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

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

Feb 7 (Reuters) – A colleague at the law agency of disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh, who is on demo for the murder of his spouse and youngest son, testified on Tuesday that she confronted him with proof of his embezzling revenue from purchasers just a number of several hours before the killings.

Prosecutors have explained to jurors that Murdaugh, 54, murdered his wife, Maggie, and his son Paul on June 7, 2021, in purchase to divert interest from his economical crimes, which have been on the verge of getting learned by his law organization colleagues.

Murdaugh, who hails from one particular of South Carolina’s most notable and potent lawful people, has pleaded not guilty. He has stated he was at the residence of his mom, who has dementia, on the evening of the murders, and arrived home that night time to find out his spouse and son experienced been shot in the dog kennels of their region estate.

In the third 7 days of witness testimony, Jeanne Seckinger, the main financial officer of the Murdaugh relatives regulation business, explained she went up towards Murdaugh’s business office before that working day to confront him around far more than $700,000 in lawful expenses that had been lacking in a case Murdaugh taken care of.

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“He appeared at me with a fairly soiled glance, a person I might not viewed right before,” Seckinger testified.

She mentioned she demanded he show to her he had not taken the funds. The conversation was reduce quick when Murdaugh gained a mobile phone simply call in which he acquired that his hospitalized father was terminally sick.

In the months that adopted, Seckinger and her colleagues would conclude that Murdaugh had been systematically stealing millions of pounds from clientele and his law company associates for several decades, Seckinger testified.

Murdaugh has been charged with about 100 counts of economical crimes in independent proceedings, and has been disbarred as a law firm.

A law firm for Murdaugh famous that the killings only delayed the firm’s investigation into Murdaugh’s embezzlement by a couple weeks, searching for to discredit the prosecution’s try to ascribe a motive to Murdaugh to murder his very own relatives.

“So the inquiry didn’t quit with Maggie and Paul’s murder, did it?” the defendant’s attorney, Jim Griffin, questioned Seckinger. “The dying of his wife and son received him 30 days’ reprieve on your investigation?”

If convicted of murder, Murdaugh faces in between 30 many years in jail and a daily life sentence without having probability of parole.

Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York Enhancing by Invoice Berkrot

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