Russell Laffitte plundered SC sisters’ settlement under his control, new lawsuit alleges

Two sisters who years ago received a multimillion-dollar settlement after their mother died in a car crash have sued former bank CEO Russell Laffitte for profiting off and misusing the millions placed in a conservatorship under his care.

While now-disbarred attorney Alex Murdaugh, a friend of Laffitte’s, is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit, the lawsuit asserts that Murdaugh was the girls’ lawyer. The suit says that in 2005 Murdaugh steered the sisters, 12-year-old Alania Plyler and 8-year-old Hannah Plyler to Laffitte, who worked at his family’s Hampton bank, Palmetto State Bank.

Palmetto State Bank is also a defendant in the case, and the lawsuit notes that the bank and Murdaugh’s law firm — formerly known as Peters, Murdaugh, Parker, Eltzroth and Detrick (PMPED) — were honored institutions in the Hampton community and the Laffittes and Murdaughs were venerable names.

“Like PMPED, Palmetto State Bank was a generational, familial institution in Hampton County,” says the lawsuit, filed in state court in Hampton County.

“Just as (Alex) Murdaugh had ascended to his seat at the PMPED table, on a parallel track, Russell Laffitte was coming into his power at the Palmetto State Bank table. The two rising lions of their families came together for the prosecution of the Plyler cases,” the lawsuit said.

Laffitte’s lawyer Bart Daniel could not be reached for comment by press deadline Palmetto State Bank lawyers Trenholm Walker and Thomas Gressette also could not be reached by press deadline.

Murdaugh and Laffitte face criminal charges in state and federal court for their alleged mishandling of money in the Plyler conservatorship.

Murdaugh was fired from his law firm last September. In January, Laffitte was fired from his job as Palmetto State Bank CEO.

‘They were just children’

The money the girls were awarded in settlements came as a result of a July 2005 blow-out of their mother’s Ford Explorer’s Firestone tires, whose alleged defects were linked to many deaths on the nation’s highways.

When the tires failed on a stretch of Interstate 95 in Hampton County, the Explorer left the road and struck a strand of pine trees, killing the girls’ mother, Angela Plyler, and their 14-year-old brother Justin, the lawsuit said.

The girls, riding in the back seat, survived.

“Two men would come into their lives purportedly to help them: a lawyer, (Alex) Murdaugh, and a banker, Russell Laffitte,” the lawsuit said. “While millions of dollars were recovered for the girls and while huge fees were paid to the lawyer and the banker, opportunity abounded when the money hit the table.”

Laffitte, who was a bank vice president at the time, became a “personal representative,” the person in charge of the girls’ conservatorship, the lawsuit said. In that capacity, he doled out allowances, money for school books and other expenses they had, the lawsuit said.

“Although Laffitte was duty bound as a fiduciary for the girls to protect them and to protect their property, they were just children who did not (and could not) understand the complex finances following the deaths of their mother and brother,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit also outlines a series of alleged machinations whereby Murdaugh and Laffitte took out loans from the conservatorship and made other uses of the money under Laffitte’s stewardship.

“Laffitte helped himself to hundreds of thousands of dollars of ‘loans’ from the girls and graced himself with sweetheart interest rates as low as 1.5%. He extended the same courtesies to his good buddy (Murdaugh),” making as many as 14 separate loans to the lawyer, the lawsuit said.

One loan to Murdaugh, on Sept. 14, 2011, was for $90,000, the lawsuit said.

Another loan to Murdaugh, on Sept. 11, 2012, was for $100,000, the lawsuit said. In 2013, Laffitte took $70,000 out of the conservatorship to replenish a checking account that Murdaugh had overdrawn, the lawsuit said.

In 2015, when Hannah Plyler turned 18 and was ready to assume legal possession of her account, Laffitte found the account was short by $264,537. So to make up the difference, Laffitte took money from other conservatorships at the bank, the lawsuit alleged.I

In April of 2015, Laffitte met Hannah Plyler at a Starbucks coffee shop in Columbia, the lawsuit says.

“He brought with him a file of various materials related to his time as conservator, presented the file to Hannah, told her ‘Good luck’ and walked out of her life,” the lawsuit said.

Over the life of the sisters’ conservatorship, Laffitte paid himself $260,000 in conservatorship fees, the lawsuit said.

‘The girls are finished with being victimized’

After the girls’ mother died, the sisters resided with their father but later stayed with various family members and lived primarily in Lexington County, the lawsuit said.

“Whether Laffitte appreciated it at the time or not, the girls inevitably began to see him as a father figure in their lives. He controlled their money. He made decisions on their behalf. He was the one that the girls had to talk to in requesting money (their money) for allowances, school supplies, clothing and Christmas gifts,’’ the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit added, “What the girls could not know, and did not know, is that although Laffitte repeatedly sought court permission for expenditures on the girls’ behalf for nominal sums, he was helping himself to hundreds of thousands of their dollars without court approval for his own personal use and was granting hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal loans to his friend, Alex Murdaugh, again without court approval.”

The Plyler’s lawsuit was brought by attorneys Eric Bland and Ronnie Richter, whose lawsuit against Murdaugh and others last September triggered law enforcement investigations that lifted the curtain on massive allegations of financial fraud against Murdaugh.

That lawsuit, brought on behalf of heirs of Gloria Satterfield, the deceased Murdaugh housekeeper who died in a fall at the house, alleged that Murdaugh and others had misappropriated some $4.3 million in liability insurance money due the heirs.

That was the beginning of a wave of accusations, most of them made by indictments from the state grand jury, that have charged Murdaugh, sometimes aided by others, with stealing some $8.5 million from his firm, fellow lawyers, associates and clients.

In a public statement, Bland and Richter said they had tried to reach an out-of-court settlement with the bank and Laffitte but were unable to.

“While they (the Plyler sisters) would have preferred to resolve these matters privately, a private resolution proved impossible and so the Plylers will entrust this matter to the Courts and to the God-given common sense of a future jury. The girls are finished with being victimized and abused by those that were entrusted to protect them,” the lawyers said.