The Morning of June 7 Murdaugh and the Day of Reconciling with His Lawyers: A Testimony by the Chief Financial Officer of PMPED
A witness spoke about Murdaugh’s financial dealings. The chief financial officer of his law firm said that she confronted Murdaugh about missing funds on the morning of June 7, hours before the killings. After his coworkers sympathized with him, they gave him a break from the financial issues.
The testimony of the CFO of PMPED was being heard Thursday morning without the jury in attendance, as Judge Newman considers whether to allow the admission of evidence regarding Murdaugh’s alleged schemes.
Wilson is one of a series of witnesses who have accused Murdaugh of extensive financial wrongdoing at his namesake law firm. Prosecutors have argued Murdaugh killed his wife and son as an attempt to distract attention from his financial crimes and stave off a “day of reckoning.”
That morning, Seckinger confronted Murdaugh about $792,000 in missing funds, she said Thursday, testifying that legal fees should have been made payable to the law firm – renamed to Parker Law Group after Murdaugh’s ouster – and not to individual attorneys.
Seckinger testified she confronted Murdaugh on June 7 and told him she had reason to believe he had received the funds himself and that he needed to prove to her he had not.
Murdaugh and Tinsley: a family attorney for Mallory Beach, SC, who was killed in a boat crash in February 2019
The session ended with attorney Mark Tinsley on the stand. He is an attorney for the family of 19-year-old Mallory Beach who was killed in a boat crash in February of 2019.
The testimony this week has focused on Murdaugh’s finances. The judge overseeing the case said that proof of the connection between the case and the state’s was necessary to complete the story.
Seckinger said that the June 10 hearing was canceled and that they did not confront Murdaugh about the missing money.
Seckinger said that Alex was upset and distraught after the killings. We had a number of months to clear it up, which is why nobody wanted to harass him about it. We were not going to take him to court at that time.
According to the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office, Murdaugh, who was disbarred amid a mountain of allegations of white-collar theft and fraud, faces 99 charges stemming from 19 grand jury indictments, including allegedly defrauding his clients and former law firm of nearly $9 million.
The defense has fought the admissibility of the evidence in the murder case, claiming the fraud cases are irrelevant to the question of Murdaugh’s guilt in the murders of his wife and son. Defense attorney Jim Griffin argued Thursday that admitting the evidence could add weeks to the murder trial.
But Creighton Waters of the South Carolina Attorney General’s Office – which is prosecuting the case due to the Murdaugh family’s decades-old ties with the local solicitor’s office – indicated to the judge the state hoped to focus on “just a few areas” most closely connected to the case.
There are two thingsTemporally connected with this crime. That is the confrontation with Ms. Seckinger that morning over the (missing) fees that had been percolating for a while,” Waters said. The pending hearing in the boat case is the number two.
Can you think of any reason? Waters said, referring to the defense asking a friend of Paul if he could think of a reason why Murdaugh would do the murders. The friend said that he couldn’t.
He has a stellar series of events going on in his life, Waters said. “It is certainly relevant for the jury to consider when they consider the perfect storm that was arriving for this man on June the 7th.”
Prosecutors also have presented evidence that Murdaugh had opportunity to commit the murders. Murdaugh was not at the murder scene according to prosecutors, who said that the audio from his son’s phone showed him there.
Waters separately took the law firm CFO through a long list of instances in which he allegedly misappropriated funds stemming from the settlements in cases he handled. Seckinger verified documents from case after case on the stand Thursday, testifying Murdaugh “stole” what amounted to millions of dollars from clients and the law firm. The firm, she said, was responsible for paying back what Murdaugh had stolen.
Murdaugh and Satterfield: A Case Study of An Insurance Fraud against a Man Known as Murdagh and a Victim
“And it was my understanding that Alex admitted it and that it was determined he would resign,” Seckinger said, adding the firm decided not to announce his resignation until the beginning of the following week.
Before that could happen, however, Seckinger testified she heard Murdaugh had been shot while on the side of the road. Murdaugh later told authorities he conspired with a former client to kill him as part of an insurance fraud scheme, purportedly so his surviving son could collect a $10 million life insurance payout.
“He said, ‘I’m sorry I’ve had a drug problem, I’m addicted to opioids … for something like 20 years,’ ” the friend, Chris Wilson, testified. He admitted he had been stealing money from his law firm and clients and that he had a drug addiction.
Wilson’s testimony comes three weeks into the murder trial for the killings of Maggie and Paul Murdaugh on June 7, 2021. Alex Murdaugh has pleaded not guilty to two counts of murder and two weapons charges.
However, there is effectively no direct evidence – no witnesses, no murder weapon, no DNA and no ballistics – that link Murdaugh to the murders. In lieu of any evidence, prosecutors have offered circumstantial evidence such as the gun primer that was found on Murdaugh’s clothes and a blue raincoat.
Evidence of guilt in a murder case is not as important as the evidence of financial malfeasance. And that’s what this is all about,” defense lawyer Jim Griffin said last week.
Murdaugh was going to make a claim against his insurance company in order to get money for the boys, according to Satterfield. Satterfield did not know that Murdaugh had collected more than $4 million in settlements.
Also in court Thursday, Michael “Tony” Satterfield, the son of Murdaugh’s former housekeeper Gloria Satterfield, testified about being defrauded by Murdaugh.
Satterfield’s family heard about the settlement through media reports. Murdaugh told him it was still making progress after he asked if it would be ready by the end of the year.
Murdaugh’s lawsuit against a bank for $350,000$ was filed in the District of Penalties on the $TinsleysA_16$
Further, the CEO of a local bank testified for the jury that Murdaugh’s account was overdrafted by about $350,000. The total debt of Murdaugh was $4.2 million according to the CEO of the bank.
Tinsley was asked about the lawsuit on Thursday. He testified that he was asking for $10 million from Murdaugh, but he was told he might only be able to come up with $1 million. Tinsley was not cross-examined Thursday and is expected to resume his testimony Friday morning.
“We weren’t going to go in there and harass him about money when we were worried about his mental state and the fact that his family had been killed,” the CFO, Jeanne Seckinger, testified.
After his law firm confronted him again about misappropriated funds he resigned, had a murder-for-hire and insurance scam plot, spent time in rehab and committed dozens of financial crimes.