Thank you. So there is some risk for RL then. I am reading "Devil At His Elbow" by Valierie Bauelein at the moment , (about AM), and would highly recommend this book. Overwhelmed by the awfulness of the murders, I don't think I fully appreciated how terrible all the thefts were until now.
Although this happened in Federal Court, this is one appellate reversal that did not surprise me at all. I'd never seen anything like this before and did believe the federal Judge was wrong when it first happened, and that United States District Judge Richard Mark Gergel errored again when he denied the defense Motion for a new trial.
WJCL 22 News also spoke with Attorney Eric Bland, who is familiar with the case. He said he wasn't too surprised by the court's ruling. "We felt that Russell deserved a trial that comports with procedural due process, and that’s what the Fourth Circuit said needs to happen," he said.
RL was had been indicted by a federal grand jury in 2022, and faced charges of conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud, bank fraud, wire fraud, and three counts of misapplication of bank funds. His trial lasted 9 days, and he was found guilty on all charges in November 2022.
The bizarre part of RL's initial trial was when the case went to the jury around 10 AM, and after about 9 hours of deliberations, the Court started receiving notes from jurors on a couple of issues including a juror needing to take an Rx within 2 hours, and another juror feeling pressured and anxious about their position. Here, instead of calling it a night and sending the jurors home for the evening -- which I think would have likely resolved the issues for both jurors, the Court recommended dismissing two jurors and replacing them with two alternates, where criminal procedure requires that jurors are to begin deliberations anew whenever a juror is replaced.
In this case, the 12 jurors (including the 2 replacements) returned with a verdict, only an hour later at about 10 PM!
(The defense agreed to dismiss the juror who needed to take medication within two hours and replace with an alternate but did not consent to replace the second juror).
RL's defense filed a Motion for a new trial within 14 days pursuant to Federal Rule 33, and United States District Judge Richard Mark Gergel denied the Motion. The defense took their fight to the U.S. Court of Appels and both RL's conviction and sentence have been overturned -- requiring the government to retry RL on the same charges noted above.
A federal judge Monday denied Russell Laffitte's motion for a new trial in his bank fraud case.The former Palmetto State Bank CEO was charged with ___ in .His
abcnews4.com
The ex-banker is accused of helping disbarred attorney Alex Murdaugh steal money from his clients.
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