For maybe the last time, [Richard] Alex Murdaugh, in a prison jumpsuit instead of the suit he used to wear, shuffled into a courtroom Monday in South Carolina and was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison.
Murdaugh was punished — this time in federal court — for stealing from clients and his law firm. The 55-year-old disbarred attorney is already serving a life sentence without parole in a state prison for killing his wife and son.
A report by federal agents recommended a prison sentence between 17 1/2 and just under 22 years.
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U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel said he sentenced Murdaugh to a harsher punishment than suggested because Murdaugh stole from “the most needy, vulnerable people” like a client who became a quadriplegic after a crash, a state trooper who was injured on the job, and a trust fund meant for children whose parents were killed in a wreck.
At his age, that's a life stretch. Even if he manages to get his murder convictions overturned, he's got 27 years for stealing clients' money from his state conviction and forty from his Federal conviction. Odds are he'll do his time in state prison. Only if his murder convictions are overturned and he does his time on the financial conviction would he be moved to Federal prison. Which isn't likely to happen.
Couldn't happen to a more deserving two-legged creature. Even by the standards of the Southern Big Man on the Hill, this creature is out of the swamp. I suppose we can't just shoot him to put hum out of our misery, but the high life of his golden years in the stir will have to suffice.
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