Ali Condon
Convicted murderer Alex Murdaugh has been denied access to the funds from his 401(k), which he wanted to use to pay for his appeal.
Murdaugh, who was found guilty in March of fatally shooting his wife Maggie and son Paul, has been handed two consecutive life sentences.
But the disgraced lawyer was hoping to appeal the conviction with the money from his liquidated retirement accounts.
A judge ruled this week that Murdaugh will be denied access to what's left of his 401(k), which adds up to about $160,000, to pay for his appeal.
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Announcing the ruling on Friday (12 May), a court order said: "After careful consideration, defendant Richard Alexander Murdaugh’s motion for payment of attorneys’ fees and costs from untainted funds is denied."
There had been strong arguments against Murdaugh being granted access to his 401(k) funds, especially following multiple claims that he had stolen insurance settlement money belong to his legal clients.
Although he maintained his innocence throughout his six-week murder trial, he did admit to a number of serious financial crimes.
Prosecutors argued that Murdaugh had orchestrated the murder of his wife and son to distract from the fact that he had committed fraud, laundered money, evaded taxes, and stolen at least $8 million in settlement money.
When Murdaugh took to the stand, he confessed multiple times to those financial crimes listed by the prosecution.
He told the court that he had stolen money from clients to fuel his opioid addiction.
It is understood that Murdaugh stands accused of at least 99 financial crimes in 19 different indictments thanks to the admissions he made in court.
Last summer, Murdaugh was disbarred following charges of multiple financial crimes including the theft of about $8.8 million (£7.3m).
Murdaugh is currently being held at the Kirkland Reception and Evaluation Centre, where he will be assessed before being assigned to a maximum-security prison in South Carolina.
His shocking trial has also sparked queries into other mysterious circumstances that have surrounded the Murdaugh family, including the death of the family's housekeeper Gloria Satterfield.
Satterfield's death, which occurred in the Murdaugh's home, was ruled as a 'trip and fall accident' - though Alex Murdaugh has since admitted to lying about that too.
There are also queries into the death of openly gay teenager Stephen Smith, who was found dead on a road close to the Murdaugh home in 2015.
At the time, the incident was described as a hit and run, since Smith had suffered blunt force trauma, but the boy's mother had always maintained that his death was no accident, arguing that he wouldn't have been walking along the road.
More recently, in a major development, Smith's death has now been ruled as a homicide.