Alex Murdaugh faces a South Carolina judge for punishment a final time

For perhaps the last time, Alex Murdaugh, wearing prison jumpsuits and shackles instead of the suit the lawyer used to wear, will slide into a South Carolina courtroom and wait for a judge to punish him.

Murdaugh will be sentenced in federal court Monday morning for stealing from clients and his law firm. The 55-year-old disbarred lawyer is already serving a life sentence without parole in a state prison for the murder of his wife and son.

A report from federal agents recommends a prison sentence of 17 to 22 years for Murdaugh. It is insurance on top of insurance. In addition to the life sentence, Murdaugh pleaded guilty and was ordered to spend 27 years in prison in state court on financial crimes charges — time he will have to serve if both of his murder convictions are overturned on appeal.

The 22 federal charges in a plea deal are the latest charges outstanding for Murdaugh, who three years ago was an established attorney negotiating multimillion-dollar settlements in tiny Hampton County, where members of his family served as elected prosecutors and the most important laws in the area. strong for almost a century.

But now his life is being summed up by prosecutors in a lawsuit that asks a judge to rescind their plea deal with Murdaugh and give him a harsher sentence because FBI agents believe he isn’t telling the whole truth about what happened happened to the $6 million he stole and whether an as-yet unnamed attorney aided his criminal schemes.

Murdaugh “spent most of his career deceiving everyone in his personal and professional circles – without the burden of his own conscience. The extent and pervasiveness of Murdaugh’s deception is staggering. He ranks as one of the most prolific fraudsters this state has ever seen. “As the house of cards began to fall, Murdaugh murdered his wife and son,” prosecutors wrote.

Murdaugh stole from clients, including the sons of his longtime housekeeper Gloria Satterfield. She died in a fall at the family home. Murdaugh promised to care for Satterfield’s family and then worked with a lawyer friend who pleaded guilty to a scheme to steal $4 million in a wrongful death settlement with the family’s insurer.

Murdaugh also took money intended to care for a client who was paralyzed after an accident and a state trooper was injured on the job.

In total, Murdaugh took settlement money from or increased fees or expenses for nearly two dozen clients. Prosecutors said the FBI found 11 more victims than the state investigation revealed and that Murdaugh stole nearly $1.3 million from them.

Murdaugh was convicted a year ago of killing his youngest son Paul with a shotgun and his wife Maggie with a rifle. Although he has pleaded guilty to dozens of financial crimes, he adamantly denies killing them and testified in his own defense. There will be years of appeals in the murder cases.

The case has captivated true crime fans and spawned dozens of podcast episodes and thousands of social media posts. It continued its strange twists and turns in the days before Monday’s sentencing hearing.

Lawyers for Murdaugh said an FBI agent administering a polygraph test asked Murdaugh if he could keep a secret, then confided that he had just investigated notorious Dutch killer Joran van der Sloot.

Murdaugh failed that polygraph test, according to prosecutors who want to withdraw the plea deal, paving the way for a harsher sentence. Each of the 22 charges to which Murdaugh pleaded guilty in federal court carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. Some have a maximum term of 30 years.

The defense said an FBI agent’s alleged strange behavior and unusual questions caused Murdaugh to fail the test. They asked the court to release all of his statements to the FBI.

A judge will consider the issue during Monday’s sentencing hearing.

Prosecutors want to keep many of the FBI statements secret and say they are still investigating the missing money and who may have helped Murdaugh steal it. They say making the information public would jeopardize an ongoing grand jury investigation.