Accused murderer and disgraced former attorney Alex Murdaugh has been charged with several new financial crimes, according to State Grand Jury indictments returned this week.
Murdaugh, 52, is now charged with three more counts of obtaining property or signatures by false pretenses, two more counts of money laundering, and one new count of computer crime.
According to the indictments, Murdaugh is newly alleged to have stolen $121,358 from his own brother, Randy Murdaugh, in May 2017 by fraudulently having a fee refund check meant for Randy made out to himself.
Murdaugh allegedly reported the check as a clerical error to his former law firm's accounting office, which state prosecutors claim led to accountants reproducing the check properly in Randy Murdaugh's name.
However, state prosecutors allege Murdaugh never returned the original check, and the accounting office never stopped payment on it. Murdaugh then deposited the check in his own accounts 17 months later in October 2018, according to the indictments.
Then on two occasions in December 2020 and May 2021—the latter only weeks before the murders of his wife and son—prosecutors say Murdaugh stole a combined $175,200 from his former law firm under the guise of making structured settlement payments for clients.
Instead, prosecutors say Murdaugh deposited that money in his own fraudulent bank account meant to mimic a legitimate structured settlement firm.
To date, Murdaugh now faces 90 criminal charges from 18 separate State Grand Jury indictments. He also is charged with two counts each of murder and possession of a weapon during a violent crime for the June 2021 killings of his wife and son, Maggie & Paul Murdaugh.
Murdaugh remains in jail at the Richland County Detention Center awaiting trial on his various charges.