Judge unloads $176K penalty on Alex Murdaugh podcaster after she refused to comply with subpoena

A South Carolina judge found Alex Murdaugh’s crime reporter and podcaster, Mandy Matney, in civil contempt and ordered her to pay $171,500 in attorneys’ fees and costs, plus a $5,000 fine, after concluding she willfully refused to comply with a subpoena in litigation tied to the Murdaugh family.In a 22-page order filed Monday, Circuit Judge R.Keith Kelly concluded Matney deliberately disregarded a valid subpoena and prior court order requiring her to appear for a deposition, rejecting her claim that safety concerns justified her refusal.The contempt finding stems from long-running civil litigation arising from the 2019 boat crash that killed Mallory Beach.Parker’s convenience stores are among the defendants accused of selling alcohol to underage Paul Murdaugh before the fatal crash, and Matney was subpoenaed as a non-party witness.Beach, 19, was killed in the February 2019 crash in Beaufort County.

Paul Murdaugh was later charged with boating under the influence, but those charges were dismissed after he and his mother, Maggie Murdaugh, were fatally shot at the family’s Colleton County hunting estate in June 2021.The Beach family’s civil lawsuit against members of the Murdaugh family and Parker’s alleges the convenience store chain illegally sold alcohol to the underage Paul Murdaugh before the crash.The litigation ultimately helped expose Alex Murdaugh’s finances as investigators uncovered the disgraced attorney’s financial crimes.Kelly wrote that Matney refused to appear at the Bluffton deposition site on March 27 despite acknowledging she understood the court had denied her efforts to quash the subpoena and ordered the deposition to proceed.

Instead, she remained at another law office in Bluffton while Parker’s attorneys waited at the noticed location.The order notes Matney appeared by Zoom from another law office in Bluffton.“Based upon the foregoing, there is clear and convincing evidence that Ms.Matney’s failure to appear was n...