HAMPTON, S.C. — Suspended Beaufort County lawyer Cory Fleming will go on trial Sept. 11 for financial crimes he allegedly carried out with convicted killer and former lawyer Alex Murdaugh.
The crimes involve the alleged theft of a $4.3 million inheritance due the sons of the Murdaugh family’s housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, from liability insurance proceeds after Satterfield died from injuries in a 2018 fall at Murdaugh’s house.
After Satterfield’s death, Murdaugh allegedly hatched a scheme involving Fleming to steal some $4.3 million in insurance money from Satterfield’s sons, according to state grand jury indictments. Murdaugh wound up with most of the money, but Fleming also shared in the proceeds, indictments say.
Murdaugh will be tried separately on the Satterfield allegations at a later date.
Fleming, a close friend of Murdaugh’s from his days at the University of South Carolina Law School in the early 1990s, has pleaded not guilty.
Fleming’s trial will be the first Murdaugh financial crimes trial in state court.
In November 2022, former Hampton banker Russell Laffitte was found guilty in Charleston federal court of various counts of bank-related fraud. He was accused of helping Murdaugh carry out various theft schemes, most of which involved Murdaugh’s misuse or theft of his former clients’ funds being kept at Laffitte’s bank, Palmetto State Bank.
Fleming was one of five defendants involved in Murdaugh-related cases whom trial dates were discussed Friday with state Judge Clifton Newman at the Hampton County courthouse, about 90 miles south of Columbia.
The walls of the high-ceiling courtroom contain paintings of Murdaugh’s great-grand father, grandfather and father, all prominent solicitors, or chief elected prosecutors, who succeeded each other from about 1920 to 2005 in a five-county Lowcountry region. All were based in Hampton.
No trial dates were set Friday for Murdaugh, who is serving two consecutive life sentences in state prison for killing his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, in June 2021 at their Colleton County Moselle estate.
One of Murdaugh’s attorneys, state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, D-Richland, is allowed to be excused from court appearances through July 31 because he’s a sitting legislator.
Chief prosecutor Creighton Waters, with the S.C. Attorney General’s Office, told Newman that come Aug. 1, when Harpootlian and his legal team can no longer claim immunity from participating in ongoing cases, he wants to start discussions about trial dates for some of Murdaugh’s financial crimes.
Murdaugh faces nearly 100 counts of various crimes, ranging from money laundering, forgery and embezzlement involving millions of dollars in alleged thefts, according to state grand jury indictments.
On Friday, trial dates were discussed but not set for state grand jury criminal charges involving Laffitte, who appeared with his lawyers Mark Moore, state Rep. Todd Rutherford, D-Richland, and Michael Parente.
Moore and Rutherford said they needed more time to prepare for any trial, especially Rutherford, who was hired Thursday.
Moore also asked for and got permission from Newman to move $300,000 from a Laffitte escrow account at the Nelson Mullins law firm to an escrow account at Moore’s firm, Maynard Nexsen, formerly known as Nexsen Pruet.
Any spending of that money, which came from the sale of Laffitte’s house and other properties so he could hire lawyers, has to be approved by Newman.
The money was at the Nelson Mullins law firm because that is where Laffitte’s first team of lawyers, who included Bart Daniel and Matt Austin, worked. Laffitte fired them within weeks of his guilty verdicts in federal court.
Laffitte is expected to be sentenced in that case by U.S. Judge Richard Gergel by the end of June.
Meanwhile, no trial date was set for Curtis “Eddie” Smith, Murdaugh’s alleged henchman in helping him launder more than $2 million Murdaugh allegedly stole over the years in various unlawful schemes.
Smith, who is out on bond, did not appear Friday, but his attorney Aimee Zmroczek told the judge that Smith has been suffering from severe health problems lately and may have to go on dialysis treatment. Smith’s other lawyer, Jarrett Bouchette, also was present.
Trial dates also were set Friday for two Colleton County men — Jerry Rivers and Spencer Roberts — whom Waters characterized as minor players in the sweeping Murdaugh crime drama.
Rivers, represented by Chris Leonard, will go on trial Aug. 28. Roberts, represented by court-appointed attorney Shaun Kent, will go on trial Dec. 18. Kent, a high-dollar criminal defense attorney, was appointed to the case only this week.
Both trials will take place in Colleton County.
In 2021, Rivers is alleged to have received more than $89,000 in checks that originated from Murdaugh, Waters told a judge last year at Rivers’ bond hearing. Waters said checks went from Murdaugh to Smith first, then to Roberts and Rivers and “other individuals” whom Waters did not identify. Roberts also received “a substantial number of checks allegedly originating” from Murdaugh,” Waters said last year.
Waters said Rivers and Roberts were arrested after evidence showed they played a small role in Murdaugh’s money-laundering schemes.
Prosecutors have “bigger fish to fry” than Rivers and Roberts, Waters told Newman, but said, “when you uncover these things, you can’t ignore them.”
Columbia attorney Eric Bland, who with law partner Ronnie Richter was instrumental in bringing the Satterfield alleged theft to light in 2021, said Friday he is glad Fleming will finally go on trial.
“Justice has a deadline, and it’s time,” Bland said. “Cory Fleming was instrumental in what happened in the Satterfield case.”
———
