Alex Murdaugh faces court to plead guilty to stealing millions from clients

Juror number 785 remains something of a mystery.

She has never gone public with her identity and has never broken her silence by speaking to the press.

But, the mystery juror has caused quite a stir in the so-called “trial of the century”.

Juror number 785 first hit headlines back in March when she was ousted from Alex Murdaugh’s high-profile double-murder trial just hours before deliberations began.

After sitting through six weeks of graphic testimony about the slayings of Murdaugh’s wife Maggie and son Paul, Judge Clifton Newman dismissed the juror for apparently speaking about the case to at least three people.

If her dismissal wasn’t enough to shock the nation glued to the notorious trial, the juror also gained infamy due to a comedic moment where she asked to retrieve a dozen eggs from the jury room.

After that, juror 785 earned a new alias as the “egg juror”.

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Curtis “Cousin Eddie” Smith has claimed that Alex Murdaugh made a bombshell confession about his wife and son’s murders before orchestrating the now-infamous botched hitman plot.

Mr Smith – a former law firm client, distant cousin and alleged drug dealer of Murdaugh – is facing a string of charges over the 4 September 2021 incident where he allegedly shot the double murderer in the head along the side of a road in Hampton County.

Now, in the new series of Netflix’s “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal”, released on Wednesday, the 62-year-old revealed never-before-heard details about the bizarre encounter.

Rachel Sharp has the story.

Paul Murdaugh was pulled over by police for hosting a booze-fuelled boat party just days before he was brutally murdered by his father – and at a time when he was awaiting trial over a 2019 deadly boat wreck.

In the new series of Netflix’s “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal”, released on Wednesday, housekeeper and family friend Blanca Turrubiate-Simpson revealed that the 22-year-old had a fresh brush with the law in the run-up to the 7 June 2021 murders.

His father Alex Murdaugh was said to be taking care of the matter.

The incident took place around a week before Memorial Day weekend when Ms Turrubiate-Simpson said Maggie told her that “Paul got in trouble again”.

Rachel Sharp has the story...

The South Carolina court official at the centre of Alex Murdaugh’s bid for a new murder trial has revealed that her own daughter was “excited” at the prospect of becoming a juror in the high-profile case.

Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill is the first-person interview viewers hear from in the second series of Netflix’s Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal, released on Wednesday.

Describing herself as a “native of Walterboro” who does “love my county and love my job”, Ms Hill spoke of the magnitude of the so-called trial of the century being held in the close, tight-knit Lowcountry.

“Preparing for the trial of Alex Murdaugh was huge,” she said.

“It’s been a long time since a trial of this magnitude had happened to a small town in South Carolina. We knew that we had to get together as a county and be prepared for anything that might come up.”

In a bizarre twist indicating how interconnected the local community is, she revealed that her own daughter was almost seated as a juror in the case.

“So my daughter almost became a juror,” she said, adding: “She was so excited.”

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Over the last few weeks, the sprawling crime saga surrounding Alex Murdaugh has once again been catapulted into the spotlight.

Six months after he was convicted of killing his wife Maggie and son Paul on 7 June 2021, Murdaugh filed a motion demanding a new trial based on a damning accusation against Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill.

His attorneys claim that Ms Hill tampered with the jury, pressuring them to find him guilty and breaking her oath as an elected official.

New details continue to emerge about this – including a random Georgia man’s unlikely links to the case – and legal experts have warned that if the allegations are in fact true, a new trial is almost certain.

At the same time, Murdaugh’s other criminal charges are progressing through the courts.

He appeared in court on 14 September for a hearing on a slew of state financial charges – marking his first court appearance since his murder trial sentencing.

On Thursday, he is slated to appear in court to plead guilty to 22 federal financial criminal charges including wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering – after signing a plea deal with prosecutors on Monday.

Now, Netflix has dropped its second series of “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal” – bringing new details and claims about the Murdaugh saga to light.

Here are some of the key revelations from the new series:

Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh is expected to step before a judge Thursday and do something he hasn’t done in the two years since his life of privilege and power started to unravel: plead guilty to a crime.

Murdaugh will admit in federal court that he committed 22 counts of financial fraud and money laundering, his attorneys said in court papers filed this week.

Murdaugh, 55, is serving life without parole in a South Carolina prison for shooting his wife and son. He has denied any role in the killings since their deaths in June 2021 and insisted he was innocent in two days of testimony this year before he was convicted of two counts of murder.

The federal guilty plea likely locks in years if not decades in prison for the disbarred lawyer, even if his murder conviction and sentence in state court is overturned on appeal.

The deal for pleading guilty in federal court is straightforward. Prosecutors will ask that any federal sentence Murdaugh gets will run at the same time as any prison term he serves from a state court. They won’t give him credit defendants typically receive for pleading guilty.

In exchange, authorities get a requirement placed in almost every plea deal, which is especially significant in this case: “The Defendant agrees to be fully truthful and forthright with federal, state and local law enforcement agencies by providing full, complete and truthful information about all criminal activities about which he/she has knowledge,” reads the standard language included in Murdaugh’s deal.

That could be a broad range of wrongdoing. The federal charges against the disgraced attorney, whose family were both prosecutors and founders of a heavy-hitting law firm that no longer carries the Murdaugh name in tiny Hampton County, deal with stealing money from a few clients and others, and creating fraudulent bank accounts

Murdaugh still faces about 100 different charges in state court. Authorities said he committed insurance fraud by trying to have someone kill him so his surviving son could get $10 million in life insurance, but the shot only grazed Murdaugh’s head. Investigators said Murdaugh failed to pay taxes on the money he stole, took settlement money from several clients and his family’s law firm, and ran a drug and money laundering ring.

He is scheduled to face trial on at least some of those charges at the end of November. State prosecutors have insisted they want him to face justice for each one.

In federal court in Charleston, Murdaugh’s lawyers said he will plead guilty to 14 counts of money laundering, five counts of wire fraud, one count of bank fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Each charge carries a maximum of at least 20 years in prison. Some have a maximum 30-year sentence. Murdaugh will be sentenced at a later date.

Other requirements of the plea deal include that Murdaugh pay back $9 million he is accused of stealing and take a lie detector test if asked.

A federal judge has granted a motion that would postpone the start of a prison sentence for former Palmetto State Bank CEO Russell Laffitte, Live 5 WCSC reports.

US District Judge Richard Gergel sentenced Lafitte to seven years in federal prison on 2 August.

He filed a motion to appeal on 8 August, followed by a motion for release pending that appeal on 14 August.

A week later Lafitte and prosecutors agreed to postpone the beginning of the prison term until today, 21 September, with the court saying it would give the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals an “adequate opportunity” to address the motion for release pending appeal. The appeals court has not yet ruled.

Judge Gergel granted Laffitte’s request for one more delay on Wednesday, granting him until 28 September to report to prison to begin serving his sentence.

In his order, the judge stated: “No further extensions will be granted.”