Live updates: Murdaugh sentenced to 40 years for federal financial crimes

Alex Murdaugh, the disgraced former lawyer convicted of murdering his wife and son in a bid to hide more than a decade of thefts, is being sentenced today for his federal financial crimes.

The sentencing is taking place in front of U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel at federal court in Charleston.

Murdaugh’s sentencing follows a plea agreement signed last September with prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for South Carolina. Murdaugh, a fourth generation descendant of a powerful legal and political dynasty in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, pleaded guilty to 22 charges, among them wire fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.

Federal prosecutors allege that Murdaugh abused his position of power to use the courts and South Carolina’s banking system to steal almost $11 million from more than 20 victims since 2005. Murdaugh is serving two consecutive life sentences after being found guilty of murdering his wife, Maggie, and son Paul. Last November, he was also sentenced to 27 years in prison after pleading guilty to state financial crime charges.

11:11 A.M. — Judge sentences Murdaugh

U.S. District Court Judge Richard Gergel has sentenced Murdaugh to 480 months. That is 40 years. This is to run concurrent to his state charges.

This is ten years more than the 30 year sentence requested by federal prosecutor, Emily Limehouse, representing the U.S. Attorney’s Office for South Carolina.

In the weeks leading up to the sentencing and throughout the mornings proceedings, Gergel indicated that he was considering an upwards variance in his sentencing.

At one point, he mused whether the sentence should serve as a warning to future lawyers, who abuse their “license to do good,” as Gergel said he describes it.

“This verdict we make today we make for the United States, we make for this court, we make in thee interests of justice,” Gergel said.

10:40 A.M. — Alex Murdaugh addresses the court

Facing the judge, Alex Murdaugh said that he took responsibility for his crimes, described his heavy opiate use and claimed addiction was a key factor in his thefts. He pledged to try to make his victims whole.

“I want you to know and I want the victims to know, I am filled with sorrow, I am filled with remorse, I am filled with guilt,” Murdaugh said. “I am very committed to trying to be a better person.”

At times hesitant and appearing to choke on his words, the former attorney renowned for his quicky thinking and ability to speak to anyone, “Judge, I know there’s not enough time and I don’t possess sufficient vocabulary to express to you in words the magnitude of what I feel about what I did — as you pointed out for a long period of time.... I literally am filled with sorrow and I am filled with guilt.”

Murdaugh placed his addiciton to painkillers at the heart of his thefts. Now 937 days sober, Murdaugh said of his opioid usage, “One of the reasons that my addiction grew to the extremes that it did is that I was using opiates to hide from the things I was doing to people that I cared about... I hope, I hope — with every cell of my existence — I hope that I would not have done the things that I did had I not been addicted to opiates.”

But in an interjection following Murdaugh’s speech, Judge Gergel appeared unmoved. “No truly impaired person could pull off these complex transactions,” Gergel said. Instead, Murdaugh used his “charm and charisma” to “seduce” a web of conspirators by the “siren song of affluence” to assist him in his thefts.

10:28 A.M. — Agreement reached to save plea deal

Murdaugh’s attorneys have reached a deal with federal prosecutors to continue with today’s sentencing. Federal prosecutors have said they are no longer offering a recommendation for his sentence, while Murdaugh’s attorneys have withdrawn their motion for polygraph data.

Sentencing is now proceeding before U.S. District Court Judge Richard Gergel. Before sentencing proceeds, Gergel said that he approves of the findings of the pre-sentence report.

The court has also determined that Murdaugh owes $8,762,731.88 in restitution.

9:48 A.M. — Alex Murdaugh arrives in federal court

Alex Murdaugh was led into the courtroom surrounded by U.S. Marshals, shackled and wearing an orange South Carolina Department of Corrections jumpsuit

Sentencings are often an emotional affair, with testimony from victims and attorneys about the impact of the crimes. During Murdaugh’s last sentencing on state financial crimes, many, some of whom considered Murdaugh a close friend, described the pain of discovering that this trusted attorney and friend from a prominent family had callously stolen from them.

But today’s sentencing has an added layer of drama, as federal prosecutors last week attempted to back out of the plea deal, which called for Murdaugh’s federal sentence to be served concurrently with the state financial sentence.

In filings, they claimed Murdaugh was not truthful during a polygraph exam when asked about the location of $6 million in missing money. In response, Murdaugh’s attorneys — Jim Griffin, Dick Harpootlian, Phil Barber and Maggie Fox — have filed motions asking for summaries of the interviews to be released and for prosecutors to turn over data from the polygraph exams.