A federal judge sentenced Alex Murdaugh to 40 years in prison in connection to his federal charges in April 2024. According to NBC News, a district judge is allowing Murdaugh to serve his prison sentences for state and federal crimes simultaneously; Murdaugh was previously sentenced to 27 years in prison, imposed by South Carolina for related crimes, and was also ordered to pay more than $8 million in restitution to his financial victims. At his sentencing hearing, Murdaugh apologized to the victims of his scheme, saying he felt “guilt, sorrow, shame, embarrassment, humiliation. There’s not enough time and I don’t possess a sufficient vocabulary to adequately portray to you in words the magnitude of how I feel about the things I did.”
Murdaugh, 55, pleaded guilty in September to the 22 federal charges (which included bank fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering) for stealing millions of dollars from his South Carolina law firm. Prior to sentencing, federal prosecutors said in a filing last week that Murdaugh failed a polygraph test that he agreed to undergo as part of a plea deal, and identified 11 new financial victims and another $1.3 million in stolen money. Murdaugh has admitted to his financial crimes, saying he was in the throes of opioid addiction for many years.
Murdaugh was convicted last March for the double murder of his wife, Margaret, 52, and their younger son, Paul, 22, who were found dead at the family’s hunting lodge with gunshot wounds in 2021. He is already serving two consecutive life sentences without parole for those murders. Murdaugh has never admitted to the killings, which prosecutors say he carried out to divert attention from the financial wrongdoing he believed was about to be revealed. He is attempting to appeal those convictions.
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