True Sunlight: TSP #12 - ‘Coyote In A Trap’: Did Cory Fleming Pull a Fast One?

I don't know if Corey Fleming actually feels remorseful for what he did to the satterfields

in the pink knees, but on Tuesday, Fleming was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison

and he is still staring down 23 state charges.

Despite several disturbing things that we saw in court this week, I am finally starting

to feel a shift in the system and to me, that little glimmer of hope we have for change

is a big deal.

My name is Mandy Matney.

This is True Sunlight, a podcast exposing crime and corruption previously known as the

Murdoch Murders podcast.

True Sunlight is a luna shark production and written with journalist Liz Farrell.

So we shared some big news on this week's Cup of Justice.

My first book, titled Blood on their Hands, Murder Corruption in the Fall of the Murdoch

Dynasty, will be released this November and you can pre-order it today.

See the link in the description and go to bloodontheirhandsbook.com for more information.

I wasn't prepared for it, but Tuesday ended up being one of the most important days we

have had in the last four and a half years since this investigation began.

Finally, at last, in front of our own eyes, we saw a man who was held to account for his

actions and defeated by his own doing in helping Ellic Murdoch.

In federal court, we saw the collapse of Corey Fleming.

Finally, we saw someone in the middle of this mess actually admit to his wrongdoing and that

in itself is a big deal.

We saw the moment when Corey Fleming was escorted off by US Marshals to serve his time in federal

prison.

But that moment wasn't as powerful as it should have been because the public really

didn't get to witness it beyond the 100 or so of us who were able to fit into Judge

Grigl's sweaty federal courtroom on Tuesday afternoon.

Now there is a lot to talk about today, including a short update at the end of this episode

with reporter Beth Brayden on the Grant Solomon case, but we need to start by talking about

something that needs to change now in federal court, the lack of transparency in our federal

courtrooms.

Federal rule of criminal procedure 53, which was literally established one year after World

War II ended in 1946, prohibits electronic media coverage of criminal proceedings, including

taking photographs and broadcasting the proceedings.

Now think about this.

Think about how clunky and disruptive and different technology was in 1946.

Typewriters, box cameras, dictation machines the size of a toddler.

It was a different world.

The world has changed a lot since then, and so should our rules.

Now in cases like Russell Lafites with the increased amount of media and public interest,

some federal judges will set up a media room where the trial is streamed and reporters

can use their cell phones and laptops to take notes and report play-by-plays straight to

the public, essentially the maximum amount of transparency that is allowed for.

And Gurgle apparently didn't anticipate high public interest in Corey's case, however.

Until we personally emailed his office on Tuesday morning, he apparently didn't think

that a media room was necessary for Corey.

He claimed that they tried to scramble after a Tuesday morning request, but the two IT

guys that they have in court happened to be out that day, and we were simply out of luck,

forced to, quote, take notes the old fashioned way, with just a pen and paper in our memories.

Now Liz and I are both extremely careful reporters.

We move slower than a lot of journalists do because taking time to triple check things

really matters to us.

Our credibility matters to us.

It feels absurd and unfair that we cannot triple check most of what went down in court

on Tuesday without having to pay for an incredibly expensive transcript.

But the thing is, I don't believe that Judge Gurgle was expecting low public interest in

Corey's case.

He received a whopping 62 letters in support of Corey in the days leading up to the hearing.

Did he think that the worldwide interest in this case suddenly fizzled out in the last

two weeks?

Did he think that Corey described essentially as a super dad, a Buford YMCA king, a habitat

for humanity hero, and a former attorney whose career took a nosedive with the fall of the

Murdoch dynasty?

Did he not think that the public would want to hear what went on there?

We saw a different Judge Gurgle on Tuesday.

He was overly friendly with the defense, to the point where it was weird.

The courtroom was packed with Corey Stans, and Gurgle had the gall to joke about it.

From the head of the courtroom, filled with clearly affluentual and wealthy people of

Buford, South Carolina, where Corey is from, Gurgle joked, is there anyone left in Buford

today at the beginning of the hearing?

Now this really bothered me for a few reasons.

People admittedly, I've never had a friend do anything like Corey did to the satterfields

in the pinknees.

I can't imagine a world where I would still support that friend after knowing what they

did.

To me, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter how great a friend treats you.

What matters is how they treat others, particularly how they treat vulnerable people like the

pinknees in the satterfields, at a time when they were desperately in need of an attorney

to protect them.

All of these crimes continued, as long as they did, because people allowed them to.

People looked the other way.

People chose to see the Murdochs and their allies for how they treated them, not how

they treated anyone, not how they treated everyone, and they stood by them for too long.

So I don't think it's funny to point out that a man like Corey can still have so much

support and even after he stole from the vulnerable, even after he enabled the monster of Ellic

Murdoch, even after he betrayed the purists of souls when they needed him the most.

The room full of Corey supporters never heard the full details about what Corey Fleming,

the attorney, the law partner, the rich and powerful friend of Ellic Murdoch, what that

guy actually did to the pinknees in the satterfields.

In fact, Judge Gurgle cut off Eric Bland when he was briefly reminding the court of

just how horrible Corey's actions were.

I say this because if there was a live video feed of the hearing, I think the public would

have seen what I saw and I think Gurgle would have gotten a lot of deserved scrutiny.

I think the public would have been concerned to see a judge who was so friendly with a

man who was such a disgrace to his own profession.

Imagine how much we could learn about federal courts if there was a live feed of every courtroom,

of course with some exceptions.

We could certainly have a better idea of how differently the powerful are treated in the

federal system and how they benefit from the secrecy.

Tuesday's hearing was absolutely a matter of public interest and it is absurd that we

are still following rules from an old world designed by the good old boys.

There is a bill in Congress to make federal courts more accessible and I urge you to support

it because it is so essential to the work that we do here.

Transparency and accountability are the only ways we can change our system for the better.

But for this week, we will rely on our handwritten notes from court to tell you the story about

what went down through our own eyes and you all can decide if Corey's punishment fit

his crime.

What this week really made me think about some of life's biggest questions.

Like what makes a person good or bad?

Is it ever okay to support someone after they did something so horrible?

And what is the point of the criminal justice system?

Are we trying to change people for the better?

Are we trying to deter them from doing bad things?

Or are we trying to punish them for what they did?

While Russell Lafitte and Elik Murdoch were offensive, narcissistic, and disrespectful

to the victims and the public throughout their trials, Corey was the opposite.

There were several moments when I was really stunned by Corey.

How could a man this smart, this capable of doing this much good?

How could he take part in so much evil?

Liz and I both said the same thing after court.

There were actually moments when I really wanted to interview Corey.

There were moments when I felt like maybe this was a man whose story we all could learn

from.

A man who was clearly much smarter than Elik and Russell.

I want to know how he could do this.

And what does he know?

It was really easy to get bamboozled by Corey and his team on Tuesday.

I spoke with Justin Bamberg, who was also there representing the Pinkney family.

A lot about Corey and what makes a good person on Wednesday evening.

I think the easiest way for anybody to process this, if you've really been following this

whole saga for these years and you're really trying to digest, like a movie, you want to

digest the different characters, right?

And Elik is by far the easiest to digest at this point.

Some of us digested who Elik was long before he got convicted of double homicide.

Some people couldn't digest him until that happened, right?

But you got him, Russell, wow, you've digested it.

You figured that out.

And you're having trouble trying to really digest, like, who is this Corey Fleming?

Like, who is he?

What type of person is he?

And I think that with this particular situation, you're never going to be able to fully comprehend

who he is based on the actions or the inactions.

And the best thing I could tell people, and what I have told people is, like, stop thinking

about that.

It doesn't matter if he's a good person, doesn't matter if he's lived a great life, if he lived

a horrible life.

None of that matters.

You have to digest him in the small window of which we're dealing with, which is the

window of crime.

And in that window of crime, he wasn't a good person.

Doesn't matter if he was a good person out of that window.

Within that window, he did terrible things that hurt people, that left them, you know,

and Mandy, I think we've talked about this previously, the concept of people's ability

to build wealth.

You know, these are families who never had the opportunities to generate wealth in their

family.

They just wanted a little taste.

And I had to go through horrible, horrible stuff to get access to the money to put them

in that economic position.

But they finally had the chance to have a little taste of the wealth and the benefits

that Corey had because of who he was, who his family was, the fact he was tied to the

Murdoch, that the Alec in the Murdoch name brought, that Russell in the Lafitte name

brought.

And these people had an opportunity to build wealth in their family so that their kids

and those crewmen after them could one day reap the benefits of that.

And these guys helped kill that for them.

And that's all I need to know with the way I view economic opportunities and the part

of the state in which I live and which Pamela Painty lives and Gloria Satterfield lives

and all the others.

If you're willing, even though you have the world, you're willing to take a small piece

of somebody else's for your own selfish benefit.

Not a good person in that moment.

End of the discussion.

So I gave up a long time ago trying to figure out if any of these guys were good or bad

guys.

They did bad things and now they're being held accountable for it.

Tuesday's hearing was vastly different than all of Russell and Alec's court proceedings.

It was respectful from both sides.

It was empathetic from both sides.

It was extremely efficient.

It made Dick and Jim's trial shenanigans look like kangaroo court.

It wasn't lost on me that both the defense and the prosecution teams were led by women.

Again, I wish y'all could have seen it.

I want you to picture attending a wedding in which a 50-something-year-old millionaire

has chosen to marry himself.

The ceremony is obviously painful to watch because the man is gross for doing this in

the first place, but also he's incredibly unself-aware, like the kind of guy who would

make a joke about marrying himself for his money.

The reception is predictably even worse because for seven hours you have to listen to the

man's friends and family who are equally clueless about how they sound, give these

long toasts to him while also having the audacity to mention that the gift we bought for him

for marrying himself better be the one from his registry.

All the while, this man is throwing tantrums because no detail about this marriage to himself

has been to his liking and also his wedding planner, Mark Moore, keeps finding reasons

to interrupt the party.

If you could call it that, with a cappella versions of Cotton Eye Joe.

That was what Russell Lafitte's sentencing hearing was like.

Or at least that's what it was like now that we have something drastically different to

compare it to.

Corey's sentencing hearing was so the opposite of what we've become accustomed to in the

Murdoch cases over the past few years that we have spent much of the past two days dissecting

everything we saw happen in federal court on Tuesday afternoon.

And we keep marveling at it all because it was that artful, which is a credit to Corey's

attorney Debbie Barbier to prosecutor Emily Limehouse and to Corey himself.

But we're going to talk more about this in a bit because there is a really, really fine

line between admiring them for how the hearing went and being like, wait, just a minute,

you three.

In some ways, it feels like we're celebrating street performers who entertained us by gently

stealing the watches off our wrists.

Put another way, we got Olivia Pope.

Olivia Pope from the show Scandal is goals until you realize ultimately she's sometimes

helping scoundrels do their scoundreling.

We'll be right back.

Throughout Ellick Murdoch's murder trial, we and others were frequently criticized by

a group of people who wanted to believe and wanted others to believe that our constant

whore over dick and gym strategies in and out of the courtroom was simply a function

of us not understanding the justice system or how a defense is supposed to work or worse

that we don't think a person is entitled to a strong defense.

Now we have a really good example to use when we talk about how we think this should look,

at least in terms of the very basic idea that people should generally take responsibility

for their actions and that people definitely shouldn't subject everyone else to buffoonery,

lies, threats, pageantry, and public relations warfare to escape legal accountability, especially

when the accused is in a position of trust in the thing that they are accused of doing

and the evidence shows that they did hurt others.

Corey's sentencing has shown us how this is possible.

However, we're still grappling with that old issue of money granting some people special

access to a better door in the courtroom to deals that simply do not exist for most other

people because that did seem to happen here.

Leading up to Tuesday's hearing, we were curious about how long the hearing itself

would end up being because Corey's supporters had submitted those 62 letters asking the

judge for leniency, which was sort of stunning, giving that he was only pleading guilty to

one charge and that one charge was conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Basically, the fun-sized version of the bank fraud charge he could have gotten, according

to Judge Gurgle, which carries a penalty of up to 30 years.

While this lesser charge is still a felony, and Corey Fleming is now officially and rightfully

a felon, we were also skeptical of what sentence he would receive, and we had pretty much prepared

ourselves for a future that potentially occluded us having to alert all of you that Corey was

essentially sentenced to a spa and given a $4.50 fine.

Remember, in May, when this deal was announced, this man was facing 23 state charges in a

prison sentence of up to 275 years on that front.

He still is.

This single federal charge carried a sentence of up to 20 years and a fine of up to $250,000.

Corey's sentencing guidelines, though, were a minimum of 46 months, just under 4 years,

to 67 months, which is just over 5 and a half years.

Judge Gurgle gave him the minimum in the guideline and only fined him $20,000, less than 10%

of the maximum fine.

For all intents and purposes, this federal plea deal is the gateway drug to getting out

of those hefty state charges.

If you don't believe us, just ask Judge Gurgle, who several times during the hearing

mentioned his great concern, and that's a quote, my friends, he used the word concern

about the state still pursuing its own prosecution plan for Corey, about the idea of Corey being

double punished, even likening it to being tarred and feathered for his crime.

At least twice, Judge Gurgle acknowledged what's called dual sovereignty, which the

US Supreme Court upheld in 2019.

And he acknowledged that he has no control over what the state does, but nevertheless

he felt the need to bring up the idea that Corey's defense team should provide the

state judge, who is Judge Clifton Newman, with his position on this matter.

In a display of sympathy, Judge Gurgle described Corey's future with the state prosecutors

as being a challenge that lies ahead for Corey.

Now, dual sovereignty basically means that a violation of federal law gets prosecuted

at the federal level and a violation of state law gets prosecuted at the state level, and

both governments have a right to prosecute at their discretion, even for the same crime.

But the reality of this is that state and federal prosecutors will often work together to find

a single punishment that accounts for the crime at both levels.

Usually this comes in the form of the feds pursuing the charges in US district court

and the state prosecutors dismissing their charges, and oftentimes there will be sentencing

enhancements added to account for the state crime.

This is usually an expediency thing and it's meant to save taxpayers money, but it can

also be a political thing too.

And even when state prosecutors disagree with the feds taking over, there's usually very

little meaningful pushback.

As many of you know from the Jeffrey Epstein case, rich criminals like to use this cooperation

to their advantage and are sometimes able to get a combo deal that takes the best of

one and the best of the other to make their own little plea deal for what amounts to a

jail hotel, as it was in Epstein's case.

And prosecutors on both the federal and state levels have been known to allow this kind

of hot nonsense to happen for certain people, because again, even though prison is prison

and a man's freedom is being taken away from him, federal prison is generally regarded

as a much more tolerable place to be for guys who steal with the pen and not the sword.

Oh, and this is where we should remind you that 14 circuit solicitor Duffy Stone employs

an attorney who happens to be the daughter of PMPED partner Danny Henderson to serve

as a liaison between Duffy's office and the US attorney's office.

We believe the 14th circuit, which by the way is where Corey started out, to be the

only solicitor's office that has such an arrangement.

And oh look, here we are.

One last thing to mention that has gotten lost in this, throughout the Murdoch murders case

in all of the attached cases in the past two years, there was a behind the scenes fight

happening between the state attorney general's office and the US attorney's office.

From our vantage point, it seemed like the feds were trying to wrestle the Murdoch cases

out of the AG's hands.

There was also the very real thought that Elix attorneys, including state senator Dick

Harputlian, a close friend of President Biden, and this is about power, not about politics,

were doing their darnedest to get the feds to step in.

Recent sources have also told us that in October 2021, at least one PMPED attorney was trying

to get the FBI to step in and after Sled surprised everyone, including Elix attorneys, by arresting

him in Florida.

At any rate, some people see the dual sovereignty doctrine as conflicting with the double jeopardy

clause, which states that no person shall be tried twice on the same offense.

Judge Gurgle seems to be one of those people, but again, the US Supreme Court doesn't see

it that way.

And the fact that Corey still faces state charges really seemed to bother Judge Gurgle,

which is yet another reason why there should have been cameras in the courtroom, because

the public needs to see things like this to really feel the audacity of it.

But that said, even though we applaud Debbie Barbier for her emotional intelligence, her

decorum, and her quiet strategy in this case, we do not hold what seems to be Judge Gurgle's

opinion on this.

In fact, we are, to use Judge Gurgle's term, very concerned that Debbie might have just

very godmothered Corey out of these state charges and that our federal government has

allowed her to do it for very little in return.

And if that is the case, if Debbie is ultimately able to get the federal government to rob

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson of his ability to do his job and prosecute

Corey for the 18 Satterfield charges and five Pinkney charges, then maybe she should run

against Alan in the next election, whether that's for Attorney General or for Governor.

Because that's the white collar criminal dream, right?

Get the feds to take over your case so you can politically and financially manage a softer

landing for yourself.

Get a lower sentence, go to a less dangerous facility, expect to serve only 85% of your

sentence, and maybe indicate you have a drug problem so you can shave off up to 12 months

of that time by completing a federal treatment program.

Oh yes, Judge Gurgle approved both Corey and Russell for RDAP, the Residential and Drug

Abuse Program for federal inmates.

Do Corey and Russell have drug problems?

Unclear.

But no drug habit has ever been publicly disclosed, nor have we heard rumors of one for either

of them.

But see, all of the federal plea deal magic only works when the people we put into these

positions allow it to happen, which is why it's important that the public continues

to keep an eye on the US Attorney's Office in South Carolina to make sure that whatever

apparently amazing information Corey gave the feds in exchange for this deal actually

ends up resulting in some more bad guys being put in handcuffs and better yet, gets us answers

as to the what of what all of this has been about.

How did Alec get himself in this deep and what is it that he's in this deep with?

We will only find out if the state continues pushing forward with these cases and if the

feds don't make themselves complicit by allowing the Murdoch connected cases and investigations

to go away.

We can't lie, right now we do not like what we're seeing.

Even though people behind the scenes keep trying to reassure us that Corey will not

get away with just a light federal sentence.

Another thing we were expecting going into this hearing was a repeat of the Russell reality

show, meaning hours of earnest essays shared by people who believe the world begins and

ends within their own social circles and that the thing that their guy has been accused

of doing doesn't look good, sure, but we like him and he likes us, so come on judge.

There was a roomful of people at Corey's hearing who might have thought that way, but

Debbie Barbier had the foresight and discipline to use them only as background actors, as

extras if you will, and what was a flawlessly directed two hour independent film about a

man named Corey the contrite.

A few things to know about the hearing.

One it was packed, so packed that one of Corey's supporters who clearly did not want to sit

next to us was forced to lower herself to do so.

This was especially enjoyable because she is a former lawyer and co-worker of Corey's

who was disbarred for her own egregious behavior, which makes you wonder what else goes on at

that law firm.

By the way, while this woman awaited the outcome of her ODC investigation, our own solicitor

Duffy Stone, who, reminder, inherited his job from Randolph Murdoch and had to have

the Murdoch case wrestled out of his own hands, apparently did the boys at Moscoon infleming

a solid by hiring her as a prosecutor for a few years.

It's still one of the more sick and twisted things we have seen happen in the 14th Circuit

and it is beyond foul that there have seemingly been no repercussions for that.

Anyway, this woman cried a lot throughout the hearing.

The second thing to know is how horrible it was to see up close the trauma experienced

by Corey's family.

They had a much more serious and heartbroken vibe going on than the Murdochs did at their

own family members murder trial.

In other words, the Fleming at all, the Fleming's did not at all treat that hearing like a cocktail

hour meet and greet, despite the room being filled with their friends.

It was especially difficult to see this heartbreak in Corey's college age son, Jack's eyes.

Jack is tall, with a full head of bright red hair.

Before the hearing started and as he and his family were getting reseeded behind the defense

table to make room for more spectators, Jack looked around the room with an expression

of fear and sadness on his face.

Later, after Corey addressed the court, we saw him quickly get up to give Jack a hug

from behind.

It was a powerful moment that underscored what was at stake here.

It became especially poignant after it was clear that Corey wasn't going home with

his boy that afternoon.

Now, though we have empathy for Corey, our sympathy for him is limited and close to zero.

But we have to commend him for not having his wife and children speak on his behalf.

Maybe this was Debbie's idea, whoever's idea it was, it was a good one.

Some attorneys we have spoken to, including Eric, our Cup of Justice co-host, have a

different opinion and noted that Eve, Jack and Quinn not speaking at the hearing didn't

look great for Corey, but we truly believe this was a selfless act on Corey's part

no matter.

He had put his loved ones through enough, and even if conventional wisdom might dictate

that having your family speak for you is important, this was not their crime to deal with.

They did not do this.

No matter what we say about Corey, we give him credit for standing in front of the court

and telling the judge that this is his shame to bear and his alone, and he will make no

excuses for it.

Because finally, finally, unlike Corey's, and unlike Corey's kids in Elixson Buster,

Corey's son and daughter saw their father admit guilt and accept responsibility in court.

Corey's children did not get mixed messages about their father's wrongdoing.

And I think that is so important when we talk about changing for the better from this.

The third thing to know about the hearing is how fundamentally different Debbie Barbier's

style is to that of Russell Lafitte's attorney Mark Moore, who you'll remember made the

argument that Russell didn't deserve to be penalized for targeting a vulnerable victim

because Hakeem Pinkney was dead when Russell committed his crime against him, and therefore

could not be considered to be, we guess, a human being.

Like Judge Gurgle told him at the time, it is the most offensive argument we've heard

in all of this, and there have been some doozies.

If Mark Moore's demeanor in court can be compared to crayons on a wall and a series

of vroom vroom noises, then Debbie Barbier's was calligraphy and a violin sonata.

Instead of having everyone read their letters to the judge, Debbie had selected a handful

of people to speak.

Each person represented a different element of Corey's life in the community, and every

person who spoke for Corey had a purpose, a plot point, to move forward.

According to them, Corey is known as the guy in town who helps single mothers, and we

cannot control how that sounds.

He takes part in a weekly Bible study.

His large kitchen island is a gathering spot for everyone in the neighborhood.

Instead of feeling sorry for himself after all of this came out, he enrolled in a community

college to learn carpentry, and he volunteers for Habitat for Humanity.

He's a prominent member of the neighborhood YMCA and a member of the Rotary.

He supports local businesses.

He supports local charities.

He runs and races and helps organize events.

He puts a roof over the heads of homeless people by allowing them to lease his rental

properties.

He is a stable force for kids whose homes aren't so stable.

He buys toys for children.

He offers pro bono services outside of the required hours to people who can't afford

a lawyer.

He fixes frozen pipes on Christmas Day, which that one caught us off guard given our generally

warm climate, but that's what the woman said.

He helps troubled young men get on the right path.

He uses his connections to get work for those in need of jobs.

Like Russell, Corey is also apparently referred to as Uncle by kids who aren't related to

him.

Debbie said to the judge, I wonder how many people in this courtroom can have the same

thing said about them.

I submit to you, not many, and I include myself in that.

She also told the court that Corey never disclosed to her any of these great things

about himself that she had to learn about them through the letters, which he refused

to read because of how painful it would be for him.

Side note to that, maybe the judge should have made him read those letters because you

know what's also painful, Corey?

Looking at your lawyer stole your money so he could take a future murderer to a baseball

game on a private flight.

Oh, even though millions of dollars were exchanged to compensate for the loss of your mother,

you don't know about that money because the lawyer stole it.

And meanwhile, you can't afford to keep a literal roof over your head.

That is painful.

There was also an irony to some of the statements that were made.

One woman told the court she served as a Spanish interpreter for Corey's clients and

she recounted the time she was able to get a woman from Mexico a five day visa back to

re-enter the United States so that she could sign off on a wrongful death case.

He was representing her in, and now he was kind enough to set up trust for the women's

children.

I think you can understand why we're saying this, but we hope the government verified

that this woman and her kids actually got their money.

A few of the people who spoke about Corey used the words honest and trustworthy and

a man of integrity to describe him, which felt particularly tone deaf, given the reasons

we were all there.

The final person to speak was a teacher from Buford Academy, a private school where Corey's

daughter attended.

This man didn't seem to recognize the oddity of the phrasing when he spoke about his friendship

with Corey and how friends stay loyal and overlook each other's flaws.

All of the evidence, he said, and all of the smart money advice says I should run as far

away as possible.

The man literally validated the idea that Corey is not to be trusted, while pleading

with the judge for leniency, using the argument that Corey can be trusted.

It was strange.

But we have to note, despite these ironies and the moments of tone deafness, many, if

not all of those who spoke and who wrote letters recognized that Corey had done something

wrong.

They didn't seem to excuse it or try to minimize it.

In Russell's sentencing hearing, his supporters barely acknowledged that there were victims.

Another thing to note is the support Corey seemed to have among some attorneys in Buford

County.

He saw Buford Attorney Jim Brown in the audience, as well as at least one 14th Circuit Solicitor's

Office prosecutor, in addition to the disbarred one.

Also, there was Hilton Head Attorney Sam Bauer, who did not speak but who submitted a letter

to the judge.

Here is David with some passages from it.

This is probably the hardest letter I have had to write in both my legal career and my

personal life.

How do I, as an officer of the court, stand as a character witness for someone who has

admitted to a felony?

I can't excuse the crime or even put it in an understandable context.

I know that my friend Corey has to pay for his crime.

I know that his actions have profound consequences.

Corey is now a felon.

He will carry that brand with him forever.

I've talked with Corey, and I know that he is not just remorseful because he got caught.

Corey is genuinely ashamed of what he has done.

He will continue to punish himself for this crime as long as he lives.

That's the interesting thing about all this.

So many supporters acknowledge that Corey has to face the consequences while not quite

accepting that the sentence that was at issue here is the consequence.

At one point, Debbie Barbier tried to tell Judge Gurgle that the extreme publicity of

this case served as a consequence.

Judge Gurgle, to his credit, was quick with his reply.

So is incarceration.

One last thing about Corey's supporters.

Since the hearing, we have spoken to a few people who knew Corey personally and who had

admired him as an attorney, who really and truly liked him and who respected him.

Two of the men we spoke to are former law enforcement officers who had worked on cases

in which Corey was a defense attorney.

One of the men said he learned how to be a better cop because of Corey.

Neither man believed her one second that these two crimes, the one against Pamela Pinkney

and the one against the Satterfields, were the full story when it comes to what Corey

was up to.

And one of them, the one who called Corey brother and who early on told us to stop picking

on Corey, said he believes Corey's display of remorse wasn't about what he had done

but rather about what he had lost in his life and where he was going.

Justin Bamberg put it perfectly.

He believed that Corey was genuinely remorseful for what he had done to the people in court

behind him, but not for what he had done to the Satterfields and to the Pinkneys.

I think that, A, everything we saw from Corey in court was genuine in terms of the emotions

that we saw, which is very different than what we've been exposed to, to date from

other defendants.

I think that his sorrow stems more so from the fact he knows he disappointed so many

people because so many people held him in such high regard.

And that's a sign of good character.

I would say, if you have good character, then you want to make people proud.

You take pride in the fact that through your actions, people respect you and they care

about you and they love you and they think so highly of you.

And I think he knows that he blew that to hell with what he did to the Satterfields

and the Pinkneys.

I think all of that hitting me at one time, so it's not so much that emotion was in response

to a sense of remorse for what he did to the Satterfields and the Pinkneys.

That's just like a little side effect.

I regret that I did it, but I'm really overflowing with emotion because of the hundred other

people that showed up who love me enough to come into court and stand beside me even

over this and I let them down.

And I think the telling sign of that, just studying people, I did sociology and some

psychology in college is when I read his body language, what I see is somebody who is just

overrun with guilt and disappointment to the point he couldn't even look at his own family

in there.

And folks who came to support him, he couldn't look them in the eye.

He held his head down most of the time.

It does.

I mean, again, Mandy, the first time we see real emotion in court from any defendant was

from Corey.

And that's one reason why I think so many people see it and they have a hard time processing

this because it was real emotion and we're not used to that in this case.

But I mean, and Eric and I have talked and it's one of those things and Eric went to

point that out a bit in the sentence and we saw what happened with him and him and Judge

Gervel on that front.

But Eric was, the point is very well taken by those of us who've been involved in this

from the beginning is no one told Corey to make misrepresentations through his attorney.

Right.

No one blames the attorney for doing their job.

The information that the attorneys recite comes from the client and Corey didn't tell

the truth to the George VAR when he sent that response.

We don't know exactly what he sent to the South Carolina bar, but Corey could have

come clean.

Right.

He could have called the clients.

He could have been straight up with ODC.

You know, I vividly recall before I just abandoned dealing with Corey to deal with PMPD and Palmetto

State Bank, like, oh, no, no, go ahead and get an expert affidavit on legal malpractice

so y'all can tell us what you think Corey did wrong and I'm like, bro, we're not doing

all that.

I'm not about to go spend, especially now that we know that there was money that was

still missing.

I'm not going to go spend this lady's money to play legal games in the legal malpractice

arena and pay five, 10 grand for some expert to piece together and say, this is where Corey

breached the standard of care as an attorney when he already knew where he breached the

standard of care as an attorney.

It's that kind of stuff that makes me have very little pity for him because it shouldn't

take the United States government coming and, again, knocking on your door for you to step

up and just do the right thing, right?

And again, that's the code coyote in the damn trap, you know.

After Judge Gurgle heard from Corey's supporters, Corey himself spoke and herein was another

difference between him and Russell.

Whether or not Corey actually felt remorse for what he had done, it sure did seem like it.

Corey spoke softly with his head hung, his voice cracked, and he cried several times

throughout a statement.

I have made some terrible decisions.

Today, I offer the court no excuses.

I place the blame for my actions on my shoulder alone.

I have a profound and deep disappointment in myself.

He addressed Gloria Satterfield's sons.

You deserved a lawyer.

You deserve someone who would be honest with you.

Someone who would not betray your trust.

I failed you.

He addressed Pamela Pinkney.

I not only betrayed you as a client, I betrayed you as a friend.

I cannot express to you how empty I feel when I think about what you must think of me.

To both the Satterfields and the Pinkney families, he said,

I know an apology is inadequate.

I have no right to expect your forgiveness.

And what I saw from Corey was a lot of moments where he wasn't faking by any stretch of the imagination.

I had a good seat while I was sitting up next to the law enforcement folks

and the U.S. attorneys in front, like actually in the courtroom.

And there's no doubt in my mind that his tears, his shame, I saw sadness, I saw regret, I saw shame,

I saw disappointment in himself.

I saw heartbreak and I saw just a feeling of why did I allow myself to get in this situation?

And I wish I had never done what I what I did.

That is what I saw from Corey.

Corey absolutely knows what he did was wrong and he absolutely understands.

And I think he 150 percent accepts that what he did was wrong.

He's different than the other guys in that regard.

You know, Alec only said that stuff because it was expected of him to say that, you know,

and he was so disingenuine with us at his murder trial.

He he couldn't even remember everybody he screwed over.

He's leaving people's names out instead.

These are like clients who died.

It's like Hannah Plylar and Elena's brother.

He didn't remember, remember him, you know, it's very fake.

Corey gets it.

Corey also apologized to his colleagues and the South Carolina Bar Association,

saying he was deeply sorry that his actions have tarnished a profession that he loved so much.

Then in a sob, Corey apologized to his wife and children.

I will spend the rest of my life regretting the shame I have brought on them.

I promise you, I will try for the rest of my life to earn back your respect.

He thanked his friends for their support.

He thanked the prosecution for treating him fairly and acknowledged the resources that had been expended on investigating his conduct.

I have taken a very hard look in the mirror and have not liked some of the things I've seen looking back at me.

I betrayed this system.

He called himself perhaps undeserving of mercy from the court.

It was a very emotional and, like we said, seemingly genuine display of remorse.

It affected the alchemy of the room.

Many of his supporters cried along with him.

For one brief moment, it was easy to believe that this wasn't just a last ditch effort to save himself.

We'll be right back.

After Corey spoke, we heard from the victims and their attorneys.

Tony Satterfield told the court that he, as a Christian, had already forgiven Corey.

Gloria's sister, Ginger Hadwin, told the court that she, too, had forgiven Corey, but she will never forget what Ellic and Corey had done.

Quote, that someone could steal and profit off of someone's death.

It's unimaginable, she said.

If Ellic and Corey had given their nephews a small amount of money, they would have thought the world of those two men.

Quote, instead, you chose to be greedy, she said.

Quote, Gloria didn't die in vain.

Her death shined a light on the thievery that was going on.

When Pamela Pinkney stood up to speak, she said,

When Pamela Pinkney stood up to speak, she told the judge again how hard this has been for her having to relive her son's death.

Then, she turned to Corey and humanized the man who had dehumanized others for financial gain.

Quote, to Mr. Corey, I'm going to look at you.

I forgive you.

It was an incredible act of kindness from the victims and so moving to see.

Here's Justin.

I know that Ms. P has been, I think, bringing her faith.

She's been able to get to the point where she can bring her faith into the situation even more to help deal with the emotional strain of the situation.

She's just in a better place now than she's been.

And she had a different relationship with Corey, too.

Remember, Corey was her lawyer.

Like in the actual tire tread read, Corey represented her.

You know, so she had communications with him and stuff like that.

So I think it was just, it's just easier for her to process all this.

She's in a better place mentally.

She's in a better place spiritually.

You know, when we went outside and, you know, she was asked, like, you know, that moment where you said you were going to turn and look Corey in the eye.

And they looked each other in the eye.

I was standing right there.

That's a view y'all don't get.

Ms. P deadass looked him straight in the eyes and he looked her straight in the eyes.

And then she said what she said.

And I think that cut through him like a freaking dagger for her to stare him in the face and say, I forgive you.

You know, I think that he felt that.

I mean, if he didn't recognize before, I think in that moment with Tony Satterfield saying that to him,

I think he realized the true good nature, quality of the people that he hurt.

And it started to hit him.

Sadly, though, it felt at times like Judge Gurgle did not want to hear from the victims or at least the victims' attorneys.

He gave them, meaning the attorneys, a sort of, yeah, yeah, I know all this already attitude.

And though he sometimes added comments to their statements that further highlighted what he called the amazingly egregious nature of Corey's actions,

he seemed more open to hearing a narrative that supported Corey as a man in search of redemption.

He seemed very much moved by Corey throwing himself on the mercy of the court.

He seemed to think that in and of itself was enough.

Perhaps that's fitting of a judge, but it was disturbing to witness.

When Eric spoke, he acknowledged Corey's remorse and he validated it.

Eric was incredibly respectful of the emotions that had overtaken the room.

But he also told the judge that he felt it was important for Corey's acts to be put on the public record.

He wasn't wrong.

Though the people in the room knew Corey had done wrong, it's likely that not all of them knew specifically what he had done.

And it's the specifics that showed just how much he disregarded his role as an officer of the court and a fiduciary and just how little he thought of his clients.

But after Eric started listing these bad acts, Judge Gurgle shut him down telling him he had heard enough from him.

And that's unfortunate because, like Eric and Justin have both said, Corey Fleming is a man who was out of options.

Debbie told the court that Corey made the decision in March 2023 to admit to everything and take his punishment.

Well, what changed in March?

Oh, right.

Elick did not get away with murder.

For the first time in history, a Murdoch had been punished for his bad acts by the very court that this family had long taken pride in controlling.

Now, we've talked about this a lot with each other and we can totally see why it would be good legal advice to wait and see what happens with Elick before making any decisions on your own linked criminal case.

But we can't ignore the fact that this, Corey's waiting, was done in the hopes of seeing how much punishment he could escape.

And that's hard to respect knowing what Corey had done and now knowing the image Corey wants to project.

That of a man who is deeply ashamed and who is ready to take his licks.

Another important thing to note is that even though Corey was never on the floor pounding his fists and kicking his legs like Russell has been at every turn,

he did not take responsibility for this right away like his friends have told us he did.

Yes, he was the first to pay back the money to the Satterfields and didn't fight it.

Yes, he has, like Emily Leimhaus noted to the court, remained silent throughout the process.

There was no Corey TV or outlandish statements made to the press from Debbie Barbier, but he didn't just commit a crime in 2019.

His crime against Pamela Pinkney happened 10 years earlier than that, meaning there's a timeline to this and timelines need to be explored for patterns, right?

Also, in a 50 page letter to the Georgia Bar Association in February 2022, Corey fought for his license by splitting every hair there was to split

and by outright denying that he had any knowledge that Alec was going to steal the money or that he was participating in a theft.

We now know that this was a lie.

Debbie, and again, this is why she's good, acknowledged this.

She told the court took Corey a while to face up to what he had done to admit to himself that he had committed a crime after the government spoke about Corey.

Judge Gargle asked Debbie if she had anything she wanted to add.

She said, I'm not going to belabor any of my points.

Then she turned to the victims and seemed to get choked up.

Thank you for forgiving Mr. Fleming.

I've worked closely with him and I believe he is truly remorseful.

I hope this will go a long way in helping Mr. Fleming forgive himself.

There's just a few more things to note about this intense hearing.

One is that Russell's name was mentioned more than a few times.

The judge and government were not shy about holding up Corey and comparing him favorably to Russell.

It happened over and over.

Quote, these two defendants could not be more differently situated, Emily told the judge, noting that Russell not only wouldn't admit to what he had done.

He had committed new crimes to cover up his old crimes.

She also reminded the judge that Russell was now appealing his sentence.

You know, the one that came in two years less than the very bottom of his sentencing guidelines.

He did this, Emily said, in an attempt to stay out on bond.

Emily noted that Corey had saved the government valuable resources and that he had spent two days with investigators as part of his proffer.

He gave the government new information that they did not previously know and he identified others in these schemes.

But she also said that the information Corey had given them did not amount to, quote, substantial assistance.

And this is important.

This is the loophole in our opinion, the one that could allow the federal government to stall on its Murdoch related investigations.

If Corey's assistance isn't considered substantial, then why did he get to plead to a lesser charge?

Why did the feds allow this obvious attempt to neuter the state?

They could have waited. They could have allowed the state to go first.

Corey's trial is scheduled for September 11th, but no, the feds squeezed this in for him.

That is called a favor.

Speaking of favors, there's another big one the federal government did.

And that's for Palmetto State Bank and Peters, Murdoch, Parker, Elzroth and Dietrich.

They labeled them victims.

As we told you before, Russell will be paying millions in restitution to PSB and PMPD.

Corey will be paying just over $100,000 in restitution for the money he had taken from Pamela Pinkney.

Corey was only charged by the feds for his crime against the Satterfields, though.

His crime against Pamela Pinkney was too long ago to prosecute federally, but not in South Carolina.

He faces five state charges for what he did to her.

So why then? Why?

Did the judge order him to pay restitution for a crime he was not charged with?

Well, let's look at where the bulk of that Pinkney restitution will go.

To PMPED. You heard that right.

While Judge Gargle may be a widely respected jurist, we have to say he has let the public down here.

By allowing PMPD and PSB to be labeled victims, he has given both the firm and the bank a new way to claim Elick Murdoch's estate.

Meaning they now have a better standing in taking money that should go to the people Elick hurt and the people he stole from.

There are so many reasons why PMPED and PSB are not victims in this.

And we are not done getting to the bottom of those reasons.

Now, I want to talk about one of the most powerful symbolic moments in court on Tuesday.

After Ms. Pinkney spoke, Justin spoke on behalf of his clients.

At that point during the hearing, it felt like the whole room was crying for Corey.

I almost felt like we were being hoodwinked again in this process.

Like somehow this man who chose to steal and lie and enabled a monster to hurt so many people.

A man who could have stopped all of this.

How could he get that much sympathy from an entire group of people?

It was like, I don't know, it was kind of like Corey was a shining star that happened to have a blemish or something like that.

And it was all like positive stuff with him.

And the whole time, you know, because we heard from the defense and all that first, they didn't object anything.

So it was no fighting. So the whole first three-fourths of the hearing was Corey the superstar and the Mr. Rogers version of Corey, right?

And then me and Eric got to come in and be like, eh, well, let's yank this thing back a bit from Corey so amazing and really put the attention on the victims here.

Justin was honest and said what those of us not on Corey's side were thinking.

That Corey's remorse was hard to accept considering the amount of things that had to happen to get Corey to fess up.

Judge Kirkall pushed back on this and made it a point to say that he believed that Corey was genuinely remorseful for what he did.

So Justin, after essentially getting shut down by a federal judge, did what he does best.

He explained it in his thick Bamberg, South Carolina accent through country wisdom.

But, you know, again, I feel super country every time I have to get up and talk in court because, eh, you've got Eric who's like got this filly like roughneck vibe, right?

Real aggressive and all that real forceful.

And then I'm very slow talking and the country draw and all that.

And then I use these random examples.

So, you know, I had been thinking about like, how can I tell the judge in a artful way why I don't believe that Corey is remorseful for what he did to these people and into the coyote phase, right?

We're in rural South Carolina, so whether it be Buford, Hampton, Collison, Bamberg, Allendale, you know, we've got a lot of wild coyotes out here.

In fact, our state went so far as to they did a bounty on coyotes, right?

Like you get paid for killing coyotes and stuff because they've been tearing everything up.

So I got some buddies that do coyote trapping on their properties.

And if a coyote gets trapped, they'll still bite you, right?

If you see them and you approach them, they're really aggressive, they snarl at you and if you put your hand out there, they're going to grab ahold of it.

The only time the coyote calms down is when it finally realizes I ain't getting out unless somebody else lets me out or it's about to die or it's dead already, right?

That's the only time a coyote chills out.

And when I see the distance a decade between Pinkney and Satterfield and then you think about when you first started digging and you found this information about the Satterfield Settlement, right?

Anybody tied to the negative stuff that was going on, anybody that knew the dirt?

And as a lawyer, did I expect it from a banker?

I don't.

Lawyers have obligations and if I found out today that five years ago there was an accounting error where maybe we wrote a check to a client that was $10 short, okay?

I have an ongoing obligation.

I don't represent the person anymore.

I may not have spoken to them since we finished the case.

I have an obligation on going to find them and correct it and tell them, hey, look, I owe you 10 bucks, right?

Corey could have done that.

He could have called.

Doesn't require lawyers.

This was before ODC or Office of Disciplinary Counselors on them.

Corey could have picked up the phone and called Ms. P and said, Ms. P, I am so freaking sorry.

I've got something I got to tell you.

I did some stuff with your money that I shouldn't and before anybody comes and I think it's about to get bad, I need to see you because I need to give this to you.

Or at a minimum, I want to apologize for what I did and I know I'm about to face some consequences for it, right?

He could have done that.

He could have called the Satterfields and came clean to them, but that's not what happened, right?

And the coyote in the trap that'll still bite is Corey up until the United States government came and knocked on the door like, yo, we're here for you.

And then that's all the cooperation talk.

All the told us everything talk.

That's because coyote realized there's only one way out of this and that's through the feds.

So of course, the coyote is going to let the trap be open in that situation.

And that's kind of my view on it.

You know, real remorse would have been waiting on the government to come crack down on you when you as a lawyer,

especially when you still had your license, could have easily addressed this on their own.

And that right there is why it was essential that Corey got prison time on Tuesday.

An attorney who used his position of power to steal, lie and cheat cannot just skate away because he woke up one day and realized that he is not invincible.

Particularly, he woke up on a day soon after his best friend and co-conspirator was convicted of murder.

A guy like that cannot just pay the right lawyer to make all of the right moves and carve out the easiest way possible to get out of this.

Mandy, the craziest part, and I don't know why I decided to go down this rabbit hole in my mind, but I was like, what would have happened?

When we try to gauge, you're thinking about Corey and the real tears and the raw emotion.

And then there's this inkling to have a degree of sympathy for him because he's so different than the other defendants in terms of the overall conduct.

But then you think about, well, what if Mallory Beach would have never died?

What if there was never a boat crash?

What if there was nothing that triggered you to go start digging and find this stuff on Gloria Satific?

What if none of that would have happened?

It would be status quo, right?

There would be no, I'm so sorry I stole client money.

There would be no, I'm so remorseful for what I did to the satterfields and the paintings.

It would be business as usual and everybody be going on with their life.

Alex asked to probably still be out there stealing people's money.

And when called upon, Corey would step in and work with Alec on the old school cook up method.

And be a little money skim to hear something like this.

Nothing would change, right?

And that's the hard part of when you really, as I see it, got to figure out, does somebody have true remorse?

Can you have true remorse without getting caught?

But ultimately, Corey's remorse doesn't matter all of that much.

What matters is that the case shows him and other powerful attorneys that they cannot get away with this.

You know, and again, that's what I think some people are really...

People who watch, you know, people who haven't been really following or who weren't at the sentencing or who didn't hear everything.

I've seen people saying, oh, I can't believe that's all the time he got, right? Or things like that.

A, he got sentenced, I think that for somebody who ain't a demon, almost three years and ten months in federal prison, day for day, is a very, very, very long time on top of what's coming from the state.

And what is coming with those state charges? I asked Justin about this.

By all accounts, the South Carolina AG's office is not backing off.

You do have instances where the state may charge somebody and then the feds come in.

It actually happened to a friend of mine.

You get charged by the state and then the feds come in and take over and they charge you federally.

The state just dumps their case and lets the feds deal with you and you go to federal prison.

But I don't see that happening here on the AG's office.

And again, you know, when we talk about cooperation, coyote in the trap.

Did the AG's office get the same degree of cooperation that the feds got?

Or did the AG's office get the type of cooperation that me and Eric Glenn got and Ronnie, right?

My understanding is they're not going to back off.

We don't want them to back off.

The federal government has its own independent interest in ensuring that federal laws are not broken.

That has nothing to do with the state's laws.

And at the end of the day, Corey was a lawyer in the state of South Carolina and Corey broke laws here.

And we've got to see the process through.

And if that means that he goes ahead, I mean, I think at this point he needs to just plead guilty and take whatever comes.

Again, as a reminder, Corey hasn't pleaded guilty to any of his state charges.

That is another indication that he hasn't fully accepted responsibility for this.

Judge Gurgle made it a point to say that he believed that Corey would plead guilty to the state charges,

which was an odd thing to say about a former lawyer whose past behavior has been entirely unpredictable.

The state deserves the same cooperation from Corey as the feds got from him.

Let's be clear here, Corey needs to come clean about the entire scheme.

Corey needs to tell the state every person who committed crimes and allowed this to go on for as long as it did.

If Corey truly regrets what he did, if Corey Fleming truly wants to right his wrongs and pay his debt to society,

he needs to spill all of the tea with the state.

It is our biggest hope in finding out what happened to the money and what exactly Elick was up to this entire time.

It's also our biggest hope to really change things in South Carolina and across the United States.

Corey has to help the states like he helped the feds.

And the state needs to keep the pressure up so that Corey the coyote finally stops biting and realize he is trapped by them.

We could debate all day about whether or not Corey's federal sentence was fair,

but it is impossible to determine that until we see the outcome of the state charges.

As Justin reminded me, what happened on Tuesday is something that two years ago,

few people could have ever imagined.

We saw an invincible man finally be held to account for his actions, even if he got an easy route in doing so.

And the sentencing that we're seeing is reflecting that, you know, judges are lawyers, prosecutors are lawyers,

the defense attorneys are lawyers, the defendants are lawyers, and they all go into prison, right?

We ain't protecting them.

I'm very proud of how the system has operated.

You know, whether it took some pushing to get the ball rolling downhill aside.

I think that the system has done its job in giving a voice to the victims.

One of the things I am most excited about, Mandy,

and a lot of it has to do with the work that you did and Liz and a lot of others,

is this has not just been a story about the defendants at the forefront of this.

And it has been from the beginning at the forefront or the faces of the stories of and the plights of the victims.

We have to see that as a win, as Justin reminded me.

We have to keep pushing because the work is too important and there is too much on the line. Justin said it better than I did.

But what I would say is, and it's quote, we must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.

And that just means that these disappointments that we face when we push for transparency or truth on light,

the rays don't quite punch through the wall.

That's finite disappointment.

In short term, it will pass, but if you keep pushing, infinite hope, never ending hope is how you expose the darkness and change the darkness.

And the work that y'all are doing, the work that Eric does, the work that I do, the work that other professionals or not even professionals,

the average everyday person, your viewer, your listener who goes through their life trying to be a good person.

They go above and beyond, show the best of the world.

We're the ones that dictate where this world ends up going, not the other people.

The other people only dictate it when we stop doing our things.

And I just tell everyone, stay hopeful, man.

Infinite hope, baby.

Exclusively for our Lunashark Premium members, we have a quick update from reporter Beth Brayden on the Grant Solomon case.

To learn more and get the full scoop, visit lunashark.supercast.com.

Stay tuned, stay pesky, and stay in the sunlight.

True Sunlight is created by me, Mandy Matney, co-hosted by journalist Liz Farrell, and produced by my husband, David Moses.

True Sunlight is a Lunashark production, right Luna?

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