Circuit Judge R. Keith Kelly issued a Mandy Matney contempt order Monday, finding the podcaster in civil contempt and ordering her to pay $176,500. The ruling came after Kelly concluded she refused to comply with a subpoena tied to civil litigation over the 2019 boat crash.
Kelly’s 22-page order directs Matney to pay $171,500 in attorneys’ fees and costs, along with a $5,000 fine. He also rejected her claim that safety concerns justified her refusal to appear for a deposition.
Bluffton deposition site
Matney had been subpoenaed as a non-party witness in the Beach family's civil lawsuit against members of the Murdaugh family and Parker's. The deposition was noticed for March 27 at a Bluffton deposition site, and the order says she appeared by Zoom from another law office in Bluffton while attorneys for Parker's waited at the noticed location.
The court’s sanction places a direct price on the decision not to appear where she had been ordered to sit for questioning. In civil contempt, a judge can use fees, costs and a fine to force compliance and to shift the expense of the missed proceeding to the witness who did not follow the subpoena.
Mallory Beach lawsuit
The case grew out of the 2019 boat crash that killed Mallory Beach, who was 19 when she died in Beaufort County in February 2019. The Beach family's lawsuit says Parker's illegally sold alcohol to underage Paul Murdaugh before the crash.
Paul Murdaugh was later charged with boating under the influence, but those charges were dismissed after Paul Murdaugh and Maggie Murdaugh were fatally shot at the family's Colleton County hunting estate in June 2021. The litigation also helped expose Alex Murdaugh's finances as investigators uncovered his financial crimes.
Matney's objection rested on safety concerns, but Kelly found clear and convincing evidence that her failure to appear was not due to confusion, mistake, or inability. The ruling leaves her facing a fixed payment tied to the subpoena dispute, not another abstract warning about what might happen if she ignores court process again.
