Mandy Matney found in contempt, ordered to pay $171,500 in legal fees
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Former prosecutor Nancy Grace analyzes Alex Murdaugh’s upcoming retrial in Beaufort, South Carolina, after his murder convictions were overturned. He anticipates a change of venue and discusses the defense’s strategy to present a new narrative focusing on new requests for DNA testing regarding Maggie Murdaugh’s fingernails.
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A judge in South Carolina found Alex Murdaugh’s crime reporter and podcast host Mandy Matney guilty of civil contempt and ordered her to pay $171,500 in attorneys’ fees and costs, plus a $5,000 fine, after concluding that she willfully refused to comply with a subpoena in a case involving the Murdaugh family.
In the 22-page order filed Monday, Circuit Judge R. Keith Kelly concluded that Matney willfully ignored a valid subpoena and prior court order requiring his appearance for deposition and rejected the argument that safety concerns justified the denial.
The defamation finding stems from long-running civil lawsuits stemming from the 2019 boating accident that killed Mallory Beach. Parker’s convenience stores are among the defendants accused of selling alcohol to underage Paul Murdaugh before the fatal crash, and Matney was subpoenaed as a non-party witness.
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Podcaster and Murdaugh crime reporter Mandy Matney attended the premiere of Netflix’s “Murdaugh Murders: A Southern Scandal.” A judge in South Carolina later found that Matney was in civil contempt for failing to attend the deposition. (Getty Images)
Beach, 19, died in the crash in Beaufort County in February 2019. Paul Murdaugh was later charged with boating while intoxicated, but those charges were dismissed after he and his mother, Maggie Murdaugh, were fatally shot at the family’s Colleton County hunting preserve in June 2021.
The Beach family’s civil lawsuit against Murdaugh family members and Parker alleges that the convenience store chain illegally sold alcohol to underage Paul Murdaugh before the crash. The case ultimately helped expose Alex Murdaugh’s financial situation as investigators uncovered the disgraced lawyer’s financial crimes.
Paul and Alex Murdaugh are smiling in a family Facebook photo post. (Facebook)
Kelly wrote that Matney refused to appear at the Bluffton deposition location on March 27, even though he acknowledged that he understood the court had rejected efforts to quash the subpoena and ordered the deposition to continue. Instead, he remained at another law office in Bluffton while Parker’s attorneys waited at the spotted location.
Matney instead appeared by Zoom from another law firm in Bluffton, the order notes.
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Podcaster and Murdaugh crime reporter Mandy Matney reacts while testifying at a court hearing in South Carolina. A judge has since found Matney guilty of civil contempt and ordered him to pay $171,500 in attorney fees and costs, plus a $5,000 fine. (Getty Images)
“Based on the foregoing, there is clear and convincing evidence that Ms. Matney’s failure to appear was not due to confusion, error, or incompetence, but rather was an intentional decision to ignore the subpoena and the Court’s March 16, 2026 Order requiring her to be arraigned within 14 days,” Kelly wrote.
Kelly also found Matney’s explanation that she feared for her safety to be unconvincing, writing that there was “no persuasive evidence” to support Parker’s claims that her lawyers tried to harass or endanger her.
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Kelly noted Matney’s social media posts after the stalled testimony, including photos showing her eating lemon cake with attorney Mark Tinsley and later dining in Savannah. The judge wrote that the posts “evidence an intention to defy the obligation to be present at the noted place of expression.”
Parker’s attorneys initially sought more than $310,000 in fees and costs, but Kelly reduced the award by about 45%, ordering Matney to pay $171,500 plus a $5,000 fine.
The court awarded $39,900 to Bannister, Wyatt and Stalvey, LLC; $45,950 to Deborah B. Barbier, LLC; and $85,650 to Maynard Nexsen, P.C.
Matney criticized the decision in a Facebook post on Monday.
“I’m not angry that Judge R Keith Kelly found me in contempt of court. I’m angry that he ordered me to pay an unprecedented amount of legal fees ($171,000 + $5,000 fine),” he wrote.
“The South Carolina Justice system is exactly what I have been saying all along: CORRUPT,” he added. “And this is my punishment for calling him that.”
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Kelly wrote that there was “no persuasive evidence” to support Matney’s repeated claims that Parker’s lawyers used the deposition process to harass or bully him.
He also concluded that the contempt suit arose from Matney’s own conduct, writing that if he agreed with Matney’s testimony or accepted one of several alternative venues offered, he “will not appear before the Court to plead for contempt.”
