South Carolina, United States

In South Carolina, on Monday (Apr 1) convicted killer Alex Murdaugh faced another reckoning, this time for financial fraud and got handed a 40-year sentence and nearly $9 million in restitution for his crimes.

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The four-decade sentence is for embezzlement and theft from clients and his personal injury law firm and is besides the 27-year sentence he received in a state court for similar financial offences. 

Also read | Alex Murdaugh sentenced to additional 27 years in state prison for financial crimes

Financial crimes

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The 55-year-old former attorney was sentenced in a federal court in South Carolina after pleading guilty to 22 counts of financial crimes.

While Federal agents had recommended a sentence of 17 1/2 to just under 22 years for his crimes, presiding US District Judge Richard Gergel imposed a harsher punishment.

Gergel said that he stole from "the most needy, vulnerable people," including a quadriplegic client, an injured state trooper, and a trust fund for children whose parents were killed in a wreck.

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Murdaugh stole from people who "placed all their problems and all their hopes" on him, said the judge.

Also read | Trump posts $175 mn bond in NY civil fraud case, averts seizure of assets

Attorney Justin Bamberg, who represented several of Murdaugh's victims, said, "There is a staggering human toll to every cent."

What did he do with the money?

Murtagh took settlement money and inflated fees or expenses for more than two dozen of his clients, reports news agency AP.

To do this, he used a "maze" of fake accounts, and juggled checks and money movements that hid the thefts for nearly 20 years.  

Blaming nearly two decades of addiction to opioids for the financial fraud, he said he felt "guilt, sorrow, shame, embarrassment, humiliation."

"There's not enough time and I don't possess a sufficient vocabulary to adequately portray to you in words the magnitude of how I feel about the things I did," said Murdaugh.

However, Gergel dismissed Murtagh's explanation and said: "No truly impaired person could pull off these complex transactions."

Prosecutors also argued that Murdaugh's claims about his drug addiction didn't add up. They pointed out that the amount of money he stole increased rapidly in the years before his arrest, despite him claiming to be taking the same amount of pills as when his addiction started.

Who is Alex Murdaugh?

Murdaugh is a disbarred attorney who is already serving a life sentence without parole for killing his wife and son.

Just three years ago, he was an established attorney negotiating high-stakes multimillion-dollar settlements in Hampton County.

He was convicted a year ago for killing his younger son Paul and his wife Maggie. Murdaugh adamantly denies killing them, and it is expected that there will be years of appeals in the murder cases.

(With inputs from agencies)