Alex Murdaugh faces brutal new legal battles including dozens of fraud charges

He was swiftly convicted of his wife and son's murder after a six-week trial watched by the entire nation, and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences.

But disgraced former South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh's legal battles are only just getting started, reported CNN on Monday.

"Murdaugh, the 54-year-old disbarred attorney, is still charged with 99 counts of embezzlement, computer crime, money laundering, conspiracy and more for what prosecutors say was a wide-ranging scheme to bilk his law firm, clients and the government out of about $9.3 million," reported Eric Levenson. "He further faces several charges in a September 2021 shooting, in which he allegedly arranged for a man to kill him so that his surviving son, Buster Murdaugh, could collect a life insurance payout."

Murdaugh, who hails from a powerful and wealthy family in the South Carolina Lowcountry with a long history in the local legal profession, came under suspicion soon after his wife Maggie and son Paul were found shot near the dog kennels at the family hunting lodge.

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Prosecutors argued that Murdaugh killed his wife and son when they confronted him about his financial crimes, which were supporting a $50,000 a week drug habit. They presented a powerful set of evidence at trial, including audio footage near the place and time of the murder that family friends identified as Murdaugh's voice. This footage caused Murdaugh to confess to being on the scene when he took the stand — which stunned observers as he, his family, and his lawyers had spent months falsely claiming he was many miles away at the time.

In addition to all the financial charges against him still to be litigated, CNN reported, Murdaugh is preparing for an appeal of his murder conviction, on the grounds that Judge Clifton Newman was prejudicial in allowing evidence of his financial crimes into the evidence — even though those crimes were a key part of establishing his motive, and even though he himself freely admitted to those crimes on the stand. Judge Newman "instructed the jury to only consider the evidence of financial crimes insofar as it fit the motive, but not as to how it reflected on Murdaugh," noted the report, but the defense argues the jury did not follow that instruction.

And on top of everything else, CNN notes, there is an ongoing criminal investigation into the death of the Murdaughs' housekeeper, Gloria Satterfield, who died in a supposed "trip and fall" accident in 2018, and whose family just received a $4.3 million settlement over Murdaugh allegedly misusing funds intended for them.