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

Feb 7 (Reuters) – A colleague at the regulation business of disgraced South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh, who is on demo for the murder of his spouse and youngest son, testified on Tuesday that she confronted him with evidence of his embezzling dollars from shoppers just a several hrs ahead of the killings.

Prosecutors have informed jurors that Murdaugh, 54, murdered his spouse, Maggie, and his son Paul on June 7, 2021, in buy to divert consideration from his economic crimes, which were on the verge of getting found out by his regulation business colleagues.

Murdaugh, who hails from 1 of South Carolina’s most prominent and potent legal households, has pleaded not guilty. He has mentioned he was at the home of his mom, who has dementia, on the night of the murders, and came household that night to uncover his spouse and son had been shot in the canine kennels of their state estate.

In the third 7 days of witness testimony, Jeanne Seckinger, the main money officer of the Murdaugh relatives law business, explained she went up towards Murdaugh’s office earlier that day to confront him above additional than $700,000 in legal expenses that had been missing in a scenario Murdaugh handled.

“He seemed at me with a fairly dirty look, 1 I would not seen before,” Seckinger testified.

She claimed she demanded he prove to her he had not taken the funds. The conversation was slice shorter when Murdaugh been given a telephone get in touch with in which he acquired that his hospitalized father was terminally ill.

In the months that adopted, Seckinger and her colleagues would conclude that Murdaugh experienced been systematically stealing millions of dollars from purchasers and his legislation business partners for quite a few several years, Seckinger testified.

Murdaugh has been billed with about 100 counts of monetary crimes in individual proceedings, and has been disbarred as a lawyer.

A attorney for Murdaugh observed that the killings only delayed the firm’s investigation into Murdaugh’s embezzlement by a couple weeks, searching for to discredit the prosecution’s endeavor to ascribe a motive to Murdaugh to murder his personal family members.

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

If convicted of murder, Murdaugh faces amongst 30 many years in jail and a life sentence with no possibility of parole.

Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York Enhancing by Monthly bill Berkrot

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