There are hardly any connecting roads for miles along the isolated road that runs along the coastal cliff.
The California Highway Patrol said in a statement on Saturday, “We are working on a plan to get motorists evacuated from the area.”.
“A popular tourist destination is served by Big Sur.
Many had journeyed along this section of road southward all the way down to Big Sur.
In order to enable law enforcement to accompany some of the stranded individuals through the damaged area, Caltrans opened the northbound lane on Sunday.
At a press conference, a California Highway Patrol officer stated, “(Engineering and geotech crews) did an inspection of the roadway.”.
For that reason, it was stationary and had not progressed into the northbound lane, which gave us great concern. “.”.
NEUTRAL
Alex Murdaugh entered a South Carolina courtroom on Monday, perhaps for the last time, wearing a prison jumpsuit rather than his usual suit. He was given a 40-year sentence to federal prison.
Murdaugh was penalized for embezzling money from clients and his legal practice, this time in federal court. In a state prison, the 55-year-old disbarred lawyer is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the murders of his son and wife.
An additional 40 years of imprisonment will be insurance on top of insurance. Murdaugh entered a guilty plea and was given a life sentence in addition to a 27-year prison sentence in state court for financial crime offenses. His state prison sentence and the federal sentence will run concurrently, so unless his murder convictions are overturned on appeal, he will probably have to serve the full 40 years.
You. s. District Judge Richard Gergel stated that he gave Murdaugh a harsher sentence than recommended because he stole from “the most needy, vulnerable people,” including a state trooper hurt in the line of duty, a client who suffered a quadriplegia following a collision, and a trust fund intended for kids whose parents perished in an accident.
“Mr. Murdaugh took advantage of those he mistreated and stole from, and they put all of their hopes and problems in him. This sequence of actions is challenging to comprehend,” said Gergel.
For Murdaugh, who was an established attorney three years prior, negotiating multimillion-dollar settlements in small Hampton County—where his family ran the area’s top law firm for almost a century and served as elected prosecutors—the 22 federal counts represent the last ones that remain unresolved.
Murdaugh will also be required to make restitution totaling almost $9 million.
The reason prosecutors are requesting a heavier sentence for Murdaugh is that FBI agents believe he is lying about what happened to the $6 million he stole and whether an unidentified lawyer assisted him in his illegal schemes.
The sons of Gloria Satterfield, Murdaugh’s longtime housekeeper, were involved in the biggest plot. At the family home, she fell and died. While working with a lawyer friend who had admitted guilt, Murdaugh pretended to look after Satterfield’s family before stealing $4 million from the family’s insurance through wrongful death settlements.
Over two dozen clients had their fees or expenses inflated by Murdaugh, who also stole settlement money from them. Attorneys for the prosecution claimed that Murdaugh pilfered almost $1.33 million from the victims, with the FBI discovering 11 more than the state probe had.
During his sentencing on Monday, Murdaugh expressed regret to his victims once more, stating he felt “guilt, sorrow, shame, embarrassment, humiliation.”. “.
Similar to his state sentencing, Murdaugh proposed meeting with his victims to allow them to express themselves and “more closely inspect my sincerity.”. “.
“There’s not enough time and I don’t have enough vocabulary to express to you in words the depth of my feelings about what I did,” Murdaugh said.
Murdaugh claimed he was proud to have been drug-free for 937 days, but he also attributed his crimes to nearly two decades of opioid addiction.
Gergel mocked him, saying he was on drugs.
“A person with true impairments could not have carried out these intricate transactions,” the judge declared, referring to the network of fictitious accounts, juggled checks, and money transferred between locations to conceal the thefts for almost two decades.
Murdaugh killed his wife Maggie with a rifle and his younger son Paul with a shotgun; he was found guilty a year ago. Despite having admitted guilt to numerous financial offenses, he fiercely disputes that he killed them and provided testimony in support of himself.
Bloody photos from the crime scene, transcripts from Murdaugh’s interviews with detectives, information regarding Maggie Murdaugh’s autopsy, evidence from cell phones, and forensic engineer testimony were all presented during the trial.
Years will pass during the murder cases’ appeals process. After his defense team accused a court clerk of influencing the jury, a South Carolina judge rejected his request for a new trial in January.
True crime enthusiasts have been enthralled with the case, leading to thousands of social media posts and dozens of podcast episodes. In the days preceding Monday’s sentencing hearing, it kept taking strange turns.
Attorneys representing Murdaugh claimed that during a polygraph examination, an FBI agent asked the subject if he could keep a secret before revealing that he had just interviewed infamous Dutch murderer Joran van der Sloot.
Prosecutors seek a more severe sentence, claiming that Murdaugh failed that polygraph exam. Murdaugh entered guilty pleas to 22 counts in federal court, each of which carried a minimum sentence of 20 years in prison. A 30-year maximum is applied to some.
The defense claimed that Murdaugh’s failure on the test was due to the fictitious behavior and peculiar questions posed by an FBI agent.
The prosecution claims they are still looking into who may have assisted Murdaugh in stealing the money and wants to keep many of the FBI statements under wraps. They claim that disclosing the information would endanger a grand jury investigation that is currently underway.
