HAMPTON COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – An amended lawsuit filed Monday in a Hampton County Court claims Bank of America aided and abetted disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh in laundering millions of dollars in stolen funds.
The lawsuit was filed by lawyers for the estate of Murdaugh’s former housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died following what was described as a trip-and-fall accident at the Murdaughs’ home in 2018.
Murdaugh allegedly embezzled millions of dollars in life insurance settlement money meant for Satterfield’s sons.
Documents provided by attorneys for Satterfield’s estate purport to show a fake bank account set up by Murdaugh under the name of “Forge.” Murdaugh allegedly used that as a shell account to divert funds siphoned from various victims.
The lawsuit names Bank of America as a defendant, claiming that “Bank of America acted as Alex Murdaugh’s BANK OF FRAUD. Specifically, BOA aided and abetted Murdaugh’s financial crimes and money laundering.”
The attorneys argue that “by flexing their own rules and ignoring banking customs, Bank of America helped Murdaugh establish his fake Forge accounts, which Murdaugh funded with stolen money from the Plaintiffs, as well as other victims and/or clients.”
In addition to the fraudulent accounts, the suit claims that Murdaugh engaged in other suspicious banking activity, which Bank of America should have flagged.
“For example, from one of Murdaugh’s fake BOA accounts, he issued 17 cashier’s checks to Charles E. Smith (a/k/a Cousin Eddie) totaling $164,748.76. In addition, Murdaugh transferred huge sums of stolen money from his fake Forge accounts to a personal checking account which Murdaugh also established at BOA. From one such account, Murdaugh separately issued 254 personal checks to Cousin Eddie totaling $1,825,560.95.”
Bank of America is the largest bank in the U.S.
Bank of America provided the following statement:
“There is no basis for this lawsuit and we are asking the court to dismiss it. Make no mistake, the wrongdoer here was Mr. Murdaugh, and the diversion of these funds occurred away from Bank of America. We had no knowledge of any theft and followed standard procedures in account openings for a sole proprietor business.“
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Editor’s note: This story is breaking and will be updated.