Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh was sentenced by a federal judge on Monday to 40 years in prison for numerous financial crimes.
The 40-year sentence will be served at the same time as the 27 years South Carolina sentenced him to for similar crimes, NBC News reported. Those sentences are in addition to the two consecutive life sentences Murdaugh received for killing his wife, Maggie, and youngest son, Paul.
Murdaugh was accused of stealing millions of dollars from his previous law firm and its clients and, in addition to prison time, was ordered to pay more than $8 million in restitution to his victims.
“Trust in our legal system begins with trust in its lawyers,” U.S. Attorney Adair F. Boroughs said in a statement. “South Carolinians turn to lawyers when they are at their most vulnerable, and in our state, those who abuse the public’s trust and enrich themselves by fraud, theft, and self-dealing will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
The sentencing hearing almost didn’t happen, as prosecutors last week filed a motion trying to back out of their plea agreement with Murdaugh, claiming he failed a polygraph test and was, therefore, lying about where the money was spent.
The federal government based its attempt to revoke the plea agreement on the failed polygraph test but asked the courts not to release the results. Murdaugh’s attorneys filed a motion last week opposing the federal prosecutors’ request.
“To allow the Government to publicly accuse Murdaugh of breaching his plea agreement while also allowing the Government to hide all purported evidence supporting that accusation from the public would violate the public’s right to the truth,” Murdaugh’s attorneys, Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian, wrote in their motion, according to CNN.
Polygraph tests are not permitted as evidence in court because they are notoriously unreliable.
The attorneys argued in court documents that the polygraph Murdaugh failed was not reliable because the administrator admitted to Murdaugh that he had just tested Joran van der Sloot, who admitted to killing Natalee Holloway in Aruba in 2005.
“There are legitimate questions as to whether the Government intentionally manipulated the results to void the plea agreement and achieve the prosecutors’ stated desire to ‘ensure that he’s never a free man again,’” the attorneys wrote, according to the Associated Press.
Murdaugh admitted to stealing around $12 million from clients over the years after promising to help them with medical bills or pain and suffering. One victim, Jordan Jinks, had been a friend of Murdaugh’s since they were children. He asked Murdaugh to represent him after he incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills for a neck injury resulting from someone rear-ending his car.
Jinks paid the bills, assured that Murdaugh would obtain a settlement to refund him. When Murdaugh received that settlement, he kept the money for himself.
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“The money you stole from me, I would have gave it to you,” Jinks said during Murdaugh’s sentencing. “Why bro? Why?”
While taking responsibility for the financial crimes, Murdaugh adamantly denies killing his wife and son.
“I want to take responsibility. I want my son to see me take responsibility. It’s my hope that by taking responsibility that the people I’ve hurt can begin to heal,” Murdaugh said when pleading guilty in September.
Harpootlian, his defense attorney, noted at the time: “There’s two things Alex will tell you. One, he stole the money. Two, he did not kill Maggie and Paul.”
