Alex Murdaugh is sentenced to 40 years in prison for stealing money from law firm on top of life sentence he is already serving for murders of wife and son

Alex Murdaugh has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for stealing millions of dollars from clients of his law firm, a punishment that will be served at the same time as his 27-year sentence for state fraud convictions.

The 40-year sentence will be insurance on top of insurance for Murdaugh to spend the rest of his days in prison - It will run consecutively with the disgraced lawyer's pair of life sentences for the murders of Maggie and Paul.

Murdaugh will also have to pay nearly $9 million in restitution.

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

The killer again apologized to his victims at his sentencing Monday, saying he felt 'guilt, sorrow, shame, embarrassment, humiliation.' Just like at his state sentencing, he offered to meet with his victims so they can say what they want to say and 'more closely inspect my sincerity.'

Convicted killer Alex Murdaugh (pictured) has been accused of failing a polygraph test that was part of his plea deal with prosecutors for the multiple financial crimes he's charged with

Murdaugh, 55, is already serving life without parole in state prison after a jury found him guilty of murder in the shootings of his wife and younger son 

'There’s not enough time and I don’t possess a sufficient vocabulary to adequately portray to you in words the magnitude of how I feel about the things I did,' Murdaugh said.

A report by federal agents recommended a prison sentence between 17 1/2 and just under 22 years. 

The 22 federal counts are the final charges outstanding for Murdaugh, who three years ago was an established lawyer negotiating multimillion-dollar settlements in tiny where members of his family served as elected prosecutors and ran the area’s premier law firm for nearly a century.

It comes after the disgraced lawyer, 55, was accused of failing a polygraph test that was part of his plea deal with prosecutors for multiple financial crimes.

Prosecutors had asked a court on Tuesday to release the federal government of their deal with the disgraced lawyer - who they say wasn’t truthful about where more than $6 million he stole ended up, and whether another attorney helped him steal from clients and his law firm.

Murdaugh’s largest scheme involved the sons of his longtime housekeeper Gloria Satterfield. She died in a fall at the family home 

Murdaugh told Satterfield's sons (Bryan, left, and Tony, right) at her February 2018 funeral that he would get insurance settlements for her death and take care of them, according to a lawsuit filed by the sons

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.

'They placed all their problems and all their hopes on Mr. Murdaugh and it is from those people he abused and stole. It is a difficult set of actions to understand,' Gergel said.

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

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

Murdaugh's lawyers claim the FBI agent conducting the test threw the murderer off by asking odd questions and sharing he had just examined Natalee Holloway's killer Joran van der Sloot (pictured)

Murdaugh’s lawyers said the FBI examiner asked Murdaugh if he could keep a secret, then told him he had just come from Alabama where he tested van der Sloot, who admitted to killing Natalee Holloway in 2005 in Aruba

Murdaugh blamed nearly two decades of addiction to opioids for his crimes and said he was proud is has been clean for 937 days.

Gergel scoffed at him blaming drugs.

'No truly impaired person could pull off these complex transactions,' the judge said of the maze of fake accounts, juggled checks and money passed from one place to another to hide the thefts for nearly 20 years.

Murdaugh's lawyers last week claimed the FBI agent conducting the test threw the murderer off by asking odd questions and sharing that he had just examined Natalee Holloway's killer Joran van der Sloot.

In their response, Murdaugh’s lawyers said the results were made unreliable by the FBI examiner who just before the exam asked Murdaugh if he could keep a secret, then told him he had just come from Alabama where he tested van der Sloot, who admitted to killing Natalee Holloway in 2005 in Aruba.

The examiner also told Murdaugh he believed he didn’t kill his wife and son and asked him a confusing question about hidden assets, the defense said.

'There are legitimate questions as to whether the Government intentionally manipulated the results to void the plea agreement and achieve the prosecutors’ stated desire to "ensure that he’s never a free man again,"' defense lawyers Jim Griffin and Dick Harpootlian wrote.

Each of the 22 counts Murdaugh pleaded guilty to in federal court carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. Some carry a 30-year maximum

Murdaugh, 55, is already serving life without parole in state prison after a jury found him guilty of murder in the shootings of his wife and younger son. 

He later pleaded guilty to stealing money from clients and his law firm in state court and was sentenced to 27 years, which South Carolina prosecutors said is an insurance policy to keep him behind bars in case his murder conviction was ever overturned.

The federal case was supposed to be even more insurance, with Murdaugh agreeing to a plea deal so his federal sentence would run at the same time as his state sentences.

Prosecutors now want Murdaugh to face the stiffest sentence possible since the plea agreement was breached and serve his federal sentence at the end of any state sentences.

Each of the 22 counts Murdaugh pleaded guilty to in federal court carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. Some carry a 30-year maximum.

Prosecutors also want to keep secret four statements, including the polygraph, the Murdaugh gave the FBI.

Investigators think Murdaugh is trying to protect an attorney who helped him steal and that his assertion that more than $6 million in the stolen money went to his drug habit is not true. Releasing the statements could damage an ongoing investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

State prosecutors estimated Murdaugh stole more than $12 million from clients by diverting settlement money into his own accounts or stealing from his family law firm.

Investigators said that as Murdaugh’s financial schemes were about to be exposed in June 2021, he decided to kill his wife and son in hopes it would make him a sympathetic figure and draw attention away from the missing money. 

Paul Murdaugh was shot several times with a shotgun and Maggie Murdaugh was shot several times with a rifle outside the family’s home in Colleton County.

Murdaugh has adamantly denied killing them, even testifying in his own defense against his lawyers’ advice.

Federal prosecutors said Murdaugh did appear to tell the truth about the roles banker Russell Laffitte and attorney and old college friend Cory Fleming played in helping him steal.

Laffitte was convicted and sentenced to seven years in prison, while Fleming is serving nearly four years behind bars after pleading guilty.