Ex-court clerk in Alex Murdaugh double murder trial charged with misconduct, obstruction
A former South Carolina court clerk who served during the double murder trial of Alex Murdaugh faces multiple charges stemming from the case, including over the promotion of her book about the high-profile trial, court records show.
Former Colleton County Clerk of Court Mary Rebecca "Becky" Hill, 57, was charged with perjury, obstructing justice and misconduct in office charges on Wednesday, the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division said. She was arrested and booked Wednesday in Colleton and Richland counties on the charges, the agency said.
The charges come more than two years after Murdaugh was found guilty of brutally murdering his wife, Margaret "Maggie" Murdaugh, 52, and younger son, Paul Murdaugh, 22, who were found dead from multiple gunshot wounds near the dog kennels at the family's hunting estate in 2021. A judge imposed two sentences of life in prison, to be served consecutively for the murders.
MORE: Alex Murdaugh's attorneys allege court clerk tampered with jury in double murder trial
The arrest warrants filed against Hill alleged that she obstructed justice during the 2023 trial and abused her office for her own financial gain in its wake, as well as committed perjury during a hearing amid Murdaugh's bid for a new trial last year.
Hill is accused of obstructing justice in February 2023 during the trial by releasing or making available "'scaled evidence' photographs to a third party or parties, such act occurring in violation of a written court order issued to protect the 'sealed evidence' photographs, in violation of the law of the State of South Carolina," the arrest warrant stated.
She "did willfully, dishonestly, and unlawfully breach her duty of accountability to the public" when she used her office to promote a book she co-authored about the trial on social media, "such act being for her own financial gain and in violation of her duties, in violation of the laws of the State of South Carolina," the arrest warrant alleged. The book, "Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders," was ultimately pulled from publication over accusations of plagiarism.
Hill is alleged to have given "false and misleading testimony" during a hearing on Jan. 29, 2024, in Richland County, as part of Murdaugh's appeal, when she denied allowing anyone from the press to view the sealed exhibits in February 2023, according to the arrest warrant.
She is additionally accused of receiving financial bonuses totaling nearly $12,000 between September 2021 and March 2024 for her own financial gain, "in violation of her duties, and further in violation of the laws of the State of South Carolina," the arrest warrant alleged.
She has denied any wrongdoing.
MORE: Alex Murdaugh sentenced to 27 years in state prison for financial crimes
During her bond hearing in Colleton County earlier Wednesday, her attorney, Will Lewis, argued Hill was not a danger to the community or a flight risk.
"She lives here. She turned herself in," Lewis said. "We found out about these charges last night. We're here right now, so we'd be asking that she's released on her own recognizance."
The judge agreed, granting Hill $30,000 bond on the obstructing justice and misconduct in office charges. She also posted $50,000 bond on the perjury charge in Richland County and was released on her own recognizance, court records show.
Murdaugh's attorneys called the charges against Hill "not surprising."
"We have long raised our concerns about her conduct during and after the trial and this arrest further underscores the need to protect the integrity of the judicial process," his attorneys, Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, said in a statement. "Every defendant is entitled to a fair and impartial trial and we look forward to Alex Murdaugh finally getting that fair treatment."
Hill resigned as the Colleton County clerk of court in March 2024, amid the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division's investigation into allegations she may have abused her government position for financial gain.
She also faces 76 counts of ethics violations from the South Carolina State Ethics Commission over allegations she improperly sought financial gain through her position.
Murdaugh appealed his conviction, alleging jury tampering by Hill, though a judge denied his motion for a new trial in January 2024.
Hill denied she tampered with the jury while testifying during hearings on the appeal. In dismissing the motion, the judge said she found Hill's testimony was not credible but stated Hill's actions were not enough to have changed the jury's guilty verdict. All of the jurors testified they stood by their verdict and were not swayed by anything Hill may have done.
In August 2024, the South Carolina Supreme Court agreed to hear Murdaugh's jury tampering appeal.
Murdaugh has maintained his innocence following his conviction in the murders of his wife and son. During the trial, prosecutors claimed Murdaugh, who comes from a legacy of prominent attorneys in the Hampton County region, killed his wife and son to gain sympathy and distract from his financial wrongdoings as a personal injury attorney at his law firm.
ABC News' Janice McDonald contributed to this report.
Ex-court clerk in Alex Murdaugh double murder trial charged with misconduct, obstruction originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
A Look Back at Alex Murdaugh's Murder Trial 4 Years After He Killed His Wife and Son (and Why He Is Still Fighting for His Freedom)
Maggie Murdaugh and her son, Paul Murdaugh, were found dead on June 7, 2021, at the family's hunting lodge in South Carolina Alex Murdaugh, a wealthy lawyer, was found guilty of murdering his wife and their son in March 2023 He was sentenced again in April 2024 for federal charges of money laundering, wire fraud and bank fraudIt's been four years since Maggie Murdaugh, 52, and her son Paul Murdaugh, 22, were found dead at their hunting lodge on June 7, 2021 — and two years since the family's patriarch Alex Murdaugh was charged with their murder. On March 2, 2023, Jurors deliberated for less than three hours before finding Alex Murdaugh guilty of killing his wife and son. He was given two consecutive life sentences in prison for the crimes. Between the highly publicized trial and the Netflix series Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal, all eyes have been on the Murdaugh family for years. Throughout the investigation and trial, Murdaugh maintained his innocence. In fact, he tried to cast suspicion on his cousin Curtis "Eddie" Smith, despite the "mountain of evidence" prosecutors had allegedly assembled against him. Since the deaths of his wife and son, the once-wealthy and powerful attorney from a prominent South Carolina family has been disgraced in connection with his alleged involvement in illegal drug distribution, money laundering, theft, embezzlement and perjury. Murdaugh has struggled with severe opioid addiction for years, allegedly spending $50,000 a week on drugs. Here's everything to know about Alex Murdaugh's murder trial and alleged crimes. In the opening statements, lead prosecutor Creighton Waters said that authorities have GPS information from Murdaugh's smart devices contradicting his alibi, and cell phone video placing him at the estate during the time of the murders. According to authorities, a video Paul took at 8:45 p.m. picks up his voice, and the voices of both his parents, at the property's dog kennels. Murdaugh originally told authorities he wasn't near the kennels but later admitted he was lying. When footage from a responding officer's body cam was shown in court, which showed Maggie and Paul's bodies, Murdaugh was seen wiping away tears — though an officer who was called to the crime scene reported that Murdaugh didn't seem upset, saying there were no "visible tears." Paul was shot twice with a shotgun, but Maggie was shot in the back with an assault rifle, and then several more times when she was already on the ground. Murdaugh's lawyer, Jim Griffin, asserted that his client invited authorities to search the family estate, which pointed to his innocence, because no guilty person would be so transparent. Griffin also cross-examined Det. Laura Rutland about the state of Murdaugh's clothes, asking, "He didn't look like someone who had just been within feet of blowing Paul's head off, right?" She responded, "I can't say that. There are so many factors that you would have to take into account." Though, she said that Murdaugh could have changed his clothes after the shooting. "He's sweating, and they're dry, so I'd say yes," she said. Jeff Croft, an agent with the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, testified that Murdaugh was brought in for questioning days after the murders of Maggie and Paul. Croft claimed that during the police interview, Murdaugh got emotional and made a surprising statement when he first saw graphic photos of his slain son. "It was so bad, I did him so bad," Croft alleged that Murdaugh cried. "He's such a good boy, too." Britt Dove, from the computer crimes unit for the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, testified about usage of Maggie's phone on the night of her murder, both before and after she died. She made a phone call at 7:50 p.m. that lasted three minutes; according to authorities, Maggie also sent messages to a friend that night as she headed to the property, saying something felt "fishy" about Murdaugh's behavior. After her phone call, she didn't use the phone again. At 9:06 p.m., after prosecutors believe Maggie was already dead, the phone's camera activated for a second. "It appears the phone's being moved and the camera's activating in the background to see if it would recognize somebody's face that would unlock it," Dove said. In the subsequent hour, Murdaugh called his wife's phone three times, and sent her a text saying "Call me babe." Prosecutors claim those were an attempt to bolster his alibi. Maggie's phone was discovered discarded beside the road outside the gates of the estate. Evidence surfaced that Murdaugh changed his clothes at some point in the evening. Prosecutors showed a Snapchat video of the disgraced attorney wearing khakis and a blue button down about an hour before the murders, and he then spoke to the police later that night in a white t-shirt and shorts. On the stand, Mushelle "Shelley" Smith, a caregiver to Murdaugh's mother, testified that he visited his mother's home for 15-20 minutes on the night of the murders, but that he instructed her to say that he was there for 30-40 minutes "if someone asked." The timeline is important to both the prosecution and the defense, as authorities have stated that Murdaugh visited his mother to create an alibi for his whereabouts the night of the murders. If he did remain at his mother's home for 15-20 minutes, prosecutors allege he would have had the time to commit the crime. Smith also described Murdaugh's behavior as "fidgety" that night, and said that he offered to give her money towards her wedding expenses in the same conversation. For his alibi, Murdaugh told authorities that he had visited his ailing father in the hospital and spent time with his elderly mother, and had come home to the 1770-acre Islandton, S.C. estate to discover his wife and son dead, shot to death with separate firearms. Jeanne Seckinger, the CFO of the law firm where Murdaugh was a partner, testified under oath that she suspected he was stealing money from the company, starting in May 2021, when he was writing company checks to a client, but depositing them into a personal account of his, opened with the client's company name. She further testified that she confronted Murdaugh about the missing funds, totaling more than $2.8 million, on the day of the murders. On the stand, Maggie's sister Marian Proctor testified that she found her conversation with Murdaugh immediately after the deaths strange, because he didn't seem focused on finding who had murdered his family members. "We never talked about finding the person who could have done it," Proctor said. "It was just odd." She continued: "He said that his number one goal was clearing Paul's name," referring to his son's role in a 2019 boating accident that led to the death of 19-year-old Mallory Beach. "And I thought that was so strange, because my number one goal was to find out who killed my sister and Paul." Defense attorney Jim Griffin suggested that Murdaugh's cousin Curtis "Eddie" Griffin could have been involved with the murders, citing his involvement in supplying the disgraced attorney with drugs and his role in the botched suicide-for-hire plot. Because Murdaugh's defense team introduced the scheme, which they also admitted he concocted, Judge Clifton Newman ruled that the previously inadmissible information could now be considered as part of the trial. In his testimony, Buster recalled when his father called him to tell him what had happened. "He said, 'Are you sitting down?' " he testified. "He sounded odd, and then he told me that my mom and my brother had been shot." Buster also recounted his father's state of mind on the night of the double homicide that took his mother and brother away from the young man. "He was heartbroken," he said. "I walked in the door and saw him, gave him a hug. He was destroyed." Buster also testified that his mother and brother confronted Murdaugh in the past about his drug use. Murdaugh has said he took up to 60 pills a day to feed his addiction. "I thought that he had handled it," Buster said, after his father went to rehab in 2018. After testifying, Buster squeezed his father's hand. In a teary assertion of his innocence, Murdaugh denied committing the murders. "I did not shoot my wife or my son," Murdaugh said. "I could never intentionally do anything to hurt either one of them, not ever." Murdaugh also testified that he lied about information he gave to the authorities, and lied to his family about details of the day of the deaths. He long asserted that he was nowhere near the estate's kennels on the night of the murders, but recanted that on the stand. "What a tangled web we weave," Murdaugh said on the stand. "Once I told a lie — then I told my family — I had to keep lying." He attributed the lies to paranoia induced by his longtime drug use. "I lied about being down there, and I'm so sorry that I did," Murdaugh said. After testimony concluded at the trial, jurors took a visit to the home where Maggie and Paul were murdered. Per The New York Times, jurors spent around an hour on the property examining the areas where the crimes took place. After deliberating for less than three hours, jurors found Murdaugh guilty of the murders of his wife, Maggie, and son Paul. The following day, he was sentenced to two life sentences in prison, which will run consecutively. Murdaugh's defense attorney, Dick Harpootlian, announced on X that he and Jim Griffin are appealing their client's conviction as well as his prison sentences. "This is the next step in the legal process to fight for Alex's constitutional right to a fair trial," the post read. Eight months after receiving his guilty verdict, Murdaugh filed a motion for a new trial in the murders of his wife and son. The motion accused Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill of jury tampering. According to the motion, Hill pressured jurors to "reach a quick guilty verdict" and advised them not to "believe Murdaugh's testimony" to help secure herself a book deal. She did publish a book about the case in 2023, titled Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders. Though Hill denied the allegations, one juror did admit that the clerk's comments influenced her verdict decision. Still, in January 2024, a South Carolina judge denied Murdaugh's motion for a new trial. His attorneys later filed a motion in July 2024 to the South Carolina State Supreme Court, and the case is still under review. In September 2023, Murdaugh pled guilty to federal charges of money laundering, wire fraud and bank fraud. Seven months later, he was sentenced to 40 years in federal prison. This new sentence will run concurrently with the state prison time he's actively serving. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Yahoo
Where Is Buster Murdaugh Now? What to Know About His Life After Dad Alex Murdaugh's Conviction
Buster Murdaugh was born to parents Alex and Maggie Murdaugh Buster was thrust into the spotlight when his dad was convicted of murdering Maggie and their other son, Paul Buster has also dealt with his own legal troubles, including a 2019 wrongful death lawsuit concerning Mallory BeachBuster Murdaugh and his family were prominent members of their South Carolina community — but the Murdaughs gained national notoriety in the summer of 2021, after the murders of Buster's mother, Margaret 'Maggie' Murdaugh, and brother, Paul Murdaugh. Maggie, 52, and Paul, 22, were shot and killed on June 7, 2021, at Moselle, their family's 1,770-acre property in the low country of South Carolina. At the time of their deaths, Paul was awaiting trial in connection with the 2019 boating death of 19-year-old Mallory Beach. The double murder sent shockwaves through their small South Carolina town of Hampton, where the powerful Murdaugh family had been practicing law since 1910. Adding to the local drama was the fact that Buster's father, South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh, found himself at the epicenter of the shocking slayings. Alex's attorney, Jim Griffin, revealed that the grieving husband and father was considered a person of interest from the onset of the authorities' investigation into the murders. The charges against Alex continued to mount throughout early 2022, but he wasn't officially linked to the killings of his wife and son until July 2022 — when a South Carolina grand jury indicted the disgraced attorney in the double murder. Prosecutors alleged that, on the evening of June 7, 2021, Alex lured his estranged wife Maggie from their family's beach house (where she had been staying) to their hunting estate, where he then shot and killed her and Paul execution style near the dog kennels on the property. Despite the 'mountain of evidence' presented against Alex during his 2023 murder trial, Buster stood by his father's side, maintaining his innocence and testifying in his defense. But the fallout from the deaths of his mother and brother — and his father's March 2023 double murder conviction — was devastating for Buster. 'Buster is collateral damage to his father's situation,' a childhood friend of Buster's told PEOPLE in 2022. 'I think he's developed this attitude of 'I'm gonna shut people out before they shut me out.' His circle of friends got really small really fast.' So where is Buster Murdaugh today? Here is a look at Buster's life before, during and after the tragic deaths of his mother and brother — and his father's conviction. Richard Alexander Murdaugh Jr., otherwise known as Buster, was the eldest son of Alex Murdaugh and his wife, Margaret 'Maggie' Murdaugh. Buster and his younger brother Paul were born into one of the most prominent families in Hampton County, South Carolina. They earned recognition from the family law firm, Peters Murdaugh Parker Eltzroth & Detrick (or PMPED), which was founded in 1910 by Buster's great-great-grandfather, Randolph Murdaugh Sr., The Greenville News reported. Over the next century, the law firm grew into a multimillion-dollar practice that employed several generations of Murdaughs — including Buster's father, Alex. Randolph Sr. was also the first member of the family to serve as Solicitor in the 14th Judicial Circuit, where he prosecuted criminal cases in four South Carolina counties, according to its website. The Murdaugh family would go on to hold the office continuously from 1920 to 2006. 'For over a century, the Murdaughs were law and order here in the 14th circuit,' The Hampton County Guardian reporter Michael Dewitt said in the Netflix docuseries Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal. 'They ran both sides of the legal ledger, from civil cases to criminal cases.' Dewitt continued, 'They were the law in this area — and, at times, they were above the law.' Buster and his family first made national news after his mother, Maggie, and younger brother Paul were found shot to death at Moselle, the family's 1,770-acre hunting estate in South Carolina. The headlines following their murders primarily centered on Buster's father, Alex. The once-wealthy and powerful attorney quickly became disgraced in the months following the murders, as a result of his alleged involvement in illegal drug distribution, money laundering, theft, embezzlement and perjury, PEOPLE previously confirmed. In addition to the almost 90 charges brought against Alex, he was also charged with murdering Maggie and Paul after a grand jury indictment in July 2022. Buster found his name entangled in his father's legal turmoil in September 2021, when Alex was reportedly 'shot in the head while changing a tire' in Hampton County, South Carolina. However, less than two weeks later, South Carolina law enforcement revealed that Alex allegedly arranged the shooting himself — hiring Curtis Edward Smith to shoot him in the head so that Buster could receive $10 million in a life insurance payout after his death. Buster also made headlines when he testified for the defense at his father's double murder trial. Buster told the jury he 'knew a little bit' about his father's drug use (which at one point had Alex allegedly spending $50,000 a week on opioids and taking up to 60 pills a day). Buster also claimed on the stand that his father was 'heartbroken' following the deaths of Maggie and Paul. After a highly publicized six-week trial in early 2023, Buster's father, Alex, was found guilty of murdering his wife and son. Buster, Alex's only surviving child, was in the courtroom as the verdicts were read. Alex's defense team moved for a mistrial after the guilty verdicts were handed down, but the motion was quickly denied by the judge. 'The evidence of guilt is overwhelming, and I deny the motion,' state Circuit Judge Clifton Newman said, per Good Morning America. The following day, Alex was sentenced to two life sentences for the murders of Maggie and Paul. Alex, however, maintained his innocence when he addressed the judge at his sentencing hearing. 'I'm innocent. I would never hurt my wife Maggie. And I would never hurt my son 'Paul Paul,' ' he told Judge Newman. Buster has stood by his father, maintaining his innocence during and after his trial. In an interview with Fox Nation in August 2023, Buster doubled down on his stance that his father was innocent and did not belong in prison. 'I do not think that he could be affiliated with endangering my mother and brother,' Buster said in Fox Nation's The Fall of the House of Murdaugh. 'We have been here for a while now and that's been my stance.' Buster added that he believed his father's trial was 'not fair' and that pretrial publicity led the jury to form predetermined opinions about the former South Carolina attorney. 'I think that I hold a very unique perspective that nobody else in that courtroom ever held. And I know the love that I have witnessed,' Buster said, referencing his father's 'loving' relationship with his family. Buster also told Fox Nation that he believes the killer is still on the loose — and that his safety is at risk as a result. 'I think I set myself up to be safe but yes, when I go to bed at night I have a fear that there is somebody that is still out there,' he shared. Though Buster faced no charges in relation to the deaths of his mother and brother, he was not without his own legal troubles. Buster's name was mentioned more than 40 times during the investigation into the mysterious 2015 death of 19-year-old nursing student Stephen Smith. Smith — who was a classmate of Buster's — was found dead on a dark Hampton County road not far from the Murdaugh family estate during the early morning hours of July 8, 2015. Authorities initially ruled Smith's death a hit-and-run — before reopening the case in June 2021, following the murders of Maggie and Paul. Authorities revealed that, while investigating the murders of Maggie and Paul, new evidence connected to Smith's death surfaced, which led to them reopening the case. Shortly after Alex's conviction in March 2023, Smith's death was officially ruled a homicide. Buster has never been charged — or even questioned — in connection with Smith's death, however. He vehemently denied any involvement in a public statement released shortly after his father's conviction in March 2023. 'I have tried my best to ignore the vicious rumors about my involvement in Stephen Smith's tragic death that continue to be published in the media as I grieve over the brutal murders of my mother and brother,' the statement read. 'I haven't spoken up until now because I want to live in private while I cope with their deaths and my father's incarceration ... This has gone on far too long.' It continued, 'These baseless rumors of my involvement with Stephen and his death are false. I unequivocally deny any involvement in his death, and my heart goes out to the Smith family. I am requesting that the media immediately stop publishing these defamatory comments and rumors about me.' Buster was also named in a wrongful death lawsuit filed in 2019 by the mother of Mallory Beach, a 19-year-old who was killed in February 2019 after a boat driven by an allegedly intoxicated Paul crashed into a bridge. Alex, Maggie and Buster were all named in the lawsuit, as Alex was the owner of the boat and Maggie's credit card and Buster's ID were allegedly used by Paul to illegally purchase alcohol prior to the crash, Fox News reports. Beach's family and three of the other boat crash victims settled with Buster and the estate of Maggie in January 2023 for an undisclosed but 'significant' amount, an ABC affiliate station in South Carolina reported. Buster went from being a member of one of South Carolina's most well-known families to living a life in near isolation — cutting off contact from most of his social circle following his mother and brother's deaths. 'He really withdrew after everything happened,' a former college classmate told PEOPLE in 2022. 'He has really closed off and built walls around himself.' Buster has never returned to Moselle, his family's estate where his mother and brother were murdered, or his family's beach house on Edisto Island, S.C., where his mother was staying before her death. He also avoids his hometown of Hampton, where his family went from revered to reviled. 'I get stopped and yelled at all the time. I got cussed at in the gas station the other day,' Buster told his father in a taped jailhouse phone call, according to the University of South Carolina's newspaper The State. To escape, Buster moved into his girlfriend, Brooklynn White's, Hilton Head Island, S.C. condo, FITS News reported. The longtime couple went on to purchase a home together in Bluffton, S.C., in May 2023. They also share a golden retriever named Miller. White is currently an attorney at Olivetti McCray & Withrow, an all-female law firm in Hilton Head. She graduated from the University of South Carolina School of Law — the same law school Buster attended before he was kicked out in 2019 for low grades and alleged plagiarism, according to The State. Jailhouse recordings revealed that Alex paid $60,000 to prominent lawyer Butch Bowers to help get Buster back into law school. Buster was reportedly readmitted and due to resume classes in January 2022, but 'it was mutually agreed that delaying readmission to law school would be best for him and for the law school,' Alex's attorney Jim Griffin told The State. Buster has yet to return to law school. It is not known whether he is currently employed. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
Kilmar Ábrego García returned from El Salvador to face criminal charges in US
Kilmar Ábrego García, the man whom the Donald Trump administration mistakenly deported from Maryland to El Salvador in March, returned to the US on Friday to face criminal charges. In a press briefing on Friday, the US attorney general, Pam Bondi, said that a federal grand jury in Tennessee had indicted Ábrego García on counts of illegally smuggling undocumented people as well as of conspiracy to commit that crime. 'Our government presented El Salvador with an arrest warrant and they agreed to return him to our country,' Bondi said of Ábrego García. She thanked the Salvadorian president, Nayib Bukele, 'for agreeing to return him to our country to face these very serious charges'. 'This is what American justice looks like upon completion of his sentence,' Bondi added. Ábrego García – a 29-year-old Salvadorian whose wife and young child in Maryland are US citizens – appeared in federal court in Nashville on Friday evening. His arraignment was set for 13 June, when he will enter a plea, according to local media reports. Until then, he will remain in federal custody. In a statement to the Hill on Friday, Ábrego García's lawyer Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg accused the Trump administration of having 'disappeared' his client 'to a foreign prison in violation of a court order'. 'Now, after months of delay and secrecy, they're bringing him back, not to correct their error but to prosecute him,' he added. Sandoval-Moshenberg also said: 'This shows that they were playing games with the court all along. Due process means the chance to defend yourself before you're punished – not after.' Sandoval-Moshenberg said the White House's treatment of his client was 'an abuse of power, not justice'. He called on Ábrego García to face the same immigration judge who had previously granted him a federal protection order against deportation to El Salvador 'to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent' there. That, Sandoval-Moshenberg argued, 'is the ordinary manner of doing things' – and he said that is what the US supreme court had ordered in April. Bondi on Friday maintained that federal grand jurors found that Ábrego García 'has played a significant role' in an abusive smuggling ring that had operated for nearly a decade. The attorney general added that if convicted, Ábrego García would be deported to El Salvador after completing his sentence in the US. Officials on Friday portrayed the indictment of Ábrego García by a grand jury in Tennessee as vindication of their approach to immigration enforcement. 'The man has a horrible past and I could see a decision being made, bring him back, show everybody how horrible this guy is,' Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding that it had been the justice department that decided to bring Ábrego García back. According to the indictment, Ábrego García worked with at least five co-conspirators to bring immigrants to the United States illegally, and then transported them from the US-Mexico border to other destinations in the country. Ábrego García often picked up immigrants in Houston, and made more than 100 trips between Texas and Maryland from 2016 to 2025, the indictment says. The indictment also alleges Ábrego García transported firearms and drugs. According to the indictment, one of his co-conspirators belonging to the same ring was involved in the transportation of immigrants whose tractor-trailer overturned in Mexico in 2021, resulting in 50 deaths. Sandoval-Moshenberg called the criminal charges 'fantastical' and a 'kitchen sink' of allegations. 'This is all based on the statements of individuals who are currently either facing prosecution or in federal prison,' he said. 'I want to know what they offered those people.' Ábrego García entered the US without permission around 2011 while fleeing gang violence in El Salvador. Despite the judicial order meant to prevent his deportation to El Salvador, on 15 March, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officials deported him to El Salvador after arresting him in Maryland. He was held in the so-called Center for Terrorism Confinement, a controversial mega-prison better known as Cecot. The Trump administration subsequently admitted that Ábrego García's deportation was an 'administrative error'. But it has repeatedly cast him as a MS-13 gang member on television – a claim which his wife, a US citizen, and his attorneys staunchly reject. Ábrego García also had no criminal record in the US before the indictment announced on Friday, according to court documents. On 4 April, federal judge Paula Xinis ordered the Trump administration to 'facilitate and effectuate' Ábrego García's return from El Salvador after his family filed a lawsuit in response to his deportation. The supreme court unanimously upheld Xinis's order a week later. In an unsigned decision, the court said that Xinis's decision 'properly requires the government to 'facilitate' Ábrego García's release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador'. A Friday statement from the US senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said the Trump administration had 'finally relented' to his demand to afford Ábrego due process. 'This is not about the man,' said Van Hollen, who visited Ábrego García in El Salvador in April. 'It's about his constitutional rights – and the rights of all.' Bukele wrote on X, in part, that he would not refuse the Trump administration's request for 'the return of a gang member to face charges'. Reuters contributed to this report
