Alex Murdaugh’s Money: Let The Battles Begin

Let me get that right: there will NOT be enough money to divide among all claimants; so, let’s hire more lawyers to oversee dividing it?
Who will pay the additional lawyers? And how much?
Heck! How much are the co-receivers themselves being paid?
So, it will be sad fun to see how much the other claimants really love Eric Bland (“EB”) and/or Mark Tinsley (“MT”) once they see that EB made off with over $7.5M for himself and for the sons of a woman who had diabetes, got dizzy, fell few steps and COINCIDENTALLY had a stroke/coronary occlusion and died from it 24 days later in hospital and there is nothing left for the other claimants.
The cannibals will be at each other; and EB will be shouting from the rooftops that the real villain is Justin Bamberg, not Alex Murdaugh (“AM”); and MT will be shouting from the rooftops that the real villain is Joe McCullough, not Buster Murdaugh.
What keeps puzzling me is where was all this hate and outrage (not that I like hate) when the Richard Jerome Breibart scandal broke out?
In my opinion free from false humility, Breibart was ten times worse than AM. All AM did (not that I approve of it) is cheat the insurance companies and keep the loot to himself.
Breibart, by contrast, manufactured false criminal charges against his own clients, charged them hundreds of thousands to defend them, then disappeared the money he had taken from clients, not from insurance companies. Breibart’s victims basically got back a nickel on the dollar; and Breibart himself did only three years in Club Fed.
Where is the proportionality here?

Okay, let’s see if Callie Lyons is really of “publications all over the world” caliber.
All Callie did so far is copy a motion filed in a case in a county trying to assert itself in a state which a law professor called “time forgot.”
Can Callie really report against the big boys and girls? The federal good-behavior-tenured (the Constitution says “good behavior,” not “life,” otherwise impeachment would have been impossible) Article III judges and the magistrate judges they appoint for 8-year terms and the law clerks they hire at their pleasure?
I am not talking about U.S. Supreme Court revelations on BOTH Justice Thomas and Justice Sotomayor, which show that the snout-in-the-trough syndrome affects appointees of BOTH parties.
There are bigger-fish journalists for that.
Is Callie Lyons, for example, ready, capable, or even willing, to investigate why J. Michelle Childs, when a state trial judge, did not disclose that she herself was a landlady of more than one rental property when she sat on a landlord-tenant dispute and made an atrocious pro-landlord ruling then gohst-wrote for then-SC-Chief-Justice Jean Toal a series of orders preventing THAT tenant form appealing Childs’ orders in that case and others?
Does Callie Lyons dare ask why Childs protected and continues to protect Hatchet-for-Hire Heather, full name Sara Heather Savitz Weiss?
FITS want McMaster, and after him Alan Wilson, to appoint judges in South Carolina instead of the Legislature electing them?
You wants Leon Lott to dictate sentences or even cause the presumed-innocent to be killed in pre-trial detention?
Let’s talk again about whom McMaster chose for Interim Solicitor and whom Alan Wilson is likely to choose for judge if he gets crowned (that is “elected” with contributions from lawyers) king (“governor” with power to give millions to private lawyers).
Yes, God willing and FITS permitting, I shall keep writing about Hatchet-for-Hire Heather, full name Sara Heather Savitz Weiss.
BTW, it was Judge Manning who swore Weiss in as Interim Solicitor and patiently stood for a photo with Mr. and Mrs. Savitz (Heather’s mom and pop) and Todd and Sara Weiss and their son (an aspiring actor) and daughter (an aspiring dancer, aspiring LAWYER-LEGISLATOR, and aspiring governor).
Stephen Savitz is now the lead-partner of Savitz-Bettis. That law firm has, at least since Charlie Condon was SC Attorney General (“SCAG”), collected hundreds of thousands, if not millions, DIRECTLY from SC’s Insurance Reserve Fund (“SCIRF”) for work defending state agencies and governors which SCAG’s office should have done itself but instead farms out to private lawyers and private law firms.
Those private lawyers and private law firms in turn make campaign contributions to SCAG and solicitor candidates.
Alan Wilson recieved such campaign-rescuing contributions from Stephen Savitz in March 2010; and as soon as Alan Wilson took office in January 2011, he hired Heather, who was being run off from her assistant-solicitor position by new Chief Deputy Solicitor Dan Goldberg.
There is reaon to SUSPECT Heather continued to collect the additional $70K/year from the City of Columbia to do hatchet jobs on (meaning bring false criminal charges against) the City of Columbia’s critics and opponents in civil litigation.
But that is only the tip of the iceberg.
Savitz-Bettis also employed Shahin Vafai, a former law clerk to Jean Toal (and co-author of one of her books) and later to federal Judge Joe Anderson.
Shahin Vafai has apparently now retired from law to write Bahai books.
Who replaced him at Savitz-Bettis? R. Hayne Hodges, III, son of Robert H. Hodges, Jr., now senior judge of the Court of Federal Claims and former aide to Strom Thurmond.
The THIRD is married to Shiva Vafai, Shahin’s sister and also a former law clerk to Jean Toal and Joe Anderson.
The Vafais apparently came to the U.S. as refugees from persecution of Bahais in Iran under the Shah, who had closed all Bahai temples to placate the Shi-a clerics after photos of Soraya Esfandiari Pahlavi (the Shah’s second wife) water-skiing in a bikini in Florida were published and caused a fire storm in Iran.
Shiva got appointed a federal magistrate, apparently as a diversity token, and is probably campaigning for the judgeship left open after J. Michelle Childs got elevated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.
How does Shiva campaign to be the first Iranian-American Bahai federal judge? Why, of course, by being extra tough on OTHER immigrants and refugees.
Nothing wrong with that if Shiva were following the law.
But instead Shiva writes things so false and stupid they indicate she has no respect for herself OR for the Constitution she swore to defend.
Shiva wrote that the Constitution does NOT guarantee a criminal defendant a jury of her peers. She really wrote that. The right to a jury of one’s peers is even much older than the U.S. Constitution and traces back to Magna Carta.
But Shiva was willing to ignore it.
What else does Shiva ignore in her “legal” writings? For one, the well-established rule that, in the initial testing of a complaint for legal sufficiency, the stated allegations are taken as true and all reasonable inferences from them are to be accepted.
Why does Shiva so shamelessly distort the law? To help her husband who, through the Savits-Bettis law firm, often represents Richland County and Leon Lott.
Ethically, Shiva should not sit on cases where her husband’s clients are parties. But Shiva does it anyway in cases involving OTHER immigrants.
Who is going to enforce the rights of immigrant litigants to a fair judge? No one. Certainly not SC’s supreme court, the candidates for which use xenophobia as resume enhancement.
So, Leon Lott, whom Shiva’s husband regularly defends on taxpayer’s money, bad-mouthes pre-trial detainees at Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center (“ASGDC”), the presumed-innocent pre-trial detainees get stabbed (in one recent instance to death), Lott gets to do the investigation and plays dumb (at best) about his own incitement of violence at ASGDC.
If and when a surviving ASGDC detainee, or the family of a deceased one, sues ASGDC, Lott, and/or Richland County, Shiva gets herself assigned to the case and recommends that Richland County gets dismissed.
Again, who polices that unethical behavior by federal jurists? Certainly not SC’s Supreme Court who is deep in mutually-assured-extortion with some current and former federal judges and their law clerks AND the later employers of those law clerks and judges when they retire.
The Murdaughs are not the root of all evil, the love of money is. And many federal judges (the model of appointment FITS clamors for) love money as much as the next guy or gal or as much as FITS and the next blogger.
If this comment gets through, stay tuned for the sequel, God willing and FITS permitting.

It took only a few hours for Shiva Vafai Hodges to retaliate against another immigrant smarter than Shiva and her husband put together.
And in her retaliation, Shiva dropped the mask altogether. Shiva BLATANTLY recommended that a law suit alleging, among other things, that Hatchet-for-Hire Heather (full name Sarah Heather Savitz Weiss), had tried (but, thank God, failed) to frame Dr. Marie Faltas for “harassment-in-the-first-degree” with KNOWN perjured testimony, forgeries and fabrications, then conspired to cause Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center (“ASGDC”) to ignore Dr. Faltas’ atrial fibrillation which struck her at ASGDC be dismissed SOLELY because Dr. Faltas defied a prior recommendation of Shiva that Hatchet-for-Hire Heather and Richland County be dismissed.
Shiva admitted that her husband represents, through the Savitz-Bettis law firm, regularly represents Richland County and Leon Lott. And Shiva NEVER gets assigned any OTHER case in which Richland County and/or Leon Lott is a defendant.
Judge Joe Anderson, for example, has or had Lexington County on his recusal list because his brother Jeff often represents Lexington County.
And that is the rule for every judge. It is not whether Shiva’s husband will represent Richland County or Leon Lott in the SPECIFIC litigation; but whether a reasonable observer will think the jurist or a member of his/her family has a substantial interest in the matter.
Of course Shiva’s husband has substantial interest in the matter.
For one, Savitz-Bettis has TOTALLY convinced South Carolina’s Insurance Reserve Fund (“SCIRF”) of the “a million for the defense, not a penny of the plaintiff” illusion. They FALSELY claim that if Savitz-Bettis gets Richland County and/or Leon Lott get dismissed from the first two or three lawsuits, then legal precedents will be created and people will stop suing Richland County and/or Leaon Lott or potential plaintiffs’ lawyer will see that there is no hope of winning such law suits and stop taking them.
Well, only earlier this year, JUST FOR ONE EXAMPLE, a federal jury awarded Sheila Webb about half a million and the excellent federal Judge Curry awarded the excellent Chris Truluck costs and attorneys’ fees because Leon Lott’s deputies mercilessly and needlessly tazed Sheila Webb when she called them on a domestic matter.
Shiva wrote that it was “frivolous” for Dr. Faltas to have sued Weiss, the daughter of Stephen Savitz, the owner of the law firm which employs Shiva’s husband, R. Hayne Hodges, III, and assigns to him the representation of Richland County and Leon Lott.
Shiva wrote that it is “frivolous” for Dr. Faltas to have sued for malicious prosecution by Weiss because, after the first trial ended in a mistrial, Weiss never retried the case; therefore, according to Shiva and her equally dishonest and/or incompetent colleagues, there was not “favorable termination” of the criminal prosecution alleged to have been malicious.
The problem for Shiva? The U.S. Supreme Court, on 4 April 2022, in Thompson v. Clark, ruled 6-3 unequivocally that “favorable termination” means the prosecution ended WITHOUT CONVICTION of the criminal defendant, whether that was by trial and acquittal or dismissal for failure to prosecute or anything in between.
Did I say that is a problem for Shiva? Apparently the REAL law and the REAL facts are NEVER a problem for Shiva: she just plays dumb about the law and lies about the facts.
Who would have taught Shiva to play dumb about inconvenient truth? Perhaps it was Strom Thurmond whose aides knew about Essie Mae (Thurmond) Washington through working in his Senate office for years yet said nothing about it and were rewarded with federal judgeships. To name just three: Robert H. Hodges, Jr. (Shiva’s father-in-law), Dennis W. Shedd, and Terry L. Wooten.
Remember what Essie Mae said but could only say AFTER Strom Thurmond died: “I am free at last.”
The man kept his own daughter in “the land of the free and the home of the brave” in the bondage of being unable to disclose her identity; and we are required to call the far-from-brave men who helped keep a faultless girl NOT free for decades “Your Honor” because they were rewarded for their lack of bravery with federal judgeships.
Just as an aside, John Edwards did it, too; so did Joe Biden with his recently-acknowledged seventh grandchild. The differense is NOT courage or honesty of one political party or the other. Certainly hypocrisy abounds in both. The only difference is DNA and mothers of out-of-wedlock-conceived girls willing and able to use it. John Edwars, too, solicited hush money, publicly denied and disavowed his own daughter, then after a federal mistrial claimed with a straight face that he loved his daughter.
Apparently, for them “love means you never have to say you’re sorry” for being a hypocrite OR that you want to STOP being a hypocrite.
I want to say something that is more important for me than getting vindicated in court: teaching those “honorable” senators, judges, attorneys general, and prosecutors, how to be good fathers and grandfathers.
If you condone lies, your daughter and granddaughter will marry (or shack up with) a liar because she will think that is all there is. She would never have seen anything different. To the contrary, she would have seen a courageous and honest person branded “frivolous” and “vexatious.”
You may throw your daughter or granddaughter the most lavish wedding ceremony possible; and she might receive expensive wedding gifts (which are really hidden bribes to you); but you will have denied her the most precious gift of all: the security of knowing the man she is marrying will be true to his oath of never cheating on her.
How could she have that security if she saw YOU cheat on her mother or her grandmother?
How could she believe that the marriage oath means anything if she saw YOU break your judicial oath to treat the poor and the rich alike?
How could witnesses even believe that the oath to tell the whole truth and nothing but means anything after they see judges break their own oath apply one law to the rich and another law to the poor? One law to the represented by lawyers who had invited you to lavish dinners and another law to the self-represented? One law for the native and another for the foreigner?
You want judicial reform? Start by asking why no one is prosecuting Sarah Heather Savitz Weiss for suborning perjury.
Remember again, Weiss had herself convicted one Cory/Corey Lamont Curry for DWID crack-cocaine in 2001; that SAME Curry went on to receive kilos of marijuana in the U.S. mail in 2016; and in between, in 2009, that same Curry LOUDLY threatened to rape Dr. Marie Faltas and stood in her parking lot grabbin his crotch at her and shooting birds at her, and preventing her from getting out of her car to get her mail. Yet, that same Weiss, whose father employs Shiva’s husband, used the photos Dr. Faltas took of THAT Curry IN THE ACT as supposed proof that Dr. Faltas “harassed” Curry, not the reverse. Weiss also LIED to Judge Clifton Newman about THAT Curry’s past criminal record. Yet, nothing gets done to Weiss. It is Dr. Faltas who gets branded “frivolous” even though she predicted the U.S. Supreme Court in at least five arguments she made to federal courts alone.
Why is that? Because money talks.
The money Weiss’ father paid to Alan Wilson’s campaigns and as salaries to Shiva’s husband and her brother before him.
The millions Alan Wilson gives back to lawyers he hires through SCIRF or through the special-counsel contract.
And the millions (or hundred of thousands) which Alex Murdaugh clearly had to plough back to DEFENSE lawyers who rolled over and paid millions for clearly fake claims; yet, every one plays dumb and wonders where did the money Murdaugh “stole” go and why so little of it is left? It went to the same insurance adjustors, defense lawyers, prosecutors and judges, who are now faking indignation at Murdaugh’s conduct.
Those same “defense” lawyers throw their deep-pocket clients off the scent of their misdeeds and sell them on “a million for the defense, not a penny for the plaintiff,” by showing them how “tough” they can be on a plaintiff: to the point of getting her falsely arrested and accused of fake crimes to defeat her civil litigation.
Lack of hope is itself a sin because hope, with faith and love, is the “great three.” So, I will not say that I have no hope for people raised in that culture.
What I will say is that changing who appoints or elects people raised in that culture will not make any difference.
What will make a difference is one man or woman or boy or girl to shout “the Emperor has no clothes.”
If I get arrested or killed, God forbid, after this post, no one should play dumb about who instigated it.