Convicted double murderer Alex Murdaugh was slammed with a 40-year prison term Monday morning for a slew of financial crimes he pleaded guilty to last year.
The disgraced former attorney has already been sentenced to two life terms for the shocking murders of his wife and 22-year-old son in one of the most closely watched criminal cases in recent history.
The federal term handed down Monday is in addition to another 27-year sentence Murdaugh received in state court for similar financial offenses.
“There’s not enough time and I don’t possess a sufficient vocabulary to thoroughly describe to you in words the magnitude of how I feel about the things I did,” Murdaugh said at Monday’s proceedings.
Prosecutors in both financial crime cases said Murdaugh brazenly bilked clients at his personal injury firm out of millions of dollars, burying him in conspiracy, fraud and money laundering raps.
In handing down the four-decade sentence Monday, US District Judge Richard Gergel opted for a far harsher term than had been recommended by federal prosecutors, who sought 17 1/2 to 22 years.
Gergel told the court that he victimized “the most needy, vulnerable people” — including a quadriplegic client, a state trooper injured in the line of duty, and a trust fund intended for children whose parents died in a car wreck.
“They placed all their problems and all their hopes on Mr. Murdaugh and it is from those people he abused and stole. It is a difficult set of actions to understand,” Gergel said.
The jury scoffed at Murdaugh’s longstanding claim that an opioid addiction spurred his crimes.
“No truly impaired person could pull off these complex transactions,” the judge said of Murdaugh’s two-decade criminal run.
A jury convicted Murdaugh, 55, of murdering his wife, Maggie, and son Paul in 2021 in an attempt to divert investigations into his financial misdeeds.
Murdaugh vehemently denied any role in the killings while copping to the mounting financial accusations against him.
While all of the terms are concurrent, the financial crime sentences would kick in the unlikely event that the murder convictions were ever overturned on appeal.
Monday could mark the last time Murdaugh entered a courtroom, and the federal case was the final outstanding legal proceeding he faced.
The disbarred attorney was denied a new trial by a South Carolina judge in January after his defense team accused a court clerk of tampering with the jury.
The attorney said Colleton County Clerk Becky Hill influenced the jury by suggesting they watched Murdaugh’s actions and body language as he testified.
But Judge Jean Toal ruled that they failed to prove that the comments directly swayed the panel.
Prior to his downfall, Murdaugh ran a highly profitable law practice in Hampton County.
He hailed from a prominent local family who served as elected local prosecutors and attorneys in the area for roughly 100 years.
Murdaugh is slated to pay nearly $9 million in restitution to his victims and their relatives.