By Erik Ortiz - NBC News
The revealing saga of the Murdaugh family, a well-connected dynasty of lawyers in South Carolina, has highlighted the state's rampant black market for prescription opiates and how authorities have struggled to contain the burgeoning drug crisis during the pandemic. .
Among the questions state investigators must unravel regarding attorney Alex Murdaugh, who was
charged Thursday with attempting to stage his own death,
are how much money he allegedly stole from his family's law firm, how he spent it, and who benefited from it.
Reports suggest that "millions of dollars" were embezzled, and his attorney, Richard "Dick" Harpootlian, said Wednesday on NBC's Today show that the "vast majority" of the funds were used to buy opioids and that there were "checks extended to drug dealers ".
The public downfall of Murdaugh, a once-prominent personal injury attorney whose family patriarchs had previously wielded power as a top prosecutor in South Carolina's coastal Lowcountry, underscores how opioid abuse can wreak havoc on people of all the origins, said Christina Andrews, associate professor in the department of health policy and management at the University of South Carolina.
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Furthermore, the perception from the outside that Murdaugh could hold a job - he was also a volunteer in the 14th Circuit attorney's office cases - should be a cautionary tale, he added.
"It's a common misconception that if you have a serious addiction the signs will be obvious and obvious," Andrews said.
"This is not the case. People can absolutely abuse opioids for years and others do not perceive it," he
added.
[A lawyer asks a hit man to assassinate him and make his son a millionaire after a terrible family tragedy]
During his first court appearance after surrendering to authorities Thursday, the 53-year-old Murdaugh
was granted a $ 20,000 bond
as he faces charges of insurance fraud, conspiracy to commit insurance fraud and forgery. from a police report, stemming from her involvement in attempting to arrange her own death earlier this month so her son, Buster, could collect a $ 10 million life insurance policy.
Murdaugh did not plead guilty.
South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh, who paid a hitman to kill him so that his son could collect $ 10 million from insurance.
Chelsea Stahl / NBC News
Harpootlian told a Hampton County judge that his client
has been an opioid addict for 20 years
, and that his actions were the result of suffering mental anguish in the wake of the June murders of his wife, Margaret, and another. son, Paul.
Their deaths remain unsolved;
Murdaugh's legal team has denied involvement in the initial murders, leading to other criminal investigations related to the family.
Judge Tonja Alexander ordered Murdaugh to surrender his passport, but allowed him to return to an out-of-state drug rehab facility.
"He has fallen from grace
," Harpootlian said, with his client in tears, noting, "He is no longer a man of significant resources."
According to his attorneys, Murdaugh told officers with the South Carolina Division of Law Enforcement that his "main" opiate supplier was Curtis Edward Smith, a former client now accused of
helping him in the failed attempt to stage his own death. during a fake highway attack on
Labor Day weekend.
Prosecutors say Murdaugh provided Smith with a pistol and instructed him to shoot him in the head, but Murdaugh was only lightly grazed.
[A lawyer found dead who police linked to the shooting against the family of a Latina judge in New Jersey]
Smith has been charged with conspiracy and insurance fraud and helping a person commit suicide, among other charges.
Murdaugh's attorneys have said their client suffers from an
addiction to oxycodone
and was trying to quit drugs when he
began to think about suicide.
It is not clear how his dependence on drugs began, and a lawyer for Murdaugh did not respond to questions about whether he had previously sought treatment for his addiction or whether his family and colleagues were aware of the extent of his addiction.
Alex Murdaugh cries during his hearing, Sept. 16, 2021, in Varnville, South Carolina.Mic Smith / AP
Opioid experts said
addiction to painkillers can be very expensive,
especially after federal authorities and states like South Carolina have cracked down on prescriptions and sales through drug control programs, which have inadvertently pushed people addicted to the black market.
For example,
20-milligram
pills of
oxycontin can cost about $ 25 each
, Andrews said.
"You can accumulate tens of thousands of dollars going to six figures throughout the year," he added.
And if a drug dealer knows that his client is a resourceful person who wants to remain discreet, there is no telling what his addiction may cost.
"This is not an industry known for its high standards of ethics," said Andrews, who studies opioid use disorder treatment for Medicaid recipients.
South Carolina has been inundated with opioids to devastating effects.
Overdose deaths in the state
- the vast majority driven by opioids, including fentanyl and heroin -
rose more than 50%
in 2020,
according to a preliminary report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). ) this summer.
Nationwide, there were 93,000 drug overdoses - most of them opioid-related - the highest number on record in 12 months and an increase of nearly 30% from 2019.
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South Carolina ranked fourth among states for the largest increase in fatal overdoses last year, behind Vermont, West Virginia and Kentucky.
Experts say the closures and restrictions during the pandemic likely left drug users and people struggling with substance abuse isolated and without their usual treatments.
While prescription pain relievers were once the driver of the country's overdose epidemic, in recent years they have been supplanted first by heroin and then by fentanyl, a dangerously potent opioid.
Fentanyl was developed to treat severe pain from diseases such as cancer, but it is increasingly being sold illicitly and mixed with other drugs.
Alex Murdaugh (right) with his wife, Margaret, and son Paul.NBC via Facebook
"What is really driving the rise in overdoses is this
increasingly poisoned supply of drugs
," Shannon Monnat, an associate professor of sociology at Syracuse University who investigates geographic patterns
of drugs
, told The Associated Press news agency. overdose.
"Most of this increase is contaminated with fentanyl in some way," he warned.
South Carolina authorities have sought ways to end the clandestine market for opioids and illicit drugs.
In July, Hampton County authorities' "Operation Pentagon" caught at least 19 people involved in the distribution of heroin, fentanyl and other drugs.
In recent years, several counties have sued drug companies and doctors for their contribution to the opioid crisis.
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster, who called opioids a "plague," signed a bill in August that expands access to naloxone, the life-saving drug in the event of an overdose.
Andrews said financing treatment is essential to solving the problem, as well as finding ways to reduce the stigma of drug addiction.
"Addiction is a powerful disease," he
said.
"As we have seen, it can lead to shady decisions and underestimation of risks," he concluded.
If you know someone who may be at risk, you can call the Suicide Prevention Line, 1-888-628-9454, in Spanish, which offers free and confidential support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
