A family friend, a grieving mother. Who are Murdaugh’s alleged financial crime victims?
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Alex Murdaugh Coverage
The Murdaugh family saga has dominated the news after another shooting, a resignation and criminal accusations — with Alex Murdaugh at the center of it all. Here are the latest updates on Alex Murdaugh.
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When Jordan Jinks was rear-ended in March 2016, injuring his spine and knee, he called a longtime family friend for legal help.
That friend was Alex Murdaugh, a man Jinks, of Yemassee, grew up with, hunting, fishing and hanging out in Hampton County. As kids, Jinks, now 51, and Murdaugh, 53, often found themselves in the backseat when Jinks’ father and Murdaugh’s grandfather drove together somewhere on business, Jinks said.
Both men followed in their father’s footsteps: Jinks as a Yemassee town council member in the construction business, and Murdaugh as a lawyer and volunteer prosecutor. The two stayed in touch over the years, Jinks helping Murdaugh with odd jobs and Murdaugh providing legal advice and, eventually, representation.
Jinks trusted Murdaugh, he said. And that trust was betrayed.
Murdaugh told Jinks that $150,000 of his settlement from the crash needed to be stowed away in a trust, and Jinks obliged. Murdaugh then forged Jinks’ signature, according to a S.C. grand jury indictment, and put that money into his own account.
Now Jinks is one of a dozen victims named in 48 recent criminal counts brought against Murdaugh. The once-prominent attorney has been in the spotlight since the murders, still unsolved, of his wife and son in June. The unrelenting attention — from law enforcement, from colleagues and clients — has resulted in a slew of allegations about Murdaugh’s financial misdeeds.
The indictments tell a story of how Murdaugh, a lawyer from a powerful Lowcountry family, wielded his influence and prestige to steal from clients.
He used his family connections and command of the complicated legal system to ensnare people who were in crisis. Some were poor. Some, like Jinks, had a personal relationship with Murdaugh. Most were naive about the insurance settlement process and trusted their attorney to help them through a tragedy or a painful time.
“When we look at who he preyed upon allegedly, they were either people with longstanding family or personal contacts with him or they were people who were particularly trusting and vulnerable because of their unfamiliarity with the system, or both,” said Creighton Waters with the S.C. Attorney General’s office at Murdaugh’s bond hearing Monday.
After Murdaugh told Jinks that his settlement funds needed to be held in a trust for medical bills, he spent the money: He took cash, made credit card payments, and wrote checks to associates, the indictment said.
“It’s sickening to me. It hurts me,” Jinks said in an interview with The Island Packet & Beaufort Gazette on Friday.
“I got to keep myself from tearing up every time I talk about this.”
Taken advantage of
The allegations against Murdaugh, laid out in a rash of indictments handed down last week by a statewide grand jury, illustrate a similar pattern of deceit.
Murdaugh is accused of abusing the same legal system that gave his family power and influence over the five-county 14th Judicial Circuit for decades.
A highly regarded personal injury lawyer spawned from a family in which three generations were elected top prosecutor for more than 80 years, Murdaugh used his prestige and clout to get millions of dollars in settlement money for his clients, indictments allege.
But he didn’t give his clients the money. He lied to them, funneled the cash to a personal bank account, paid off credit card bills and kept the money for himself or gave it to friends and family members, according to the indictments.
At his bond hearing on Monday, Murdaugh addressed S.C. Judge Alison Lee, briefly referencing how he cares about his clients. But he did not specifically apologize to his alleged victims.
He talked about Sept. 3, the day he admitted to his “actions” but did not specify financial misconduct.
“I knew this news was going to deeply, deeply hurt every single person that I cared about,” said Murdaugh, singling out “my partners, who are not coworkers but are family, and who knew nothing and did nothing. [And] my clients, who I do care about.”
The people Murdaugh is alleged to have hurt, some reached by reporters last week, highlight another participant in the legal system — victims. People with injuries who needed to be made whole, or families whose loved ones died from another’s negligence: people who needed the help of well-connected lawyers. So they went to Hampton’s Mulberry Street, home to the Murdaugh family’s law firm, PMPED, situated in an imposing two-story brick building that takes up a city block.
Sandra Taylor’s mother
Elease Mallory is another of Murdaugh’s alleged victims. Mallory, who declined to speak with reporters, lost a daughter in 2019 and went to Murdaugh for help.
Mallory’s daughter, Sandra Taylor, 35, of Hampton, died after the car she was in crashed in Colleton County, according to court records.
The car’s driver, Deontre Cohen, was arrested and charged with driving drunk, according to Walterboro’s The Press and Standard. The charge against Cohen is still pending in online court records.
After Mallory, who served as the personal representative of her daughter’s estate, hired Murdaugh, a wrongful death settlement was reached for more than $180,000 as a result of the crash, the indictment shows.
But Murdaugh told the grieving mother that she received only $30,000. He said he would not charge her his typical legal fee because the settlement was so low.
The Hampton lawyer then charged his legal fees anyway and paid other expenses, the indictment alleges.
With the rest of the money — $152,866 — Murdaugh wrote a check to his personal bank account. He paid off a credit card bill, took out cash, paid family members and wrote checks to his associates, according to the indictment.
Murdaugh is accused of committing these offenses between Nov. 30, 2020 and Dec. 21, 2020.
Among Taylor’s estate records, as recently as last week, there was no mention of the wrongful death settlement. Instead, it appears that Murdaugh filed a wrongful death petition in Hampton County court on behalf of Taylor’s estate in August 2021 — well after the indictments allege that he stole the money.
It’s not clear why Murdaugh filed the petition in court after allegedly spending the money.
The wrongful death petition itself is dated December 2020, but the month and year appear to have been crossed out and changed to Aug. 19, 2021, court records show.
Less than a month later, the S.C. Supreme Court suspended Murdaugh’s law license while officials investigated claims that he stole money from his law firm.
Chelci Avant, another lawyer at the PMPED law firm, said last week that she took over the case involving Taylor’s estate after Murdaugh’s license was suspended.
“I stepped in to assist the client and to help make her whole,” she said.
The death settlement petition is still listed as pending in online court records.
‘He’s forged my name’
A common thread in the indictments: Murdaugh would tell his clients one thing about money meant for them, while doing something else with it entirely.
Murdaugh represented Jinks after he was rear-ended by a pool servicing company in March 2016 in a crash that injured his spine and his already-replaced knee.
Over two years later, Jinks said, Murdaugh put him on a conference call with opposing attorneys to tell him about a settlement offer for $830,000. Murdaugh suggested it was a good offer because taking the case to trial would result in it being backlogged for years. Jinks said he spoke with his wife, and they agreed to take it.
“I don’t believe that it was a credible conference call. I believe it was his way of covering up what he had already settled and getting me to settle for less,” he said, “because it’s a proven fact he’s forged my name on other documents.”
After the settlement, Murdaugh told Jinks that $150,000 in doctor and hospital bills needed to be locked in a trust for three years.
That wasn’t true, according to the indictments, as Murdaugh forged Jinks’ signature on disbursement documents for his firm PMPED and instead sent the money to his personal bank account with a fake name.
In addition, Murdaugh got $325,000 in fees from the settlement. Some of the funds for Jinks had to pay off loans Murdaugh had set up for him with Palmetto State Bank between the lawsuit’s filing and the settlement reached.
Family ties
Jinks and Taylor’s mother are among a dozen people named as victims in the past two months as indictments pile up against Murdaugh.
He’s accused of taking $6.2 million between 2015 and 2021, according to the S.C. attorney general’s office.
Most of Murdaugh’s alleged victims are former clients.
But Jinks was a family friend, and his relationship with Murdaugh had lasted for decades.
In June, on the day of the funeral for Murdaugh’s father, former solicitor Randolph Murdaugh III, Jinks sent boiled peanuts to the family’s home. He texted Murdaugh the day after his wife and son were found dead, offering support.
Recently, agents with the S.C. Law Enforcement Division asked Jinks “several different times” about Murdaugh’s drug use. Attorneys for Murdaugh have said a drug addiction was the reason for his botched suicide attempt in September.
“I’m still in doubt because (there) was never an indication to me he was on opioids,” Jinks said.
Jinks got a call from the law firm, PMPED, in September that Murdaugh had misused settlement money meant for him.
Since then, the firm paid Jinks back for the amount Murdaugh allegedly took from him and made him whole.
But the money doesn’t make up for the sense of betrayal Jinks feels. He hopes criminal charges will hold Murdaugh accountable.
Asked about his feelings now toward his former attorney and friend, Jinks paused to consider the question.
“Am I angry?” he asked. “I’m more disappointed in Alex than angry.”
This story was originally published December 16, 2021 at 4:35 AM.
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