SC - Paul Murdaugh & mom Margaret Found Shot To Death - Alex Murdaugh Accused - Islandton *Guilty* #44

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We've known from day one that AM's policy on the boat was limited to $500K, and AM had maxed out his own Umbrella Policy on the claim he made for Gloria (and stole for himself).

The boat policy underwriter (Progressive), would not make the $500K payment without the Plaintiff signing its release that this payment satisfied its claim against AM which is a standard insurance settlement clause.

More important, this never prevented the estate of MB to use SC law to call on the Umbrella of Parker Convenience Store (Parker Corp) to cover for the under-insured AM, settling its claim at $15M.

I think the parties here long ago realized they might go decades trying to find personal assets of AM which IMO, were pledged to his attorneys, from the beginning. JMO


10/15/24

Court documents confirm the family of Mallory Beach will receive a $500,000 payout from Murdaugh’s insurance company.

Murdaugh was one of several named in the wrongful death lawsuit filed by Beach’s family. Beach was 19 when she died in the boat crash on Feb. 24, 2019, when the boat in which she was a passenger struck the Archer’s Creek bridge near Parris Island.
 
Alex Murdaugh associate Russell Laffitte’s bank fraud conviction has been overturned by appeals courtLaffitte was sentenced to 7 years after he was convicted in 2022 on conspiracy, bank and wire fraud, and misapplication of bank funds charges. At trial, prosecutors said Laffitte aided Murdaugh in several financial schemes, allowing him to misuse nearly $2 million that belonged to his clients

 
That is actually a juror book I think I might be interested in reading. Seems like there will be a lot of interesting nuances in it along with seeing how social media and the defense team's treatment of the jury affected her/them.
 
@fitsnews

#Murdaugh U.S. fourth circuit court of appeals has VACATED guilty verdicts entered against Russell Laffitte, Murdaugh's accomplice on the financial crimes, in November 2022 due to questionable jury moves that our media outlet covered extensively at the time.


10:33 AM · Nov 14, 2024
 
It means Lafitte gets a new trial. It was overturned because of how a juror was removed.




Accordingly, we hold that the removal of Juror No. 88 also violated Laffitte’s Fifth Amendment right to be present and that such violation was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

For the reasons discussed, we vacate Laffitte’s convictions and sentence and remand for a new trial.
 
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“Russell Laffitte didn’t argue he was entitled to a perfect trial. He did successfully argue he was not provided the full protection of the rights and guarantees of our Constitution to which he like everyone else is entitled,” his lawyer Billy Wilkins said.


11/14/24

Three judges from the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal judge trying the case made mistakes handing a juror who was dismissed after saying she was suffering from anxiety during deliberations in Russell Laffitte’s trial.

The jury had been deliberating nearly eight hours — well into the night the Tuesday before Thanksgiving in 2022 — when a juror wrote a note saying she was experiencing anxiety and couldn’t do her job

Judge Richard Gergel interviewed the juror without lawyers or Laffitte in the room and she told him she took medicine for anxiety and felt like she could handle her responsibility, but her anxiety grew with the reaction of other jurors to her beliefs about the case.
Gergel had two alternates replace the juror and a second who needed to take medicine immediately. Afterward, the jury quickly returned with guilty verdicts.

“Our concerns are heightened in view of Juror No. 88’s statement that others disagreed with her ‘decision,’ and that, after nearly eight hours of deliberations, the reconstituted jury returned a guilty verdict in less than an hour later,” the three federal appeals judges wrote in their unanimous decision.


Gergel’s decisions, including not having Laffite in the room when the juror was questioned, violated his constitutional right to an impartial jury, the appeals court ruled.

Prosecutors said they will retry Laffitte, pointing out the errors were all made by the judge.
 
Alex Murdaugh associate Russell Laffitte’s bank fraud conviction has been overturned by appeals courtLaffitte was sentenced to 7 years after he was convicted in 2022 on conspiracy, bank and wire fraud, and misapplication of bank funds charges. At trial, prosecutors said Laffitte aided Murdaugh in several financial schemes, allowing him to misuse nearly $2 million that belonged to his clients

Oh well, he might be legally entitled to a new trial on a technicality, but his sorry behind will be going right back to jail. If not for RL, AM could not have managed his 'stolen' client funds and continue his charade for so long.

JMO
 
Given both the conviction and 7 year sentence were overturned, I believe RL will also be resentenced if found guilty during his retrial. JMO
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.
 
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.


 

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