries of the Satterfield Property and with a possible issuer of a structured settlement,” Gergel continued.
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The $4 million Murdaugh stole from the Satterfield household is a part of the 100 monetary crimes prices filed towards Murdaugh involving thousands and thousands in stolen funds from his former legislation agency shoppers.
A photograph of the Murdaugh household taken days earlier than Paul and Maggie Murdaugh have been shot to demise. From left, Buster, Paul, Maggie and Alex Murdaugh. (Protection exhibit)
Murdaugh had beforehand been ordered to serve 40 years for his monetary crimes in federal court docket and 27 years for his monetary crimes in state court docket.
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These sentences got here on high of his life sentence for killing his wife, Maggie, and youngest son, Paul, in 2021.
A Colleton County jury discovered the disgraced lawyer responsible of capturing Maggie and Paul close to canine kennels on the household’s searching property in June of that yr. Prosecutors say he was attempting to create a distraction from his mounting monetary crimes, which have been starting to return to gentle round that point.
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