A banker who worked with disgraced South Carolina attorney and convicted double murderer Alex Murdaugh had his conviction and seven-year prison sentence thrown out Thursday by a federal appeals court.
Russell Laffitte, 53, had been serving the term at a minimum-security federal prison in Florida but will likely be released after the decision by the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.
According to the appellate court, Laffitte’s conviction was overturned due to the trial judge’s conduct in removing a juror.
A woman, identified only as Juror No. 88, wrote a note to Judge Richard Gergel as the panel deliberated Laffitte’s fate into the night on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving 2022.
The woman said she was taking anxiety medication and told the judge, “I have my decisions that I made. But I started to feel very anxious due to some of the reactions to my decision.”
After the woman said she could no longer perform her duty, Gergel had her replaced with an alternate juror. The jury, which had been debating for hours, returned with a guilty verdict shortly after the woman was replaced.
“Our concerns are heightened in view of Juror No. 88’s statement that others disagreed with her ‘decision,’ and that, after nearly eight hours of deliberations, the reconstituted jury returned a guilty verdict in less than an hour later,” the 4th Circuit judges wrote in their decision.
The 4th Circuit determined Laffitte’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury had been violated.
Laffitte had been convicted on six counts of bank fraud. As an old friend of Murdaugh’s and the CEO of Palmetto State Bank, he frequently served as the court-appointed keeper of settlement money in cases Murdaugh won.
Laffitte then transferred the money from settlement accounts into Murdaugh’s private accounts at Murdaugh’s request. At trial, Laffitte did not dispute the facts, but claimed he’d been bamboozled by Murdaugh as part of his sprawling scheme.
“We respect the court’s decision and stand ready to prove Laffitte’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt a second time,” U.S. Attorney for South Carolina Adair Ford Boroughs said in a statement following the court’s decision.