CHARLESTON, S.C. (CN) — The former banker for Alex Murdaugh was sentenced Tuesday to seven years in federal prison for helping the infamous ex-attorney steal millions of dollars from former legal clients.
Russell Laffitte, 53, apologized to the victims for his “errors of judgment,” but he has continued to maintain his innocence since a jury found him guilty in November on six financial crimes, including bank fraud and wire fraud.
U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel, an Obama appointee, scoffed at the idea that the former chief executive of Palmetto State Bank was innocent. The evidence offered at Laffitte’s nearly three-week-long trial overwhelming proved that the former bank executive conspired with Murdaugh to commit “one of the state’s most notorious financial crimes,” Gergel said.
The scheme was dizzyingly complex and even more heinous because of who was targeted — children, car crash victims and grieving families, Gergel said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Limehouse told the judge it was unlikely Laffitte would have been caught if Murdaugh had not been investigated and, ultimately convicted, for the murder of his wife and son.
The brutal slaying of Maggie Murdaugh and her son Paul in June 2021 cast a national spotlight on the small town of Hampton and exposed a tangled web of deceit and fraud that has ensnared some of its most prominent members, including Laffitte.
Murdaugh was convicted earlier this year for both murders and sentenced to life in prison.
The once well-respected Hampton attorney confessed at the murder trial that he stole $8.7 million from at least a dozen former clients, even as he denied killing his loved ones.
But Murdaugh did not act alone, authorities say.
Laffitte moved the stolen money through various bank accounts and structured Murdaugh's deposits to help hide the scheme, the evidence showed. Meanwhile, the banker exploited his position as the court-appointed conservator for Murdaugh’s clients to make generous personal loans.
Among the victims was Hakeem Pinckney, a 19-year-old man left paralyzed from the neck down in a 2009 car collision that also severely injured his mother, Pamela. She told the court at the sentencing hearing her son died in a nursing home while she was recovering from her injuries.
As she grieved the devastating loss of her son, Murdaugh and Laffitte siphoned more than $300,000 in settlement money from the family’s personal injury case, authorities say. As the young man’s conservator, Laffitte took another $60,000 in fees, despite never visiting him.
“I forgive you, but I will never forget you,” Pamela Pinckney told Laffitte.
Natarsha Thomas, a passenger in Pinckney’s vehicle, partially lost her vision in the crash. She also lost $325,000 in the men’s fraud scheme, according to authorities.
Then there were the two sisters — Hannah and Alania Plyler — who were children when their mother and brother were killed in a 2005 car crash. Murdaugh represented the girls in their personal injury case while Laffitte served as their conservators.
Alania Spohn, who now uses her married name, told Gergel the sisters bounced among relatives’ homes while suffering a grief that left them “defenseless.”
“We were babies watching our family die,” she said.
The older sister trusted Laffitte and saw him as a father figure, Spohn said. She went to him when she needed money for food and school supplies.
Unbeknownst to them, Laffitte made generous loans to himself and Murdaugh using the girls’ settlements. When Spohn turned 18, Laffitte stole from other clients to shore up her account.
“Some of the most powerful people in the Lowcountry took advantage of us,” Spohn said.
Laffitte was the only person in a position to stop Murdaugh, Limehouse told Gergel. Instead, he used his financial acumen to help perpetuate the crime.
“(The thefts) would not have happened without Mr. Murdaugh,” Limehouse said Tuesday. “But it could not have happened without Mr. Laffitte.”
Laffitte’s defenders told the court he had always been committed to his family, friends and hometown. The former banker served on a county board that helped special-needs residents and volunteered at his children's schools, friends said.
When his son drowned in 2014, Alex Jernigan said Laffitte called to ask how he could help.
The grief-stricken father said there was nothing that could be done.
“But he called me again the next week,” he said. “And again the next week.”
The men had only a professional relationship at the time, Jernigan said, but the calls continued every month for two years. When Hurricane Matthew rampaged through Jernigan’s community in 2016, Laffitte drove five hours to deliver him a generator and help clean up the debris.
“He is a man who puts family and neighbors above all else,” Jernigan said.
Laffitte was ordered to pay $3.5 million in restitution to the victims.
His defense attorneys said they intend to appeal the conviction.
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