Judge oks $14.8 million judgment against Alex Murdaugh for dead housekeeper insurance scam

Even as a convicted accomplice stands trial in civil court, a federal judge has approved a $14.8 million judgment against notorious lawyer-turned-fraudster Richard “Alex” Murdaugh in the accidental death insurance scheme involving Murdaugh’s late household employee, Gloria Satterfield.

On Jan. 2, United States District Court Judge Richard M. Gergel approved the $14,800,000 judgment against Murdaugh in favor of Nautilus Insurance Company, just days before the matter came before him in a civil trial.

Amid more than 100 criminal charges involving millions of dollars stolen from law clients and partners, Murdaugh was indicted in October of 2021 and again the following month on charges that he stole at least $4.3 million in insurance settlements meant for the heirs of Satterfield, who died in February 2018 after a fall at Murdaugh’s Moselle estate.

Following her death, Murdaugh, a member of a legacy lawyer family in Hampton, reportedly teamed up with longtime friend and Beaufort attorney Cory Fleming and approached Satterfield’s two sons with a proposition: Sue my insurance company, and he would get them some money.

Murdaugh’s insurance carriers paid off big, but the two now-disbarred lawyers kept the proceeds, according to court records and indictments, leaving Satterfield’s sons, Tony Satterfield and Brian Harriott, with nothing.

In May of 2022, one of Murdaugh’s insurance carriers, Nautilus, an Arizona-based insurance company, filed a federal lawsuit seeking damages to recoup what they lost in the scam, as well as additional legal fees and damages. At the time, there were several named defendants, including Murdaugh, Fleming, and Fleming’s former law firm, Moss & Kuhn, P.A. (formerly Moss, Kuhn & Fleming).

On April 3, 2024, attorneys for Murdaugh moved for an entry of default against him in this action, stating Murdaugh was amenable to the entry of a default judgment, waives a damages hearing, and consents to a judgment, which Gergel approved with the January order.

Gergel’s order states that Murdaugh acknowledged “that he ‘invented a story about his dogs causing the death of Gloria Satterfield to create his own liability to the Satterfield beneficiaries to produce a payment from his insurance carriers which he intended to, and did in fact, steal.”

But the civil case is not over yet. In his order, Judge Gergel, who has presided over the federal cases involving Murdaugh, and accomplice and former banker Russell Laffitte, and now Fleming, wrote: “The entry of judgment against Defendant Murdaugh does not impact the claims Plaintiff has against the remaining Defendants, Cory Fleming and Moss & Kuhn, P.A.”

The Nautilus civil trial against Fleming and Moss & Kuhn is now underway in Charleston in the U.S. District Court, District of South Carolina. Jury selection was held Monday, Jan. 6, with 10 jurors selected, and the trial began Tuesday with Gergel presiding.

According to court documents, Nautilus is seeking actual and punitive damages from the remaining defendants. The trial is expected to last several days.

The Murdaugh crime saga sparked more than a dozen lawsuits in both state and civil courts, and as these civil suits continue to move through the justice system, Murdaugh and Fleming have each been convicted and sentenced in both state and federal criminal court jurisdictions for multiple financial crimes. Both are serving lengthy sentences.

Murdaugh is also serving two life sentences for the June 2021 murders of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul.

Will Nautilus ever see any of this money from Murdaugh?

Will Nautilus ever see a dime of this $14.8 million?

Not likely. Murdaugh’s assets have long been seized by the courts and divided among several of his many financial fraud victims.

“It is interesting that Alex Murdaugh defended this case for a number of years before permitting the default judgment to be entered against him in this manner,” said Eric Bland, an attorney with Bland Richter, LLP, who represented the Satterfield victims against Murdaugh. “It speaks to a couple of things. It may be that either he no longer has attorneys who are willing to represent him in these types of cases if they are not going to get paid for their work, or there is a better chance of Charles Manson rising from the dead than Nautilus will have of collecting one dollar of that judgment.”

Which is why Nautilus is going after convicted attorney Fleming and his law firm in Charleston’s federal court this week, Bland stated.

“Nautilus will be contending at trial that Fleming’s firm should have supervised his actions better and realized that Fleming’s clients were not being properly represented,” added Bland.

This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Federal court approves $14.8 million judgment; Murdaugh insurance scam

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