S. Carolina lawyer on trial for family's murder embezzled from clients, jury hears

Record ID: 1710150

  • Title: S. Carolina lawyer on trial for family's murder embezzled from clients, jury hears
  • Date: 8th February 2023
  • Summary: IDLIB, SYRIA (FEBRUARY 8, 2023) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF DRONE FOOTAGE SHOWING DESTRUCTION / PEOPLE AND RESCUE TEAMS ON GROUND (MUTE) VARIOUS OF PEOPLE AND RESCUE TEAMS SEARCHING THROUGH RUBBLE PEOPLE TALKING TO OMAR ORGHLAN WHO IS WAITING ANXIOUSLY FOR RESCUE TEAMS TO RESCUE HIS SIBLINGS AND MOTHER PEOPLE CARRYING A PERSON AWAY FROM THE RUBBLE (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) QUAKE SURVI
  • Embargoed: 22nd February 2023 22:20
  • Keywords: Alex Murtaugh South Carolina attorney trial
  • Location: COLLETON COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA, UNITED STATES
  • City: COLLETON COUNTY, SOUTH CAROLINA, UNITED STATES
  • Country: US
  • Topics: Crime/Law/Justice,Crime,North America
  • Reuters ID: LVA005865708022023RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Jurors in the trial of disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh, who is facing charges for the murder of his wife and youngest son, heard more testimony on Wednesday (February 08) that Murdaugh embezzled funds from his clients.
    In the third week of witness testimony, a former paralegal for Murdaugh’s firm told prosecutors that he waited until she was out of the office to move money into accounts he controlled, carrying out transactions she would normally have been responsible for.
    “I was at a doctor appointment with my mom,” Annette Griswold told prosecutor Creighton Waters.
    “This time it was all the funds that was in the client’s trust. Which was $125,000 I believe. And all of those funds were being routed.”
    Friday’s court session was suspended for several hours due to a phone-in bomb threat.
    On Tuesday a colleague at Murdaugh’s law firm, testified that she confronted him with evidence of his embezzling money from clients just a few hours before the killings.
    Prosecutors have told jurors that Murdaugh, 54, murdered his wife, Maggie, and his son Paul on June 7, 2021, in order to divert attention from his financial crimes, which were on the verge of being discovered by his law firm colleagues.
    Murdaugh, who hails from one of South Carolina's most prominent and powerful legal families, has pleaded not guilty. He has said he was at the home of his mother, who has dementia, on the night of the murders, and came home that night to discover his wife and son had been shot in the dog kennels of their country estate.
    On Tuesday, Jeanne Seckinger, the chief financial officer of the Murdaugh family law firm, said she went up toward Murdaugh's office earlier that day to confront him over more than $700,000 in legal fees that were missing in a case Murdaugh handled.
    "When I walked up the steps he gave me a very disgusted look and said, ‘What do you need now?’ Seckinger testified.
    She said she demanded he prove to her he had not taken the money. The conversation was cut short when Murdaugh received a phone call in which he learned that his hospitalized father was terminally ill.
    In the months that followed, Seckinger and her colleagues would conclude that Murdaugh had been systematically stealing millions of dollars from clients and his law firm partners for many years, Seckinger testified.
    Murdaugh has been charged with about 100 counts of financial crimes in separate proceedings, and has been disbarred as a lawyer.
    A lawyer for Murdaugh noted that the killings only delayed the firm's investigation into Murdaugh's embezzlement by a few weeks, seeking to discredit the prosecution's attempt to ascribe a motive to Murdaugh to murder his own family.
    "So, the inquiry didn't stop with Maggie and Paul's murder, did it?" the defendant's lawyer, Jim Griffin, asked Seckinger.
    Also on Tuesday, a forensic expert testified that “significant” gunshot primer residue had been found on a coat investigators believe Murdaugh was wearing the night of the murders.
    Asked by prosecutors the residue may have come from a recently fired weapon kept inside the coat, forensic scientist Megan Fletcher said: “It is possible, yes.”
    If convicted of murder, Murdaugh faces between 30 years in prison and a life sentence without possibility of parole.
    (Production: Aleksandra Michalska; Ashraf Fahim)
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