Judge speaks the long-lost truth in Friend of Murdaugh case | Opinion

They weren’t listening.

They weren’t listening at all at the sentencing hearing for Alex Murdaugh accomplice and bosom buddy Cory Fleming.

The beauty of the hearing was that the atrocity of his crimes was laid out for all to see Sept. 14 in Beaufort.

And despite the professions of remorse Fleming read to the judge, Camp Fleming quickly went after the judge, accusing him of bias in the sentence he dared give to a Friend of Murdaugh.

But State Circuit Court Judge Clifton Newman simply did his job.

The sentence he gave to Fleming was not even harsh. It was extremely lenient.

Yet he dared to say that what Fleming did was beyond wrong, it was “unprecedented, unimaginable.”

And, oh boy, we apparently don’t say things like that in a civilized society a la Murdaugh. Oh no, that’s not us. Criminals in hoodies do that, not criminals in coats and ties.

Bear in mind that Fleming pleaded guilty to 23 counts of fraudulently fleecing the poor, bereaved and infirm of $3.7 million. In the cases before the court, Fleming and Alex Murdaugh used their standing as lawyers to steal from two poor Lowcountry families.

What Fleming did is unconscionable, and mistreating the poor is something a much higher judge than any here on earth has promised to weigh in on, and ever so harshly.

Fleming could have been sentenced to 195 years in prison, but got off with 13 years and 10 months after you factor in concurrent sentences, including a 46-month sentence from a federal judge. That federal slap on the wrist and sweetheart deal was apparently much more acceptable to the lawyers in the Land of Murdaugh.

But a week after Judge Newman heard a friend of Fleming quote Scripture in citing his alleged “broken and contrite heart,” Fleming goes after the judge in a notice of intent to appeal his sentence.

They claim Judge Newman was biased.

If he was biased, he was biased against egregious crime. Like he’s supposed to be.

Prosecutor Creighton Waters outlined for the court plenty of reasons for a truly harsh sentence.

He noted that Fleming started out saying he was an innocent, unknowing victim of his old law school roommate, convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh. And Waters proved that was a lie, even citing an instance of Fleming using similar schemes to steal long before the cases before the court.

Waters told specifically how state investigators ripped holes in other Fleming claims, concluding that what he and Murdaugh did to the poor and bereaved families “was a shakedown, pure and simple.”

He cited the pure and simple decadence of the lawyer pals using money stolen from the poor to charter a private plane to Omaha to see their beloved Gamecocks play in the College World Series.

Attorney Eric Bland, representing one of the victimized families, told how Fleming and Murdaugh kept to themselves $4.3 million owed to the family while one of the legal recipients, identified as a vulnerable adult, was being forced out of his home because the trailer was being foreclosed on.

And attorney Justin Bamberg told how the other victimized family had suffered physically and emotionally for years while Fleming and Murdaugh rolled through life spending the money that should have helped ease their burdens.

The beauty of that hearing is that we got to hear the detailed proof that led to the obvious guilty pleas.

We didn’t have lawyers spinning so-called discoveries at a press conference.

We didn’t have the deny, slime and delay tactics that characterize the defense of Alex Murdaugh.

And what Judge Newman did and said in this instance should be commended, not attacked.

He acted with compassion, telling Fleming, “My heart bleeds for you because I have no doubt of the quality of human being you are … but you must suffer the consequences of your actions.”

Call me biased, but that is precisely what the South Carolina Lowcountry needs to know. We need to know that Team Murdaugh understands that a day has finally come that they will suffer the consequences of their actions.

David Lauderdale may be reached at LauderdaleColumn@gmail.com.