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Former attorney Corey Fleming was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges that he conspired with his longtime friend Alex Murdaugh to steal millions of dollars from trusting clients. Fleming previously pleaded guilty to the financial fraud charges that stem from Murdaugh’s alleged scheme to steal money from the estate of his dead housekeeper Gloria Satterfield. Satterfield died in a fall on the Murdaugh property in 2018. He was also involved in stealing money from the family of Hakeem Pinckney – a man whose family Murdaugh represented after he was killed in a car crash in 2009. While Fleming knew Murdaugh was asking him to do wrong, he previously said he didn’t realise the depth of his old friend’s depravity. The sentencing was handed down on the same day Fleming’s longtime friend Murdaugh appeared in court for his own hearing on financial fraud charges for the first time since he was sentenced to life in prison in the murders of of his wife Maggie and son Paul. Judge Clifton Newman set a trial date for 27 November. On 15 August, Fleming pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy charges and was sentenced to nearly four years (46 months) in federal prison. He is housed at the Charleston County jail awaiting a prison assignment. On 23 August, he pleaded guilty to all state charges. Judge Newman scheduled Fleming’s sentencing for today in Beaufort so that the court could hear from friends and family members, as well as victims. At the hearing on Thursday, prosecutor Creighton Waters urged the judge to not be fooled by Fleming’s claims that he was “recruited” by Murdaugh into stealing from the families of Satterfield and Pinckney. Mr Waters argued that Fleming, who was an attorney at the time, was hired to represent the families but then “behind the scenes colluded with the defendant”. “What Mr Fleming wants the court to believe is… that he was tricked and fooled by Mr Murdaugh like everyone else,” Mr Waters said. The prosecutor then pointed to the fake Forge scheme in which Murdaugh allegedly set up a firm called Forge - a fake company with the name of a real one, which was used to siphon off money from clients. Murduagh and Fleming are accused of securing payouts from insurance companies in Satterfield’s case and then sending nearly $4m in stolen money to the fake company. “It was a shakedown, plain and simple,” Mr Waters said of Fleming and Murdaugh’s treatment of the Satterfield family. At the hearing on Thursday, several people addressed the court on behalf of the victims. Tony Satterfield, the son of Gloria Satterfield, told the court, “I still forgive Mr Fleming.” Satterfield’s sister also addressed the court and said that the family forgives Fleming. “Gloria did not die in vain as her case brought out other corruption and dishonest misdeeds being done to others,” she said, adding that it brought corruption “to light”. Attorney Eric Bland, who represents the Satterfield family, spoke at the hearing and said the law profession is “stained” by Fleming’s crimes. Fleming surrendered his license to practice law in both Georgia and South Carolina, saying he dishonored the profession. “The profession we love has been stained,” he said. “Mr Fleming knew exactly what he was doing. He is a plaintiff lawyer... it is impossible.” He said the debacle involving Murdaugh, Fleming and Laffitte, has “stained our state.” Mr Bland said the judge and court will hear how Fleming is a good guy, but that “good guys can still do criminal things.” “I’ve been suing other lawyers for 30 years. Never seen a case where the lawyers took every single dollar. But that’s what Fleming and Murdaugh did. Every single dollar.” Mr Bland also went over several examples of violations and irregularities in how Fleming handled and filed the Satterfield case to show the depth of the conspiracy and the criminal behaviour. He says Fleming and Murdaugh sat on the $4.3m settlements knowing that Gloria Satterfield’s son Brian, a vulnerable adult, was being put out on the street because his mom’s trailer was being foreclosed on. Mr Bland called it “blatant thievery”. Fleming is the second Murdaugh associate ordered to prison since investigators began scrutinising every aspect of Murdaugh’s life in June 2021 after his wife and son were shot to death at their South Carolina home. Russell Laffitte, who was convicted of federal charges in November, appeared for a status conference on Thursday in his state case. One of his attorneys, South Carolina State Rep Todd Rutherford, asked the judge to delay a trial until the fall of 2024. Judge Newman said that he would make a ruling at a later date. Last month, Laffitte was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to helping Murdaugh steal money from settlements for clients after vehicle wrecks or work injuries. Laffitte is appealing his conviction and sentence. Read More Smiling Alex Murdaugh appears in court in shackles as trial date set in financial fraud case Outrage as South Carolina lawmaker stands to shake hands with convicted killer Alex Murdaugh in court Alex Murdaugh’s friend pleads guilty to helping steal from dead maid’s family

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More than half of Americans believe US Supreme Court justices decide cases largely on the basis of their partisan political views, a figure that has shot up 10 percentage points from January 2022. That figure – 53 per cent – appears to be driven by the gulf between perceptions of the conservative supermajority court among Republican and Democratic voters following several controversial rulings at the end of its latest term, according to new polling from ABC News/Ipsos. Roughly three-quarters of Republican voters and 26 per cent of Democratic voters support the court’s decision to reject affirmative action in university admissions. Sixty-eight per cent of Republicans approve of the decision to allow businesses to deny services to same-sex couples. And 71 per cent of Republicans support the court’s ruling against President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel student loan debts, compared to just 17 per cent of Democrats. Overall, a bare majority of Americans (52 per cent) support the court’s decision against race-conscious admissions in higher education. That majority includes majorities among white (60 per cent) and Asian (58 per cent) Americans, while 52 per cent of Black Americans disapprove of the ruling. Despite their views on affirmative action, most Americans still do not believe that Black and Hispanic students have a fair chance of getting into the college of their choice compared to their white and Asian student counterparts. Roughly two-thirds of Americans believe that white and Asian students have a fair chance for admission to the college of their choice, compared to only 47 per cent and 50 per cent of respondents who would say the same for Black and Hispanic students, respectively. Americans’ views on the court’s actions against student debt cancellation also track closely with their age, polling finds. Older Americans are more likely to support the court’s actions – 61 per cent of people age 65 and older endorsed the ruling that struck down the president’s plan, while only 40 per cent of people aged 30 to 49 and 31 per cent of those under 30 years old support the ruling. “I know there are millions of Americans … in this country who feel disappointed and discouraged, or even a little bit angry, about the court’s decision today on student debt. And I must admit, I do, too,” Mr Biden said in remarks from the White House on 30 June following the court’s decision. Public support for the decision making at the nation’s highest court – with three justices appointed by Donald Trump during his one-term presidency – sank precipitously in the wake of the decision to overturn Roe v Wade and revoke a constitutional right to abortion care last summer. Following that ruling, among other actions under the court’s new conservative majority, the court has come under greater public scrutiny, alongside the decades of maneuvers among Republican officials to seat similarly ideologically minded judges across the federal judiciary, the actions of Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife Ginni Thomas surrounding attempts to reject 2020 election results, and a series of investigative reports that revealed apparent ethics lapses among conservative justices. Such scrutiny has called the court’s legitimacy into question, with Democratic lawmakers and critics of the court pressing for ethics investigations, impeachment proceedings and the resignation of justices. Read More Harvard sued over ‘legacy admissions’ after Supreme Court targets affirmative action Biden reveals ‘new path’ to student debt relief after Supreme Court strikes down president’s plan The ‘fake’ gay marriage case in the middle of the Supreme Court’s latest threat to LGBT+ rights The Supreme Court risks inflaming the prejudices that America sought to banish