South Carolina suspends lawyer Alex Murdaugh’s law license as investigation widens

South Carolina’s highest courtroom agreed Wednesday to indefinitely suspend the law license of Alex Murdaugh, the most recent blow to a popular attorney whose actions have come below scrutiny immediately after he survived a roadside shooting and abruptly resigned from his law company last week about allegations of misconduct.

The South Carolina Supreme Court’s purchase claims Murdaugh did not oppose the suspension.

Murdaugh, 53, had introduced Monday that he was getting into rehab in the wake of the fatal shootings of his spouse, Margaret, and son, Paul, in June — a double homicide that stays unsolved and has attracted national focus.

But he unsuccessful to point out that his legislation organization — Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth & Detrick, which was launched by his good-grandfather — had opened an investigation into “misappropriated funds.”

“This is disappointing information for all of us,” the law agency claimed in a statement afterwards Monday. “Rest assured that our firm will deal with this in a easy manner. You can find no spot in our organization for these types of habits.”

The company included that a forensic accounting agency will conduct an inner investigation and that it had notified regulation enforcement and the South Carolina Bar. It can be unclear how considerably income Murdaugh is accused of taking and how it was applied, and the law organization declined even more remark.

In a statement Wednesday, Murdaugh’s brother, Randolph Murdaugh IV, who is also a law firm and companion at the household-established law agency, said he was “stunned” along with his colleagues to study of his brother’s drug addiction and the accusations of stolen income.

“I appreciate my regulation company family members and also love Alex as my brother. When I will guidance him in his restoration, I do not guidance, condone, or excuse his carry out in stealing by manipulating his most reliable interactions,” Randolph Murdaugh IV stated.

The Murdaugh brothers’ father, a grandfather and a fantastic-grandfather all held the major prosecutor’s situation in South Carolina’s 14th Circuit, which covers a swampy coastal location of the condition known as the Lowcountry, and wielded energy in the identical position for much more than 8 many years. Alex Murdaugh was a section-time prosecutor in the business when also functioning for his wonderful-grandfather’s non-public law organization.

Officials in the state’s 14th Circuit mentioned Tuesday that Murdaugh was “no for a longer time approved to prosecute on behalf” of the business pursuing the accusation by his legislation company. The very last case he prosecuted for the company was in October 2019.

Margaret and Paul Murdaugh’s bodies had been found by Murdaugh on June 7 in the vicinity of puppy kennels on the family’s looking residence in Colleton County, west of Charleston. They had been shot to loss of life.

The South Carolina Legislation Enforcement Division has released couple of details, stating it does not want to compromise its investigation. The company did not react to a ask for for remark about the allegation lodged by Murdaugh’s former law organization.