UPDATE on Buster Murdaugh defamation case ...

The defendants in the case have all filed motions in federal court to have Buster's case dismissed for a variety of reasons ... 🧵 I mean, look at that battle line in PACER lol ...

In Memoriam of David Miller's judicial hopes and dreams. Here are emails he sent me in May 2019 after I dared to write that Paul Murdaugh was being given preferential treatment by prosecutors. I think they're telling (of both our attitudes lol) ... 1/5 2/5

I just finished reading Team Murdaugh's updated pre-hearing brief. I have some thoughts 🧵🌞... When you boil down Team Murdaugh's argument for a new trial it's this: Only one juror needed to have heard Becky Hill say something that would be harmful to the verdict for them to be granted a new trial ...

Mark Moore is asking Judge Gergel to consider the fact that Alex Murdaugh profited way more than Russell did from this and that Russell will be stuck paying for it way more than Alex is civilly ... Mark said that Russell Laffitte is now a household "word" with negative connotation. Judge Gergel interrupted him and said "Actually ...." and then said hardly anyone knew Russell's name when they were choosing a jury and that they only knew him as the Murdaugh Banker ...

Well ....... Mark Moore is now at the podium ... He promised Judge Gergel he wouldn't speak for too long and Judge Gergel was like yeah right ...

Russell Laffitte's attorney Cheryl Shoun (who recently filed a notice of appearance with the court) is now speaking about how she came to join the legal team ... it is unclear WHY she is speaking about this. She is also talking about why Mark Moore was chosen ... This is weird right?

Russell's high school friend Sheila Platt is now speaking ... "Russell is one of the few dads who was present" during school events mostly attended by moms ...

I've been deep in research the past few days and — as research often does — it led me to online comments. I had no idea the extent to which people were spreading lies about why @MandyMatney and I weren't in the courtroom during most of Alex Murdaugh's trial 🧵 ... So ... in the interest of clearing this up ... anyone who says we were banished to a trailer during the trial is LYING. I did NOT "get in trouble" for posting information about the jury. The info I posted was public information that was publicly broadcast ...

On June 10, 2021, Alex Murdaugh told investigators that Paul was “an intuitive little dude” and that they called him “the little detective” … This week Maggie’s sister testified that Paul was called that bc he was on high alert for signs of his dad “misbehaving” …

On 6/7/21, Alex Murdaugh was under investigation for obstruction of justice in the boat crash. The State Grand Jury had subpoenaed for his financial records that spring ... His insurance carrier was suing him in federal court to not cover him in the boat crash and he had reason to believe that the judge was about to rule in their favor ...

@TheEricBland made a good point on the phone a little bit ago ... he questioned the appropriateness of Jim doing cross on SLED Agent Jeff Croft given that Jim was present for the interview of Alex in the car ... He also questioned why Jim allowed Alex to sit for ANY of those interviews instead of putting law enforcement off (irrespective of AM's guilt or innocence) until after the funerals ... and why he let Alex sit for anything at all ...

SUNDAY UPDATE: On Friday — one day after the Beach settlement hearing where PMPED's main man Johnny Parker, Palmetto State Bank and Greg Parker (the owner of Parker's gas stations) intervened and objected to the terms — Johnny sent the judge a letter ... As you can see, this letter was written on Parker Law Group stationery (based on the font, are we're supposed to whisper the "law group" part?) but don't let the official nature of it fool you. This isn't a business matter, but rather a personal business matter for Johnny ...

Russell Laffitte just told the jury about the loan he took out from his own bank on Alania Plyler's behalf to buy a car ... One of the most annoying findings in looking through the Plylers' probate files was finding the promissory note for the loan ...

The third document is a letter from Jan Malinowski. "I don't believe Mr. Laffitte can authenticate this letter ... it's hearsay, your honor" The judge just read the letter out loud (jury is not in room) and said "Are you sure you want this in? .... You can't commit a crime and ask to pay the money back" ...

Tiffany Provence: "This is a document ... (laughs) ... well ..." and then she tells the court that the "conservator" petition Russell Laffitte had for Hakeem Pinckney had the words "personal representative" struck out with a line and "conservator" written over it ... THIS was common from the petitions I saw in these cases. The petitions that allowed Russell to become PR or a conservator were a MESS ...

What's annoying about this Tiffany Provence testimony is this: She is clearly VERY experienced in this area. But the fact that it isn't "unusual" or "unheard of" for conservators to behave the way Russell Laffitte did in the way of ... Not always meeting his conservatees or taking the fees he did, she's overlooking the end and collective result of him having been involved in his conservatees' lives ...

I'm going to be back in the courtroom tomorrow (or the media room anyway) so I got up early this morning and drove home (I live about an hour and a half south) bc I wanted my own bed tonight ... I couldn't resist my own bed when I got here, though so I took an amazing (but terrifying) three-hour nap ...

Russell's Problem: He took money to serve as conservator and signed disbursement sheets showing the amounts the people he was serving were supposed to get THEN ...

https://twitter.com/srickards13/status/1592843015537954818

He received checks from PMPED with those people's names on them. Instead of giving that money to the people he was paid to serve, he gave it to Alex. And somehow we're supposed to believe ...

Bart Daniel just asked the FBI agent who prepared the document that mischaracterizes Natasha's age as being 5 years younger ... was it Alex or Russell? The significance here is that Russell is accused of misrepresented Natasha's age on a verification statement bc she had aged out of needing a conservator ...

Bart Daniel is trying to get the FBI agent to say that the 1.25 percent interest rate that Russell charged himself on the money he loaned himself from Hannah's account was better than Hannah would've gotten had the money been invested in a CD. But here's the thing ... First, the FBI agent was like "Nah." He said there are two elements to investments. One is time and the other is rate. While the rate might have been higher than a CD at that time but the "investment" wasn't long enough to realize that gain ...

OK. Pay attention to this one bc it's good ... Bart Daniel pointed out the gaps of time between the date the checks and the money orders (from the stolen money) were written and when they were cashed at Palmetto State Bank ...