HAMPTON COUNTY, S.C. (Court TV) – Attorneys representing convicted killer Alex Murdaugh want a confession of judgment the disgraced attorney made to be thrown out.
Alex Murdaugh sentenced to life in prison after conviction in double murder trial during his sentencing at the Colleton County Courthouse in Walterboro, S.C., on Friday, March 3, 2023 after he was found guilty on all four counts. (Andrew J. Whitaker/The Post And Courier via AP, Pool)
In court documents filed earlier this month, Alex Murdaugh admitted that he lied when he said that his dogs caused his family’s housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, to trip and fall. The 2018 incident led to Satterfield’s death from a head injury. In documents filed in federal court on May 11, attorneys said that “After Ms. Satterfield’s death, Defendant invented Ms. Satterfield’s purported statement that dogs caused her fall to force his insurers to make a settlement payment, and he stated that she was not on the property to perform work.”
In a new unfiled motion, provided to Court TV by Eric Bland, the attorney representing the Satterfield estate, Murdaugh has asked for a judge to vacate the judgment he confessed.
The motion cites “other misconduct” by Plaintiff’s council as a reason for the judgment to be vacated. “The judgment should be vacated because it fails to comport with the requirements of South Carolina law, because it was based on inaccurate facts, and because the judgment does not serve, and was not obtained for any legitimate purpose.”
WATCH: Satterfield’s Attorney Responds to Murdaugh Lie
Bland and the Satterfield estate have accused Murdaugh of stealing the insurance settlement he reached from Satterfield’s family. The signed confession of judgment in the case would award the estate $4.3 million.
In the new motion, Murdaugh’s attorneys argue that the only person who ever propagated the story that his dogs were the cause of Satterfield’s fall was Murdaugh himself and that no other evidence supported his claim.
READ MORE: Alex Murdaugh’s crime saga timeline: Murder, fraud, death and betrayal
“As Mr. Bland knows, Mr. Murdaugh is incarcerated, and all his assets are in the receivership that Mr. Bland requested the Court impose. Mr. Murdaugh cannot ‘keep’ any money, stolen or otherwise If a claim for damages against Mr. Murdaugh were dismissed because it had been fully compensated from other sources, it would imply mean more money would be available in the receivership estate for restitution to Mr. Murdaugh’s many other victims.”
Murdaugh’s attorneys accuse Bland of pushing for the confession of judgment in an effort to block their motion for a gag order, and of referring to the requested amount as “monopoly money,” “because the amount of the confession is subject to setoffs for amounts previously paid by other defendants, which at this time was already more than the amount of the confessed judgment. Thus, the confession would not actually require Mr. Murdaugh to pay one penny, nor would it give one more penny to Plaintiffs.”
Murdaugh, a once-prominent attorney in South Carolina’s Lowcountry, was convicted of murdering his wife and son. He is currently serving a life sentence.
