True Sunlight: TSP #4 - Should Libel Be A Crime? And Why The Latest Odd Connection to the Murdaugh Case Needs a Serious Look…

I don't know what the solution is when it comes to criminalizing or decriminalizing

libel and slander in the United States, but I am disturbed at what we have found as we

dug into the history of how it has been used to silence true seekers and as advocates for

free speech, this is something that we really need to talk about.

My name is Mandy Matney.

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

Murdoch Murders podcast.

This episode of True Sunlight is written by journalist Liz Farrell and produced by David

Moses.

So to start off this episode, we have some Luna Shark updates to share.

I want to tell y'all that our research team has been super pesky, doing some deep digging

into several stories of crime and corruption across the country, and we are excited to

roll those out within the next few months.

As we were writing this episode, my sweet husband David, who is eager for us to open

up new boxes and uncover crimes outside of South Carolina, asked me in the most respectful

way why we keep talking about South Carolina cases.

And I started to cry when I thought about it.

The truth is, I'm not ready to move on to other cases in Missouri, Virginia, Maryland,

and beyond because I don't feel like we've changed enough here in our home state.

It's just a wound that won't close.

Elick Murdoch was convicted of murder, something most of us here never imagined happening ever.

But what about everybody else?

What about the public officials whose names have come up over and over again in this investigation?

The ones who still have a whole lot of power.

What about everybody who knew about these crimes and did nothing to stop it?

What about Judge Carmen Mullen?

Why can't anyone in our government at least say if they're investigating her or not?

What about the elected officials involved in the Jarod Price debacle?

Will they ever face consequences or are we just going to pretend like everything is

fine there too?

What about Judge Casey Manning, who we have an update about, by the way?

Our new superstar reporter, Beth Braden, got extra pesky after our last episode aired.

In that episode we told you about Justin Jones, the man who shot a victim in the back twice

while he had an ankle monitor.

The man who hired State Representative Todd Rutherford and somehow, days after he was

sentenced to 15 years for a slew of charges including attempted murder, he got his sentence

reduced to just six years by Judge Casey Manning.

In that episode, we told you about how Beth got the run around from officials just trying

to figure out whether or not there was a hearing in this matter, a.k.a. if they followed the

law and notified the victim that all of this was going down.

Well, solicitor Byron Gibson called Beth back himself this week and said that Manning had

already signed the order reducing the sentence before a hearing could even be set so that

victims could be present and speak, which is pretty much the same thing that happened

in the Jarod Price case and is apparently illegal.

Essentially, Gibson tossed the political hop potato and blamed Judge Manning.

So if that is true, then what is going on here?

Why would Judge Casey Manning, as his last act as Judge, stick his neck out for at least

two apparently dangerous criminals who happened to be represented by a powerful lawyer lawmaker?

And where are the authorities to investigate this?

Where are Governor Henry McMaster and Attorney General Allen Wilson, who pretended like they

cared about this a month ago when it was a lot more popular?

We need answers.

I know.

I know.

I feel like a broken record.

Even my husband is tired of me saying the same things over and over again.

But I can feel it.

We are close to change, and I know that a lot of evil people want us to stop looking at

South Carolina crime and they want us to stop exposing its many layers of corruption.

We cannot let them win.

We have to keep going.

Evil soon move to expose other crimes in other states, but the spotlight on South Carolina

isn't going anywhere until real change happens.

And I need to say this, thank you to our listeners, especially our premium supporters, for sticking

with us and allowing us to do this kind of journalism that is time-consuming and head-spinning,

but ultimately life-changing.

With your support, we are making a difference here in SC and eventually beyond.

And speaking of South Carolina, while I was in this spiral of feeling like nothing is

ever going to change and the work that I've done is worthless, I found a story about two

teenagers in my county getting arrested for libel, and we need to talk about this.

Taking on corruption is inherently a risk-filled mission.

Journalists know this, and we've certainly learned this lesson the hard way over the

past four years.

One risk that's constantly looming in the background, apart from the obvious, is the

possibility of getting accused of defamation in a civil suit.

It's just a reality for journalists who cover serious topics that need sunlight on

them, especially when they involve powerful lawyers.

But the fact of the matter is this, corrupt people tend to be corrupt.

It's kind of their thing.

So when your reporting exposes them, they sometimes do corrupt things, like use the

court system as a way to retaliate.

They do this to try to discredit reporters and intimidate them out of exposing more wrong-doings.

That is why libel law is something drilled into us from the start as baby reporters.

Not only to protect ourselves, but also to protect the people who we write about from

getting libeled.

Knowing the law and making constant efforts to fact-check and source our stories and correct

errors of facts is actually a major element of what sets trained journalists apart from

the average person, posting what they might call news reports online.

Contrary to popular belief, journalists usually don't just hear something and then report

it as is without confirming the information they're hearing, meaning we don't state

things as fact that we know to be untrue or that we've made no efforts to vet.

It's not really a fine line either.

For instance, there's a big difference between publishing a story that offers conjecture

about someone's purported role in a murder and purported sexuality for no other reason

than to embarrass or harm that person in question or to get the scoop versus reporting on the

fact that the son of a powerful man's name was mentioned over and over in a murder investigation

because of a rumored affair with a victim in a highly relevant case that by appearance

and by appearance only seems to be unsolved as a result of this connection.

There are plenty of obtuse people out there who refuse to see that difference because

it doesn't suit their narratives.

Nevertheless, it's an important distinction, so we will continue making it.

Believe it or not, there are also a number of people who believe that journalism is when

a reporter gets told something over coffee or gets an anonymous tip sent to their inboxes

and they run with it without doing any investigation whatsoever into whether or not the thing that

they were told is actually true.

In fact, that is a tactic that Team Murdoch tried to use early on, shopping stories with

unattributed bits of information that put Elik in a more favorable light and hoping

that there would be bites.

They were also known for dropping strategic pieces of information that ended up being

absolutely wrong.

We never bought it, not once.

We never backed down, even when it was terrifying to report the truth knowing that this family

that we were reporting on had a pocket full of powerful lawyers that they could deploy

at any moment just to intimidate us.

But in the past four years, during those millions of decisions weighing the what ifs on whether

or not to report something, we never once considered the potential for criminal libel

or slander charges.

We never thought that one of the worst things that could happen to us was that the Murdochs

or anyone else powerful who we were reporting on could possibly make a couple phone calls

and get us arrested for what we published.

Silly me, I thought that that stuff happened in places that weren't protected by the First

Amendment until last week.

A story popped up Friday in the Island Packet newspaper about two South Carolina nineteen

year olds, Raven Benjamin of Ladies Island and Zachary Chandler of Yemisey.

Raven and Zachary had just been arrested and each charged with two counts of criminal libel

and slander for an Instagram account they allegedly created impersonating a former teacher

of theirs.

These charges are so rarely filed that it caught our attention and a look through the

history of how these charges have been used in South Carolina made us wonder what was

happening here.

It was wild to us because A, don't even get us started on the untruthful things that

get posted online that are put up there with the sole purpose of harming someone's character.

And B, criminal charges?

We'll get into that, but first we wanted to stress this.

While it is alarming to us as journalists that there is a mechanism in place for corrupt

people to exploit the system by targeting those who dare speak out against them, we

also can see why having criminal charges related to slander and libel might be necessary given

how easy it is for lives to be ruined online by people who seek to do so.

We began asking questions about this case because of how unusual it was to see these

charges and frankly it worried us to think, my god, the powers that be in the Murdoch

case had this tool in their war chest this entire time?

We started thinking about the ordinary citizens we know who speak out at public meetings or

who feel harassed by their local governments because they dared to ask questions and it

was scary to think that this big rusty old door was opening on this rusty old law at

the exact same time as the Murdoch world is collapsing and certain people are perhaps

feeling desperate.

Obviously, they would have used it if they could have, which, call us paranoid, made

us wonder if this is a law that was being dusted off for a reason.

Now listen, this is the Murdoch case.

You could literally tell us that he was in the process of trying to train his dogs to

pick pockets at the Hampton County Watermelon Festival and we'd be like, hmm, plausible.

In our entire careers, neither of us has ever seen someone get criminally charged with libel

and slander.

In my 20 years reporting on the Low Country, I never once heard it mentioned as a possibility.

That's because no one was being charged with this law.

Ravens and Zachary's charges represent four of the five charges or cases.

Each charge is referred to as a case when it comes to prosecuting them that have existed

in Buford County since May 1995, meaning prior to their arrest, there had only been one case

of criminal libel and slander in the county.

That makes the law pretty esoteric in our opinion.

In other words, something only known to a small and specific community, like lawyers,

for instance.

So that is where our heads were at when we were first reading this story.

Immediately, it stood out to us as strange.

And then we got to the part of the story that piqued our interest even more.

Raven and Zachary had graduated from Low Country Montessori School in Port Royal.

Port Royal, you might remember, is where the boat crash was.

Port Royal police officers were the only ones wearing body cameras that night.

And well, poof, that footage allegedly doesn't exist because the officers allegedly forgot

to turn on their cameras.

Neither of those things have anything to do with this story.

They're just interesting facts to note.

Well, let me rephrase that.

We should know better after four years of this, as far as we know, those two things have nothing

to do with this story.

At any rate, the libel slander charges involve two graduates of Low Country Montessori for

a post they allegedly made about two Low Country Montessori employees.

That made us sit up and take an even more closer look because, of course, there is a

Murdoch connection to this story.

Of course there is.

Low Country Montessori has been on our radar for over a year now, for a few reasons.

The first is who the registered agent of the school's LLC is.

Corey Fleming.

The second is who the incorporator of the school is.

Corey Fleming's wife, Eve Fleming.

Eve also sat on that board that helped create Low Country Montessori, a public charter school,

in 2013.

Eve is also listed as the non-profit's acting chairman of the board in a South Carolina

Secretary of State Office's filing from July 2014.

And she's also the registered agent of the school's limited partnership, which she filed

for in July 2014 and dissolves on July 9th, 2021, which was unfortunately for her just

one month after the murders of Maggie and Paul.

We'll be right back.

Now, Corey's and Eve's roles in this school are not suspicious in and of themselves.

They are two parents who live in Buford County.

At least one of their kids went to EC Montessori School, which was a private school that shut

down due to lack of enrollment right around the time that Low Country Montessori opened.

Corey and Eve are also lawyers who have every right to volunteer their time and offer their

services to whoever they want.

I mean, Eve is still a lawyer.

Corey, obviously, is not one.

But of course, there's a twist in this story.

There's a few of them.

First is who joined the school board in 2019, according to School Minutes.

That would be Yemisei police chief Greg Alexander.

Remember him?

The man who said he's not a cat because he doesn't cover up no doodoo?

The police chief who was once accused of stealing thousands of dollars that were seized in a

traffic stop, but who was found not guilty by a Hampton County jury after Alec Murdoch

and his father, the former solicitor, sat on his side of the courtroom to show their support.

The man who randomly received $5,000 from Alec Murdoch in the weeks after the murders

of Maggie and Paul.

The man who allegedly drove Alec's brother, John Marvin Murdoch, to Moselle that night

because the truck John Marvin had been driving allegedly broke down.

He is on the school board.

And one more thing, in 2017 investigative reporter and editor, Gina Smith of the state

newspaper reported on low country Montessori schools involvement in the EB-5 immigration

program.

Here is how Gina's story starts, quote, a handful of South Carolina charter schools

finally in new school buildings are poised to pay out millions in taxpayer dollars to

middlemen, developers and foreign investors who want green cards.

The money paid in the form of high interest rent payments on the new school facilities

has some critics saying that the state's taxpayers are getting duped.

Money they believe is paying for South Carolina students education is instead going to this

relatively new network of out of state players who are charging high interest rates as well

as wealthy Chinese nationals searching for a quicker path into the country.

Chinese nationals, you say.

Yes, friends, we are back in jellyfish gambit territory.

But before we get into all of that, let's talk more about libel and slander because

we want you to understand just how rare these charges are in South Carolina.

Since 1983, there have been a grand total of 88 defamation charges across the state.

88 charges in 40 years, 76% of those cases were dismissed almost immediately, many times

within months, sometimes within days.

That in and of itself is incredibly telling.

Cases tend to sit on the docket for years in South Carolina, but more than three quarters

of the defamation charges in the state went away almost as quickly as they were filed.

When charges have actual merit, they do not tend to go away, especially not that fast.

When charges are used to bully people, however, they might disappear after the point has been

made.

After the powerful person in the equation, the one with the ability to make charges like

that happen has decided the person who said the thing about them that they didn't like

has suffered enough.

So here's the thing about criminal defamation.

The law is pretty loose and open to interpretation, but there are a few sticky points that would

be rather difficult to prove.

Here's David with the law.

Any person who shall with malicious intent originate, utter, circulate, or publish any

false statement or matter concerning another, the effect of which shall tend to injure such

person in his character or reputation shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.

The key words here are malicious intent, false statement or matter, and the effect of which

shall tend to injure.

It's kind of a ridiculous law, as it's written and, in our opinion, unconstitutional in

so far as it infringes on people's first amendment rights.

But like we've said, we can also see a purpose for it.

So right now, there are seven defamation charges pending in South Carolina, including the four

recent charges filed against the two Beaver County 19-year-olds.

They caught our attention not only because of the potential Murdoch connection, but because

of how rare these charges are.

Most of the 88 charges we found were filed before the year 2000.

In the past 10 years, there have only been 16 charges.

That means that the decision to charge Raven, Benjamin, and Zachary Chandler represents a

full one-fourth of all defamation charges filed since 2012 in the state, which makes the decision

to file those charges rather interesting, right?

So far, it seems like the arrests of Raven and Zachary were warranted, though.

According to Major Angela Viennes, who is the spokesperson for the Beaver County Sheriff's

Office, deputies received a report in January from a former employee of Low Country Montessori

about a fake Instagram account.

This former employee is one of the victims in the case.

Another employee at the school had seen the account and also called deputies to report

it.

So apparently, the account seemed like it belonged to a former LMS coworker, not the

person who called law enforcement.

The fake account appeared to be real and even included pictures and videos of that coworker

from a valid account.

Major Viennes told us that a post on this fake account implicated the coworker and the

former employee who had called investigators in, quote, inappropriate behavior that would

have affected them both professionally and personally.

Major Viennes did not say what that behavior was.

The former employee who called investigators reported the account to Instagram and Instagram

quickly took it down.

Major Viennes said, quote, the content posted on the fake account being that both are educators

could have severely ruined their professional and personal reputations since both appeared

to have very clean employment backgrounds.

She also said neither employee had any involvement with law enforcement and the post had implicated

one of the educators as having arrest warrants and included accusations of other crimes.

Major Viennes said, not only did this account and posts on the account contain defaming

information, legal process revealed that the person that created the account exchanged

direct messaging content with other individuals from the account that was derogatory and defaming,

mainly about the person he was pretending to be.

The arrest came after subpoenas were returned from Instagram, Google, and the local internet

service provider.

Sergeant Jennifer Snyder of the Beaver County Sheriff's Office, who, by the way, is one

of the most thorough and tireless investigators in the state of South Carolina and needs to

be in charge of everything, in my opinion, then learned that the fake account was created

as retaliation against one of the teachers for incidents that occurred while Raven and

Zachary were both students at the school.

Something we need to be clear about, defamatory statements are not statements that people

don't like to hear or read about themselves.

They are calculated lies that are stated as fact by people who know the information is

false but broadcasted in a way that is meant to cause harm to the person the words are

about.

For instance, publishing conjecture about the paternity of someone's child could be

considered criminally defamatory if evidence existed to show that the person did that with

malice and an intent to harm.

Publishing information contained in public documents would not be considered criminally

defamatory or it shouldn't be, which brings us back to the law being used as a bullying

tactic.

We're covering this today because we want people to have the power to take back their

justice systems from corruption.

It's important to understand this from all angles, to know the laws that could trip you

up if you're not careful in your approach.

According to the ACLU, there are 24 states in the US that quote, make it a crime to publicly

say mean things about people with penalties ranging from fines to imprisonment.

According to the ACLU, these laws violate the First Amendment and are disproportionately

used against people who criticize public officials or government employees.

Here is David reading an important article by the ACLU in the nation.

In Minnesota, there were 121 criminal defamation prosecutions and 16 convictions between 2006

and 2014.

In Wisconsin, there were 61 criminal defamation prosecutions between 1991 and 2007.

In Virginia, there were at least 300 criminal defamation convictions between 1993 and 2008.

Although many criminal defamation prosecutions concerned disputes between private individuals,

a sizable number involved criticism of local public officials.

In fact, the ACLU is currently asking the US Supreme Court to rule on a criminal libel

case in New Hampshire where a man was arrested for calling a local police chief a dirty cop

on Facebook.

I shouldn't be shocked by this, but I am, again.

How is this happening in the United States?

The Land of the Free, where our very first amendment, which seems like it was the first

priority, establishes a freedom of speech and press for its citizens.

In South Carolina, we found that in the few defamation cases that ended up being prosecuted

and there were 10 altogether, the sentences were either not publicly listed or consisted

of a fine or probation.

The law allows for a sentence up to one year in prison and up to a $5,000 fine.

Could you imagine getting in prison for a year because you said some things that a powerful

person didn't like hearing?

What would those conversations with your cellmate be like?

What are you in for?

I stole millions from clients, then killed my wife and son.

Oh, me?

I have the audacity to report on that.

Like we said, in addition to this law being used to bully ordinary citizens, it is also

used to intimidate journalists out of speaking up against corrupt people.

Like this horrible case we found.

When we talk about criminal libel law in South Carolina, we have to talk about a man named

Jim Fitz, a South Carolina newspaper columnist who was jailed for two days on a criminal libel

charge in 1988.

So what did he do exactly to get arrested?

According to reporting by the Herald Sun, Jim Fitz wrote a column called My Vote Isn't

for Sale, accusing two Williamsburg, South Carolina lawmakers, Senator Frank McGill and

state representative B.J. Gordon of stealing from local taxpayers in one of South Carolina's

poorest counties at the time.

Jim Fitz, who was black, wrote that if every black person in Williamsburg counties stole

every day for the rest of their lives, they couldn't have stolen as much as Gordon and

McGill have stolen from taxpayers during their time and power.

Three days after he wrote the column for The Voice, an independent newspaper that he owned,

the sheriff of Williamsburg County, who of course knew Jim Fitz, told him to come down

to the jail and talk.

Then he was arrested and jailed for two and a half days, according to the state newspaper.

His bond was $40,000, which is insane.

The total fine, if found guilty at the time, was for $5,000.

And get this, guess who signed his arrest warrants?

The two lawmakers who he wrote about.

Now, here is where it gets really crazy.

Let's talk about those two lawmakers.

Well, because of the absurdity of the situation, Jim Fitz's arrest story wound up in the New

York Times.

According to a 1988 New York Times article, both lawmakers, McGill and Gordon, were in

their positions of power for more than 15 years at the time.

And get this, the McGill family was described by a local to the Times as a quote dynasty.

Literally, they used that word, which sent chills straight down my spine.

In fact, Frank McGill's son was the mayor of King Street, the largest town in Williamsburg

County, and by the way, home to America's favorite judge, the honorable Clifton Newman.

Anyway, according to the New York Times, the McGill family ran the whole county, holding

positions as prosecutors, city attorneys, and the school superintendent.

A local told the Times quote, nobody else wants to run because they don't want to

hurt their good reputation by being involved with those people.

They are good at manipulating people and we have a record here of coercion and control

because there are so many people who are uneducated and have so few options.

I know, I know, we're going down a little rabbit hole here, but stay with me because

wow, that sounds familiar.

This is important because we are currently peeling back layers in the history of the

Murdoch family to figure out how so many people helped enable a monster and allowed

a man and his family to get away with so much for so long.

In the South Carolina story from 1988, the question is what kind of lawmaker would have

the gall to get a newspaper editor arrested for calling him a political thief?

Well, the kind of lawmaker whose whole family runs City Hall, the courts, and the school

board, the kind of lawmaker who feels untouchable.

So while Jim Fitz admitted that he didn't have a journalism background and he could

have articulated his claims in a way that was more polished, he stood by what he said.

And it looks like he was onto something.

A July 1988 state newspaper article by Maureen Shore shined a light on Representative Gordon

who used his position as head of a development center funded by quote, the Department of

Mental Retardation that is literally what they called it back then to give himself thousands

of dollars in interest-free loans and cashing at least one $12,000 grant for his personal

funds and money that was supposed to go to that center.

His buddy Miguel, the one from the family dynasty, also apparently got $14,000 from

the same grant.

And the article wasn't clear where that money went, which is sketch.

Remember that Russell Lafitte was on that Hampton County Disability and Special Needs

Board?

We still wonder what he did in his role there.

And we have to because we have found a pattern amongst these powerful good ol' boys like

Ellick Murdock.

They pick the weakest to steal from.

They aren't used to being called out for their wrongdoings and they try to fight the

truth with intimidation tactics that often flow up in their faces.

Which was the case in 1988.

After the media shined the lights on Jim Fitt's arrest, Miguel and Gordon dropped the charges

against him.

But Sled opened up an investigation into Gordon's alleged criminal activity, which likely scared

him into dropping his bid for reelection that year.

He was eventually charged by the FBI for vote selling and Operation Lost Trust, another

shameful part of South Carolina's history involving massive political corruption that

I'm sure we will talk about again.

So, it sounds like maybe, just maybe, they used the libel law to get Jim Fitt's arrested

because there was truth to what he was saying and the truth scared them.

Jim Fitt's, along with the South Carolina Press Association and another newspaper editor

who was arrested for libel in 1990, filed a lawsuit in 1991 that prompted a federal judge

to rule that South Carolina's criminal libel law was unconstitutional.

In an article covering the federal judge's ruling, quoted experts who said that the criminal

libel law is antiquated.

Actually, stemming from the 1800s when, quote, lawmakers reasoned it was better for gentlemen

to have an editor jail than it was to shoot it out with him.

Um, what?

But here is the thing.

Even after the federal judge ruled it was unconstitutional, the law apparently that

was established as a better option than a duel really didn't change much, which should

be no surprise to anyone who follows South Carolina politics.

But of course, our good old boy lawmakers didn't change the law.

They kept it in because they knew that they could use it to intimidate the public and the press.

Okay, so before we dive back into that Murdoch connection we were talking about, we wanted

to start by saying that Eve Fleming, Corey's wife, has not been implicated in anything he

was up to according to our reporting so far.

Additionally, none of our reporting has shown that she was aware of anything he was up to.

That said, we also want to remind you that Corey Fleming has now testified that he knew

that he was helping Elix steal money from the Satterfield family's settlement.

From the settlement that technically Corey was in charge of procuring for his client,

he is now admitting to doing this.

He can argue the technicalities when it comes to how much money he thought was getting stolen

or when it comes to what he knew about the scheme, but here is the only fact that matters

to us right now.

Before admitting that he knew he was helping Elix steal some of that money, he denied knowing

it.

He did it a lot.

And back when he was denying it, when we were first covering the Satterfield story, people

lashed out at us for even suggesting something might be up with him.

People lashed out at us for pointing out that, hey, it's no coincidence that Corey was representing

Connor Cook in the direct aftermath of the boat crash.

And oh look, that was a setup from Elix too.

I'm making this clear because, remarkably, there are still people out there who think

that us asking questions about Corey's involvement or pointing out some dots that might connect

is misguided on our part, as if we're looking for ways to attack poor, innocent Corey who,

let's just say it, has a bad case of Elix face.

Don't believe us?

Look at those photos side by side, guys.

They could be brothers.

Anyway, at this point in the game, we have far more experience being right when we follow

our instincts than we do being wrong.

The way we see Elix Murdoch, his co-conspirators and alleged co-conspirators, is like this.

They are people with very dirty hands, and therefore everything they have touched needs

to be checked for stains, everything, including a low country school dedicated to the mission

of providing a, quote, authentic Montessori education, building a foundation for lifelong

learning.

So let's talk about the school.

This strange little libel slander story reminded us of a rabbit hole we had started going down

in early March 2022.

It is one of the many Murdoch related topics we have planned for you, and we're going

to keep sneaking them in where we can before things heat up again in court.

So low country Montessori is a pre-K through 12th grade school and has just over 300 students.

According to their latest publicly available tax filings, they employ around 70 people.

According to statistics from the South Carolina Department of Education, the school ranks

low in overall testing, math proficiency, and reading proficiency.

It's at this point that I should mention that in addition to being an opinion and humor

columnist, I was also the education editor at the Island Packet newspaper, and Low Country

Montessori was covered in that beat.

In November 2015, journalist Rebecca Lurie reported that Low Country Montessori had been

found to be quote, non-compliant by the state public charter school district that summer

because it quote, did not meet a state law that 75% of its teachers be certified.

The school was cited for failing to ensure that all teachers were trained in the Montessori

method for failing to report on the certification of the teachers in a timely manner and therefore

not giving the state school district enough time to verify the certification status of

the teachers, for not properly recording student attendance and grades, and for not participating

in the state's program for assessing teachers' performances, which the state said delayed

teachers' professional development.

According to Lurie, quote, the charter school also experienced issues with student performance

and financial safeguards.

Since its opening, LMS has been plagued by complaints from parents behind the scenes

about what seems to be a general sense of perhaps chaos at the school, meaning just

overall disorganization and lack of communication.

Like we said, the school is run by the former director of the area's private Montessori

school, which closed around the time that this public Montessori school opened.

According to Lurie's report, in November 2015, LMS only had 20% of its class is taught

by, quote, highly qualified teachers, which compared to 90% to 100% in similar schools.

The director told Lurie that she was basically, quote, building a plane while flying.

Around the same time, according to Lurie's report, the state found that the school's

bank accounts had more than $250,000 in them, which was the maximum that could be insured

and that the school had no formal procedures for signing off on purchases.

And the state's audit found that, quote, certain transactions were not recorded properly.

While the school said at the time that it had either fixed or was working to fix its

problems, Lurie noted that there was one issue that the school had no plans to remediate

in that moment, and that was the preparation of financial statements.

Lurie wrote, quote, the school said it considers the risk of incomplete or inaccurate statements,

quote, tolerable when compared to the cost of further training.

We'll be right back.

So back to Fleming's involvement, as we said, Eve Fleming dissolved the school's

limited partnership in July 2021, according to the Secretary of State's office.

Corey H. Fleming Esquire, however, remains the registered agent of the school's LLC,

which is interesting because his law license has been suspended for almost two years now

and last month, he pleaded guilty in federal court for helping Alec Murdoch steal money

while also telling the court that he was relinquishing his law license in both South

Carolina and Georgia.

Seems like something the school might want to reconsider if the school has changed registered

agents than it has.

According to the Secretary of State spokesperson, Shannon Wiley, failed to file the proper paperwork

for that.

Another issue the school might want to sort out is that the Secretary of State's office

website lists the Low Country Montessori School as a suspended charity.

Luna Shark journalist Beth Braden spoke with the South Carolina Secretary of State's

office on Wednesday about the school's status.

According to Wiley, LMS's charity status was suspended for failure to file its financial

report from the fiscal year ending in June 2021.

It was originally due on November 15, 2021, but they filed an extension for May 15, 2022.

At that time, they submitted only a single page of IRS form 990 and it was rejected.

They have been assessed a $2,000 fine for this violation.

LMS has not filed their annual financial report for fiscal year ending in June 2022.

It was due November 15, but they also filed a six-month extension.

May 15, 2023, came and went with no filing.

Notice of that violation was just sent within the last couple months.

There has not been a fine assessed in the last violation.

Okay, let's talk a little more about the 2017 report about Low Country Montessori's

involvement in the EB-5 program.

According to journalist Gina Smith with the state newspaper, LMS received 1.5 million

dollars from three foreign investors to build its school building that opened in 2016.

It was an arrangement put together by American Charter Development in Utah, which also secured

the school another $4 million in loans.

The school then leased back the property from ACD at a 9% annual rate of the school's

total construction costs.

Here's what Gina wrote, quote, if the school were to make only the minimum payments over

the course of the 20-year lease, $5.6 million of its $10.3 million in lease payments would

be interest.

Again, this is taxpayer money we're talking about.

That brings us to another entity registered in South Carolina, something called RM Low

Country Montessori SC LLC.

The registered agent is a legal entity management company called CT Corporation System, and the

LLC is registered out of Newcastle, Delaware.

Now, why would a public South Carolina school seem to have an LLC registered out of Delaware?

We're not sure, but Delaware is seen as a corporate-friendly environment that allows

business owners to register their entities without having to list their names, without

having to have a minimum bank balance, without having to pay state taxes, and a whole host

of other friendly terms like that.

Also, not for nothing, but what does RM stand for?

RM, where have I heard these initials before?

Hey, it's a question worth asking, but I am just kidding.

RM are the initials of Rosemar Management, which we'll get to in a second.

RM Low Country Montessori SC LLC was registered in Delaware in October 2019 and in South Carolina

in November 2019, right before RM Low Country Montessori SC LLC bought the school.

Then, on December 29, 2021, a year after the LLC sold the property to the school, a man

named BZ Halberstam shut the LLC down.

Again, we mention this only because of the timing of these things and the Murdoch-connected

players involved.

When you look into the grand scheme of what else was happening in Ellic Murdoch's world

in late December 2021, it included other end-of-the-year filings at the Secretary of State's office

including the incorporation of Parker Law Group and several limited partnerships for

Ellic's former partners and his brother.

Okay, so in November 2019, RM Low Country Montessori SC LLC purchased Low Country Montessori

School from Education Capital Solutions LLC for just under $5.3 million.

One year later, RM Low Country Montessori sold it to Low Country Montessori School, the registered

agent of which is Corey Fleming, for just over $7.3 million, according to county records.

In one year, the value of that school went up by $2 million, not a bad investment, right?

Then, a year later, RM Low Country Montessori SC LLC shut down its business entity in South

Carolina.

So, who is BZ Halberstam?

Well, he does not appear to be with CT Corporation System, the registered agent for RM Low Country

Montessori SC LLC.

CT Corporation, by the way, is also the registered agent for Education Capital Solutions LLC,

which sold the school's property to RM Low Country.

I know, it's hard to follow.

Rather, BZ Halberstam is the CEO of a group called Rosemar Management, which, according

to their website, is an established alternative investment management firm focused on investing

in the U.S. municipal not-for-profit and sustainable infrastructure sectors.

Nice.

Like I said, they made a great investment in this taxpayer-funded property that, unfortunately

for them, is operated by a non-profit connected to one of ELEC Murdoch's admitted co-conspirators

that originally had investors linked to a controversial federal program plagued by claims

of fraud and abuse, which basically allows wealthy Chinese nationals the ability to invest

in American businesses in exchange for visas at a low-performing school that has been cited

before for its financial record-keeping problems and fine for its failure to file annual reports

with the state.

Beth reached out to LMS director Amy Horn by email, which, according to news stories,

seems to be Amy's preferred method of contact from reporters.

Beth asked her about the Instagram case, why Corey Fleming is still listed as the school's

registered agent, whether the school had refinanced its loans, as Amy had told Gina Smith

in 2017 that the school was working on doing, and about the school's suspension as a charitable

organization in South Carolina.

As of the recording of this podcast Wednesday afternoon, Amy had not responded to that email.

Okay, so here's some more interesting timing stuff for you.

Around the same time that the plans for chartering low-country Montessori school were taking shape

in 2013, a Chinese-connected seafood company named Millenarian Trading Company was scouting

locations for a jelly ball operation, and Beaver County and the town of Port Royal were

looking at potential deals to bring the jellyfish trade to the area.

Why?

Because jellyfish is apparently considered a delicacy in some Asian countries.

Remember the jellyfish gambit from episode 31 of Murdoch Murders podcast?

We're not going to get into the finer details of the jellyfish operation again here, because

all we're saying is that it's interesting timing.

LMS was taking shape with one of Ellick Murdoch's admitted co-conspirators around the same time

that a Chinese-led effort was happening to build a quote, jellyfish processing plant

in remote areas of Beoffert County and Port Royal that were connected to Ellick and his

alleged drug trafficker friend Barrett Bowler, along with at least two partners at PNPED,

which was also around the same time that the plan went bust, leaving these perhaps hopeful

investors looking for alternative investment opportunities.

Oh, and Greg Alexander became a member of the board at LMS the same year that RM Low

Country Montessori bought the school property in what seems like an investment of a lifetime,

and according to the school's minutes, one of Greg's first sort of business as a new

board member of the school was to point the school toward an auditor out of Columbia.

Okay, so what does all of this mean?

Is this just us drawing connections with markers, or are we actually going somewhere with it?

Obviously, we don't have solid answers yet, but we are hoping that this leads investigators

to follow the stains left by those who have dirt on their hands.

The two biggest questions in the Murdoch Corruption case, besides what happened to Stephen Smith

and Gloria Satterfield, are what did Ellick's do with the money, and who else is involved?

We are not, saying Low Country Montessori played any role in Ellick's schemes.

There is no evidence that we've seen to suggest that type of connection, but given

Corey Fleming and Greg Alexander's connections to the school, the school's record, its

connection with the EB-5 program, and the murmurings we hear about charter schools being

used as toxic grounds for predatory financial practices, we have to mention it as a potential

area of interest for investigators.

Interesting, that a local police report about two teenagers in an alleged Instagram plot

could have let us down this road, right?

And we're glad it did, because even with all of our experience, this criminal libel

slander thing was new for both of us, and we're torn.

One, we want people to know that these laws exist, and we urge all of you to go to the

ACLU's website to find out if your state is one of the states that criminalized libel

and slander.

If you're going to take on the good ol' boys, it's best to be prepared, and we are

learning as we go here.

No one, especially not public officials, and the people who hold positions of power and

influence the public realm, should be able to use the law to bully people out of exposing

the truth, speaking up for what is right, and making noise for victims and for meaningful

change.

Being pesky is not a crime, exposing the truth is not a crime.

One of the first things I learned at K Journalism School that I repeat myself over and over

and over again, is that the best defense against libel is the truth, but two, the harassment

that we have experienced online, while mostly just insulting and really juvenile, includes

defamatory statements made about us as journalists and professionals.

So we understand at that level why it could be important to have some sort of law that

protects people from online harassment, especially when it is done by people who hide behind fake

profiles.

And the third thing making this very complicated is the bots.

If libeling and slandering a teacher and a counselor through Instagram can be a crime,

then so should paying for a service to create and use bots to harass people online, especially

people who are simply doing their jobs or trying to make the little corners of the earth

better places.

There is a reason behind what these bots and pay trolls are doing.

We are still working to expose the bot slash pay troll angle of this story, because it

is important, and so beyond people talking bad about man and Liz online.

These people are working tirelessly to malign us and the victims in this case, in an apparent

attempt to stop us from what we are doing.

Why would people spend their days and nights harassing Sandy Smith?

Why do they want to bully her into silence?

Are they the ones afraid of Steven's case getting solved?

There is a reason behind what these bots and trolls are doing.

There is always a reason.

If Sled and the FBI would follow the clues the way that Sergeant Snyder did to find out

who is behind these pro-murdoch trolls.

I think we could get a lot of answers in this case.

And if they don't, we have a group of super smart and pesky women working hard to identify

these accounts for the sake of safety.

Because spreading hateful and false information is dangerous and should be taken seriously.

We need to be clear on that.

So the answer to the question, should libel be a criminal offense, is complicated.

But regardless, our communication laws are so outdated and reflect a world that no longer

exists.

If we want to truly change the justice system in South Carolina, we need more laws who support

those who tell the truth and less laws that were created as an alternative to dueling

newspaper editors, my gosh.

And we need more lawmakers who encourage exposing the truth and less lawmakers who

use the law to bully and intimidate others on behalf of the powerful.

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

Truth Sunlight is created by me, Mandy Matney, co-hosted by journalist Liz Farrell and produced

by my husband, David Moses.

Truth Sunlight is a Luna shark production.

Right Luna?

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.