A deal is in the works to sell the sprawling Islandton, South Carolina, property where Maggie and Paul Murdaugh were murdered last summer, sources with knowledge of the plans have told FITSNews.
But the plan appears to have been put in place prior to the property being publicly advertised for sale.
The more than 1,700-acre hunting property — known as “Moselle” and comprising six tracts in Hampton and Colleton counties — apparently had two buyers lined up to purchase it.
The identities of the buyers have not yet been disclosed. However, according to sources, at least one of them is local to the area.
It is not known what Moselle’s appraised value is, but according to an online listing — that wasn’t available at the time this story originally published Monday morning — the property is listed at $3.9 million by Crosby Land Company in Walterboro.
The property also appears to have been rebranded as ”Cross Swamp Farm.” See the listing here.
The sale of the property, however, cannot go through until a lien attached to it — in connection with a wrongful death lawsuit against disgraced Hampton County attorney Alex Murdaugh — gets withdrawn.
At issue is a mortgage held by Palmetto State Bank, which has been implicated in Murdaugh’s alleged schemes to steal more than $8.4 million from clients and his former lawsuit.
The bank says it is owed more than $2 million for the property. Lawyers connected to the wrongful death lawsuit disagree.
Moselle’s Dark History
A prized possession of the Murdaugh family for years, Moselle was the site of many holiday get-togethers, group hunts and parties, according to sources who knew the family well.
Even before the murders, however, Moselle had a complicated history … starting with how the Murdaughs acquired it.
According to records, the property once belonged to a suspected drug smuggler who was both a business partner and close family friend of Alex and Maggie Murdaugh.
More on this in a second.
Moselle is also where the Murdaughs’ longtime housekeeper Gloria Satterfield reportedly tripped and fell in 2018, resulting in a fatal injury.
Murdaugh stands accused of leading a scheme to steal $4.3 million — the entirety of a wrongful death settlement — from Satterfield’s family. He is currently being held at the Richland County Detention Center in lieu of $7 million bond for this and dozens of other alleged financial crimes.
Murdaugh is also the only person of interest to have been publicly identified in the murders of his wife and son. According to sources close to the investigation, direct physical evidence links him to the murders.
No arrests have been made in that case yet.
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Barred from Being Sold
In early November, a judge froze Murdaugh’s assets and appointed a co-receivership to comb through his finances. The move was a result of mounting accusations against Murdaugh and apparent efforts on his part to keep money hidden from the family of 19-year-old Mallory Beach, who was killed in a 2019 boat crash involving Murdaugh’s son Paul.
Murdaugh and his son Buster were named as defendants in the wrongful death and personal injury suits stemming from the crash.
Because of this and the Satterfield case, the property has been the subject of recent legal maneuverings.
Last year, after a so-called “murder for hire” incident involving Alex Murdaugh in September, lawyers representing clients with claims against him put up legal roadblocks that effectively prevented the property from being sold.
More recently, Murdaugh’s brother, John Marvin Murdaugh — who is the personal representative for Maggie Murdaugh’s estate — has sought to sell the property and pay off a more than $2 million mortgage held by Palmetto State Bank, a family-owned Hampton County bank that also has been accused of playing a role in Alex Murdaugh’s alleged crimes.
In January, John Marvin Murdaugh filed motions seeking the right to sell the land, with its large home, ample kennel space and alleged air strip, saying he felt like he was being held “hostage” by the plaintiffs.
Columbia attorney Eric Bland said Sunday he is withdrawing the lis pendens fillings against the property.
The sale of the property, however, is contingent on the Beach family attorney, Mark Tinsley of Allendale, withdrawing his filing.
Tinsley told FITSNews he has not agreed to withdraw the filing because of questions over Palmetto State Bank’s liberal lending practices when it comes to Murdaugh.
On Sunday evening, he said he does not think the bank should receive the full of amount of what it claims to be owed.
Ostensibly, the net proceeds from the sale would go to the receivers, where the money would be held under a judge’s authority.
Even if Murdaugh — who is the sole beneficiary to Maggie’s estate — were to get an influx of cash, he would still have to get the approval of the judge to use it to pay his bond.
Moselle’s Strange Math
The Moselle transaction between the Murdaughs and the Boulwares has been widely seen as unorthodox.
In 2013, Murdaugh acquired the property from Jeannine Boulware — the wife of suspected trafficker Barrett T. Boulware, who died in 2018.
The property was given to Murdaugh as collateral toward an alleged debt the Boulwares owed him. The alleged debt — nearly $1 million — was recorded as a mortgage due seven months after the transaction.
The next fall, Murdaugh and Boulware recorded a “deed in the lieu of foreclosure,” which officially turned over the property to Murdaugh.
However, the mortgage the Boulwares allegedly owed Murdaugh stayed on the records until this past September when Buster Murdaugh, who has power of attorney for his father, released Jeannine Boulware from the loan.
In addition to this, the property was acquired by Murdaugh in three transactions. The first was for $499,646 — possibly in cash.
The second transaction was for $730,000 — part of a “multi-property, non-simultaneous, tax-free exchange transaction” entered into between Boulware and Murdaugh. Typically such transactions — which are authorized by section 1031 of the U.S. internal revenue code — allow the seller to avoid capital gains taxes so long as they invest any proceeds of the sale into the purchase of other properties.
A transfer deed (.pdf) dated April 15, 2013, referenced the “exchange of like-kind replacement property” totaling $730,000 but no such property exchange has been identified.
The third transaction was for one parcel and for $70,000.
These three transactions total $1,299,646.
Murdaugh sold the property to Maggie in 2016 for $5.
On April 15, 2013, Murdaugh also took out a loan from Palmetto State Bank — a bank with which he has had a longtime personal and allegedly criminal relationship. The loan was secured by the properties for $1,311,865. That loan was due on Jan. 15, 2018.
On Feb. 9, 2015, Palmetto State Bank loaned more money to Murdaugh — secured by these same properties — of at least $500,000 and up to $1 million, which was due Jan. 14, 2020.
As those following the Murdaugh Murders Saga know, Palmetto State Bank’s former CEO, Russell Laffitte, and its Vice President, Chad Westendorf, have both been linked to Murdaugh’s alleged schemes to steal and launder settlement money from clients.
Laffitte, whose family purchased the bank in the 1950s, was suspended at the beginning of the month and fired days later. Sources tell FITSNews that he is expected to be indicted soon for his alleged role in the schemes.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
(Via: Provided)
Liz Farrell is the new executive editor at FITSNews. She was named 2018’s top columnist in the state by South Carolina Press Association and is back after taking a nearly two-year break from corporate journalism to reclaim her soul. Email her at liz@fitsnews.com or tweet her @ElizFarrell.
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5 comments
Great report. You help to clarify a complicated and very unreal series of events, financial and otherwise. Good lord, who ARE these people?
White trash theives who got a big dose of Karma. What went around, came back around, and this guy is scum.
Murdaugh is an entitled scumbag and although it took many years to bring him down, finally his psychotic greedy moves have finally landed him in prison. The con artist from the bank who approved bogus loans and participated in other unlawful activity hopefully, is charged and serves jail time. Also, not sure why the Beach family has not received a settlement, since the death occurred in 2019.
Hopefully this trial is just the beginning of scrutinizing this man and his family’s adverse treatment of others particularly those who suffered because of them. One thing that became crystal clear through this trial was how much power Alec had over the financial institutions, his law office, friends, relatives but particularly the police and sheriff’s office, that was alarming. One wishes this climate had ceased to exist in the USA. Ongoing trials to identify those persons who helped Alec will be one way in which this county can clean up their act. Clearly there are others attached to him.
Your sins will find you out money greed power mean nothing when you take your last breath and you meet your maker