Attorneys for disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh, who is currently facing dozens of criminal charges and a slew of civil lawsuits, motioned this week to get their client’s $7 million bond reduced.
“Mr. Murdaugh does not have seven million dollars or anything close to that amount,” the motion said, according to The Island Packet. “Mr. Murdaugh is a man who cannot pay his phone bill.”
Murdaugh, the heir to a legal dynasty in the South Carolina low country, was arrested in October for allegedly stealing $3.4 million in insurance money from the children of his housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died in 2018 after reportedly tripping and falling in the Murdaugh family home.
Just a month before that, Murdaugh was arrested and released following a botched suicide attempt in which he arranged for a man to shoot him so that his oldest son could collect a $10 million insurance policy, according to investigators.
Alex Murdaugh awaits the beginning of his bond hearing in the Richland Judicial Center in Columbia, South Carolina, Tuesday, Oct. 19, 2021.
(Associated Press)
Alongside criminal charges for insurance fraud, conspiracy, filing a false police report, embezzlement, money laundering, forgery, and other offenses, Murdaugh is also facing millions of dollars worth of civil lawsuits.
SOUTH CAROLINA LAWYER ALEX MURDAUGH FACES SEVERAL NEW CHARGES
Justin Bamberg, an attorney and Democratic state representative, told Fox News Digital that eight more lawsuits are in the works from ex-clients who claim that Murdaugh stole from them.
“It is really infuriating, to be honest. There’s no real way to downplay it,” Bamberg told Fox News Digital. “People don’t know the depth of this thing.”
Richard Alexander Murdaugh is seen following his arrest for allegedly stealing insurance settlements meant for the sons of his late housekeeper. (Orange County, Florida, via Associated Press)
One of Murdaugh’s alleged victims was a deaf young man who became a paraplegic after a 2011 car accident. The man was placed on a ventilator and later died at a care facility.
ALEX MURDAUGH EMBEZZLED FROM DEAF PARAPLEGIC, PATROLMAN INJURED IN LINE OF DUTY: LAWYER
His relatives were entitled to $309,000 following the man’s death, but the man’s family never saw any of the funds, according to Bamberg.
“Look at who these victims are. Who steals from a deaf kid?” Bamberg said. “Let alone the fact that he’s now a quadriplegic and is on a ventilator. That’s the type of person that they did this stuff to.”
Alex Murdaugh appears for a bond hearing.
(Fox News)
Three months before Murdaugh’s botched suicide attempt, his wife and youngest son were found shot to death at the family’s Colleton County estate.
Murdaugh said at a court hearing last month, when his bond was set at $7 million, that he had a 20-year addiction to opiates.
“My head is on straighter, I’m thinking clearer than I have in a long, long time,” Murdaugh said at the hearing. “I want to deal with these charges appropriately and head-on.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
In Tuesday’s motion to reduce Murdaugh’s bond, his attorneys argued $7 million was “tantamount to no bond at all” and that their client has a right to post bail in an “amount no higher than necessary,” the Island Packet reports.
Murdaugh’s attorneys, Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, did not return requests for comment on Wednesday evening.
Fox News’s Danielle Wallace and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
