COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Alex Murdaugh has filed a lawsuit against the court clerk whose behavior during his murder trial led the South Carolina Supreme Court to overturn his convictions and life sentence for the deaths of his wife and son.
The suit filed Sunday in federal court accuses former Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill of violating Murdaugh's right to a fair trial and seeks punitive and compensatory damages and attorneys’ fees. Murdaugh spent $600,000 on his trial defense, according to the suit.
In a unanimous ruling Wednesday, the state Supreme Court said Hill “egregiously attacked Murdaugh’s credibility” by suggesting to jurors during his 2023 trial that the once-prominent lawyer was guilty and that his testimony could not be trusted.
Murdaugh has denied killing his wife Maggie and younger son Paul since he found their bodies outside their home in 2021.
Murdaugh’s lawsuit accuses Hill of “reckless or callous indifference to Mr. Murdaugh’s federally protected right to trial before an impartial jury” and says her behavior was motivated by “evil motive or intent.”
Hill's attorney, Will Lewis, did not immediately return a call and email Monday seeking comment.
An attorney for Murdaugh, Jim Griffin, said at a news conference Monday the lawsuit seeks to hold Hill accountable for her behavior and reveal the “entire scope of her conduct.”
“She’s yet to be thoroughly investigated by the state, and she’s not been held accountable by the state,” he said.
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, whose office prosecuted Murdaugh, said in a news release that the “Becky Hill matter was previously referred to and reviewed by an independent prosecutor.”
Griffin said Murdaugh got emotional when they talked about the Supreme Court's decision.
“'I’m reading it. I see it says reversed but I still have a hard time believing it,'” Griffin recalled Murdaugh saying.
A few jurors said Hill, assigned to oversee evidence and the jury during the trial, told them to watch Murdaugh’s body language when he testified in his own defense and to not be fooled, confused or thrown off by what he might say.
The South Carolina Supreme Court said Hill’s motivation was the “siren call of celebrity” and her goal was to increase sales of her book on the trial called “Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders.” It was pulled from publication after plagiarism allegations were made.
Hill has pleaded guilty to lying about what she said and did during the trial, including showing graphic crime scene photos to several media members.
Prosecutors say they plan to retry Murdaugh, which likely means there will be another lengthy trial. The case became a true crime sensation with several streaming miniseries, bestselling books and dozens of true crime podcasts.
Investigators said Murdaugh was addicted to opioids and his complex schemes to steal money from clients and his family’s law firm were starting to unravel so he killed his wife and son to divert attention and buy time to find a way out of his problems.
Murdaugh remains in prison. He pleaded guilty to stealing around $12 million from his clients and is serving a 40-year federal sentence at the same time as a 27-year state sentence for his financial crimes.
FILE - Disbarred attorney Alex Murdaugh arrives in court in Beaufort, S.C., Sept. 14, 2023. (AP Photo/James Pollard, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump 's allies who believe they were wrongly prosecuted by the Biden administration could soon have access to a $1.7 billion dollar compensation fund, the Justice Department announced Monday, in a move slammed by Democrats as unconstitutional and corrupt.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement that the fund — dubbed the “Anti-Weaponization Fund" — will represent “a lawful process for victims of lawfare and weaponization to be heard and seek redress.” Blanche's statement made no mention of how investigations and prosecutions of Trump’s political opponents under his watch have exposed the Justice Department to the same claims of politicized law enforcement that he said he opposed.
The fund was announced as part of a deal to resolve Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against the Internal Revenue Service over the leak of his tax returns.
The fund is in keeping with Trump's long-running claims that the Justice Department during the Biden administration was weaponized against him, even though then-President Joe Biden himself was scrutinized during that time. The fund would represent not only a highly unorthodox resolution but also a further demonstration of the Trump administration’s eagerness to reward allies who were investigated and in some cases charged and convicted before Trump came to power.
Monday afternoon at the White House, Trump told reporters the fund is dedicated to “reimbursing people who were horribly treated.”
Democratic lawmakers, who are teeing up a legal challenge to the move, argue that it will become a taxpayer-funded “slush fund” for Trump allies and supporters who claim political persecution. They also question whether the president should be able to direct money for the fund without explicit congressional approval.
Here's what to know about the fund:
The fund was announced after Trump and his sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., and the Trump Organization agreed to drop their lawsuit against the IRS and the Treasury Department. The lawsuit alleged that a leak of confidential tax records caused them reputational and financial harm and negatively affected their public standing, among other allegations.
According to the Justice Department announcement, the fund is meant to provide a formal process for people or entities who say they were unfairly targeted by the government for political, ideological or personal reasons.
“The use of government power to target individuals or entities for improper and unlawful political, personal, or ideological reasons should not be tolerated by any administration,” Justice Department official Trent McCotter said in the statement announcing the fund.
The money itself would come from the federal judgment fund, which pays out court judgments and compromise settlements of lawsuits against the government.
The fund will be able to review claims of alleged government political targeting, will issue formal apologies and award monetary compensation to approved claimants, according to the Justice Department.
The claims of a weaponized Justice Department during the Biden administration overlook the fact that President Joe Biden himself was investigated for the potential mishandling of classified information, and his son Hunter was charged with gun and tax crimes.
The Justice Department did not identify anyone by name who could theoretically benefit from the fund, but there were multiple investigations of Trump allies during the Biden administration where targets could look to obtain payouts.
Prosecutors, for instance, charged about 1,500 people in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. Trump on his first day in office of his second term either pardoned them, commuted their prison sentences or dismissed the cases.
It’s unclear whether those entitled to compensation would include Jan. 6 defendants who were convicted of attacking officers with makeshift weapons such as flagpoles, a hockey stick and crutch. More than 250 people were convicted of assault charges, with the attacks in many cases captured on surveillance or body camera footage.
Other prominent Trump supporters who were investigated and charged include Steve Bannon, who served a prison sentence for defying a congressional subpoena, and Peter Navarro, who was similarly convicted of contempt and later pardoned.
The Justice Department says the fund will receive $1.776 billion from the federal judgment fund, to operate through Dec. 15, 2028, and will be overseen by a five-member commission appointed by Blanche, with one member chosen in consultation with congressional leadership. According to the Justice Department, the president can remove any member.
It was unclear how the commission would determine who should be awarded compensation.
The Justice Department cites previous cases that led to settlements as the authority for this fund — including litigation related to Keepseagle v. Vilsack — a landmark 1999 class-action lawsuit filed against the USDA by Native American farmers who alleged that the USDA discriminated against Native American farmworkers by denying them farm loans while approving similar loans for white applicants.
“The Obama Administration settled the case by establishing an administrative claims process funded by $680,000,000 paid from the judgment fund, which was deposited into a bank account to fund the claims received," states the Justice Department.
Democratic lawmakers and ethics watchdogs slammed the creation of the fund — saying it was corrupt, untransparent and had the potential to become a “slush fund” for the president and his allies.
A group of nearly 100 members of Congress filed a brief teeing up a legal challenge to the case.
“This case is nothing but a racket designed to take $1.7 billion of taxpayer dollars out of the Treasury and pour it into a huge slush fund for Trump at DOJ to hand out to his private militia of insurrectionists, rioters, and white supremacists, including those who brutally beat police officers on January 6, 2021, and sycophant accomplices to his election stealing schemes,” Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., called the fund "corruption on steroids.”
Last month, she and a group of other Democratic lawmakers introduced the Ban Presidential Plunder of Taxpayer Funds Act, which would ban the sitting president and vice president from collecting settlement payments from the U.S., among other things.
Associated Press writer Alanna Durkin Richer contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One, Friday, May 15, 2026, as he returns from a trip to Beijing, China. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
