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Daily Mail
15 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Buster Murdaugh gets first victory in defamation case against Warner Bros. over murder documentary
Buster Murdaugh was handed his first win in court as a judge ruled his defamation case against Warner Brothers could proceed. The only surviving son of disgraced lawyer Alex Murdaugh - who is serving two life sentences for murdering his wife and youngest son in 2021 - claimed the production company implied that he 'murdered a 19-year-old Hampton County man named Stephen Smith.' Details of Smith's death along with rumors of links to the Murdaugh family were broadcast in a documentary detailing the downfall of the once prominent legal dynasty. The 28-year-old has never been accused of, or faced charges relating to, Smith's death. In 2023, he publicly denied involvement in the tragedy and shut down persistent rumors the pair had been romantically linked. Smith was a classmate of Buster and was found dead on a rural road in the summer of 2015. An autopsy determined he was fatally struck in a hit-and-run. Former South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon told Fox News that the basis of the lawsuit is 'something called defamation by implication. 'There were rumors … Buster Murdaugh was somehow involved in his death. They would take interviews of people living in that area that would, in effect, repeat these rumors about Buster Murdaugh being involved in this murder. 'The lawsuit claims that they just simply aired these interviews of rumors … and would juxtapose those interviews with actual law enforcement documents and related information.' Condon said he does believe Buster's reputation was 'severely damaged by the reporting that went on.' Warner Brothers had attempted to have the defamation suit dismissed, but a judge ruled it could proceed. In the lawsuit, Buster noted the 'defamatory and false' insinuations made in the documentary were 'published to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of viewers who watched the show, including viewers in South Carolina.' He said by airing details of Smith's death in a documentary about his father's crimes, the showrunners implied he, too, had 'committed a crime or moral turpitude.' In 2016, a year after her son's death, Smith's mother Sandy wrote a letter to the FBI stating that she believed the Murdaughs were somehow involved. 'The first call my family received after the murder was from authorities notifying us of Stephen's death,' she wrote. 'The second came very quickly the same morning from Solicitor Randolph Murdaugh.' Sandy claimed to CBS authorities initially told her her son had been shot, but that within hours they said it was actually a hit-and-run. There was no evidence of vehicle debris, skid marks or injuries consistent with someone being hit by a car and they were convinced that the victim had a gunshot wound above his right eye, according to the original incident report. Sandy feared her son had been the victim of a hate crime. Rumors swirled in the small town that Buster may have been romantically linked to Smith prior to his death, but these claims were never substantiated and Buster himself vehemently denied them. The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division launched a homicide investigation into Smith's death almost two weeks after Alex Murdaugh shot his wife Maggie and son, Paul in June 2021. He was convicted over the killings in 2023 and is serving two consecutive life terms without possibility of parole. Smith's family raised more than $60,000 after Alex's conviction to have his body exhumed for a private autopsy. Murdaugh, a high-profile attorney in South Carolina's Low Country, called 911 to report that he had found the bodies of his wife and son on their sprawling Moselle estate in rural Colleton County. Police arrived to find Maggie and Paul shot dead. Investigators determined that two firearms had been used. Although Murdaugh initially denied involvement, officers soon began to unravel a web of financial mismanagement, embezzlement, fraud and drug abuse. Three months later, Murdaugh - while under suspension for the alleged murders - was shot in the head as he changed a tire on his black Mercedes-Benz SUV. Authorities soon alleged that he had arranged the shooting himself by hiring distant relative Curtis Edward Smith in a failed suicide-for-hire plot so that Buster could receive a $10 million life insurance payout. Murdaugh was ultimately also convicted of dozens of financial crimes ranging from embezzlement to money laundering. In addition to his life sentences, Murdaugh was sentenced in federal court in April 2024 to 40 years for financial crimes involving millions stolen from clients and colleagues - a sentence that was to run concurrently with his state prison terms. A source close to Buster recently told that, though he believes his father to be innocent of the murders, he is 'really angry' at the sweeping financial crimes that Murdaugh was subsequently convicted of. 'He's living his life but he doesn't really have too much going on,' a member of his inner circle said. 'He's pretty directionless, but he's figuring it out.' But last month Buster married his long-term girlfrien d Brooklynn White, 29, in an extravagant ceremony surrounded by family and friends. The couple chose the exclusive Coosaw Point - a luxury riverside community - for their nuptials, where a 50-person wedding will set a couple back around $26,000 for the venue costs alone.
Fox News
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Buster Murdaugh scores legal win in defamation fight over documentary's murder implications: former state AG
Alex Murdaugh's surviving son, Buster Murdaugh, was granted a "victory" this week when a federal judge decided to allow his defamation suit against CNN parent company Warner Bros. to proceed, former South Carolina Attorney General Charlie Condon told Fox News Digital. Court documents filed in the United States District Court for the District of South Carolina on June 9 detail Judge Richard Mark Gergel's order denying Warner Bros' and Blackfin Inc.'s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which alleges that the media conglomerates "insinuated and implied" in their respective Murdaugh documentary that Buster, now 28, "had murdered a 19-year-old Hampton County man named Stephen Smith." Smith — Buster's former classmate — was found dead on a rural road in Hampton County, where the Murdaugh family is from, in the summer of 2015. An autopsy later determined that he had been fatally struck by a vehicle in a hit-and-run while he was walking along the run after running out of gas. "[T]here were rumors … Buster Murdaugh was somehow involved in his death, and the basis of the lawsuit is that these media companies — the main claim being something called defamation by implication — that they would take interviews of people living in that area that would, in effect, repeat these rumors about Buster Murdaugh being involved in this murder," Condon said. "And the lawsuit claims that they just simply aired these interviews of rumors … and would juxtapose those interviews with actual law enforcement documents and related information." "I do think that [Buster's] reputation has been severely damaged by the reporting that went on." The defamation suit alleges that Warner Bros and Blackfin, which produced the Warner Bros documentary, implicated Buster in Smith's death. The media companies tried early on to dismiss it. Fox News Digital has reached out to attorneys for both media companies. Buster is arguing that statements regarding Smith's death made in the documentary about his father's crimes "are defamatory and falsely accuse the Plaintiff of committing a crime or moral turpitude," an amended complaint states. "The claims have been published to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of viewers who watched the show, including viewers in South Carolina, and the defamatory statements continue to be republished as of the filing of this action on a broad array of streaming platforms and channels owned by Defendant Warner Bros." Warner Bros and Blackfin filed a motion to dismiss on multiple grounds, including the First Amendment, court filings show. "Plaintiff's Amended Complaint necessitates dismissal for multiple independent reasons. Plaintiff fails to sufficiently identify the allegedly defamatory content, as the Rules require. … Leaving aside the lack of requisite specificity, the First Amendment bars Plaintiff's claims as to the Blackfin Documentary because it does not state as a fact that he is 'the murderer of Stephen Smith' (which is the only alleged defamation)," attorneys for the two media companies said in their motion to dismiss, among other reasons to dismiss. Investigators began probing possible links between Smith's death and the Murdaugh family after Buster's mother and brother were both shot to death just miles from the clan's South Carolina estate in June 2021 but did not find any kind of link between the Murdaughs and Smith's death. Gergel ultimately sided with Buster. "Here, the Court need not decide at this stage which state's privilege law applies because Plaintiff's theory of liability does not rest solely on the reporting or republication of law enforcement reports. Rather, Plaintiff alleges that Defendants' selective juxtaposition of law enforcement interviews with interviews of individuals within Hampton County and reports regarding the Murdaugh family, in tandem, create the defamatory implication that Plaintiff is responsible for Stephen Smith's death," the judge wrote in his order. "The Court finds that the fair report privilege does not bar Plaintiff's lawsuit." READ THE OTHE ORDER: Condon called the decision "a real victory for Buster Murdaugh and his legal team that they were able to keep the case alive." "A real victory for Buster Murdaugh and his legal team." "We'll see where it goes with discovery," he said. …I was at the Murdaugh trial for every day for six weeks, and I must say, after that case ended and when these different media companies had different stories circulating about the case and related matters, including the Stephen Smith murder, I wouldn't know just personally. There were numbers of people that would routinely ask me about Buster Murdaugh being investigated for the murder of Stephen Smith. They would speculate that he's going to be arrested soon." Condon added that the fact that the suit "survived this early stage … is really significant in terms of where this case might head." "I do know Judge Gergel would apply the law very rigorously, and the fact that he's letting these cases go forward tells me that, again, at this very early stage, these cases appear to have merit." Condon said. GET REAL-TIME UPDATES DIRECTLY ON THE TRUE CRIME HUB The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED) opened a homicide investigation into Smith's death June 23, 2021 — about two weeks after Alex Murdaugh fatally shot his wife Maggie, 52, and his son, Paul, 22. Alex Murdaugh was convicted in Maggie and Paul's murders in March 2023 and was sentenced to life in prison. The disgraced South Carolina legal scion also pleaded guilty to dozens of financial crimes tied to his family's personal injury law firm. Prosecutors said Alex murdered his wife and youngest son to distract from his financial crimes. The now-56-year-old took in clients who had suffered injuries in various accidents and helped them get millions of dollars in damages, most of which he would keep for himself without telling the victims. Smith's mother wrote a letter to the FBI in 2016 implicating the Murdaughs in her son's death, explaining her belief that the Murdaugh family staged the accident in an effort to steal more money. "The first call my family received after the murder was from authorities notifying us of Stephen's death," she wrote at the time. "The second came very quickly the same morning from Solicitor Randolph Murdaugh." The retired solicitor, who had served as the region's top prosecutor before retiring in 2005, is the late father of Alex Murdaugh. He allegedly told Smith's mother he was willing to work pro bono as a liaison between the family and investigators but soon stopped returning their calls, the letter says. An attorney for the Smith family did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. Buster issued a statement in 2023 through his attorney denying any role in Smith's death: "These baseless rumors of my involvement in Stephen's death are false," he said. "My heart goes out to the Smith family." Fox News Digital reached out to Buster's attorneys for comment regarding Gergel's order this week.
