Lee Granade runs into corruption Murdaugh style
She faces off with her ex-husband in a divorce in the same area where the controversial family ruled for nearly a century.
Lee Granade told me that once her divorce moved back to Beaufort County, South Carolina that she never stood a chance.
Her ex-husband, Lee told me, had powerful connections; those connections were linked to the Murdaugh’s, and her fate was sealed.
One remarkable exchange may sum up how things are done in Beaufort. Lee was in court in late 2022 trying to get more custody time when she challenged the judge, Deborah Malphrus.
She asked Judge Malphrus about previous perjurious statements made by her ex-husband.
“I’ve got these twenty-two or so instances where I can show the court where he’s been serially dishonest to the court.” Lee told me of the hearing.
The judge responded in this remarkable way.
Is there a portion of your court order that provides father cannot make perjurious statements? If you can point that out to 6 me in your court order, I might consider it, but 7 point out to me what portion of the court order you believe is being specifically violated.
There is, of course, no court order which forbids perjurious statements, because there doesn’t need to be one. Perjurious statements are not allowed.
Lee’s ex-husband, Robert Jiminez, sees it differently. He says that Lee is in the position she is in, due to her own behavior.
What do you want to know about the divorce? That Lee was caught in a marital affair with a convicted felon currently in prison for the next three years by her daughter. Lee lost custody of the children due to her bad decisions. You should ask her for the divorce decree and review the facts of the divorce. The decree should provide all the information you need.
The decree is devastating to Lee. It alleges that an adulterous affair ended the marriage, and that this affair caused her children to start to hate her.
Their daughter, at least, definitely hates her mom because of this.
Except adulterous affairs don’t usually destroy relationships between children and parents: or we wouldn’t see this scene.
Why would one denied by Lee destroy her relationship? It might be that Robert is egging it along.
“You call me a slut and a whore,” Lee said to Robert in a video she recorded, of what he said to their daughter.
Slut, there’s that word again.
Robert responded, “Lee, do you really think that I believe that?”
It doesn’t sound like he denied saying it.
Robert said this to me.
I did not call Lee names in front of the children-however the name calling she referred to in video is what our daughter said when she found out about her mother’s affair and heard her mom admit to it.
Lee denies the affair but it’s possible the perjury loving judge has figured this all out. Except, Lee and Robert’s journey did not start in Beaufort County, but in Georgia, where Lee got and eventually rescinded a temporary protective order.
Robert had all sorts of nasty things to say about Lee.
Lee admitted to me in ear shot of our daughter as well as in court to her affair.
Lee was never the primary caretaker.
The case has always been in South Carolina.
Except, when I confronted him with the order from Georgia, he stopped communicating with me. Lee said the marriage had already disintegrated in Georgia, and the kids were living with her.
In fact, she was the primary caretaker of their two kids- born 2005 and 2008- up until a judge in Beaufort County, South Carolina granted Robert sole custody on temporary basis in the spring 2018.
Robert does challenge that. “Lee was never the primary caretaker.”
Except she was. Robert worked; Lee stayed home. The kids primarily stayed with her when they split up. All of that changed in 2018.
The case had moved to Beaufort after Lee moved there- a decision she tells me she regrets.
At an emergency hearing, Robert made the following allegation. “At the emergency hearing where he tried to make the allegations of abuse by having me have the kids scrub baseboards.”
That allegation was used to appoint guardian ad litem, Katherine Ferguson. Ms. Ferguson promptly made a nice fee on this case.
I reached out to Ms. Ferguson, but she did not respond.
Lee lost custody of her kids at this spring 2018 and has fought fruitlessly for them since.
I take him back into court that the kids are at risk. I present to the court that I have an expert- so in the course of all that I show them that they are suffering from dental neglect, general neglect, and failure to thrive. I present all of that to the court, and I believe this is March of ‘21 and the judge dismisses us. It was all done remotely….She dismissed us within a minute. She did not allow oral arguments or anything.
Then, I try again. I took him in on a motion to compel. I battled all of that for a year. Before I know it, the court has dismissed my case completely…So, that was the spring of ‘22 and they dismissed me completely. So, I went back in December of ‘22 on a motion for contempt. This time I went, and I was self-represented, and I showed the court that my ex had obstructed hundreds of days of visitation with my daughter. I forget the exact number, but it’s hundreds. She (Malphrus) did find that yes this was in contempt, but she only gave him two days in jail or he could pay a $1000 fine, which he paid, so he avoided jail.
The judge refused to grant her the made-up time, which is generally what’s supposed to happen when a parent obstructs another parent’s custody time.
In the middle of this, Robert’s home burnt down, while his son was alone in it: escaping and barely surviving. Lee said no one from the local to the state law enforcement agencies would investigate this fire.
Here is part of an affidavit which suggests there is more to it.
Robert explained it this way.
We unfortunately had a house fire in January 2020. It was devastating to my family financially and emotionally.
The finding of adultery also conveniently then allowed the court to downplay years of physical abuse by Robert. In this scene, the children tell Robert they had to call their coach because of his abusive behavior.
Below is part of the protective order application which was ultimately granted.
I’m no fan of protective orders, but I am a fan of consistency. The way it’s supposed to work is that a finding- as there is one here- of domestic violence by one court is supposed to be honored by another court.
That didn’t happen; instead, the Beaufort Court focused on adultery.
It should be obvious by now that in custody courts can create any narrative they choose. In politics, we call this fake news.
So, why did this court go with the adultery narrative?
Lee says it all has to do with the Murdaugh’s. Alex Murdaugh’s murder trial captivated the nation.
This is in large part because that family controlled the area: particularly the 14th Judicial District where Lee’s case was found. Here is part of the Wikipedia page.
From 1920 to 2006, three members of the Murdaugh family served as the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Circuit solicitors for the five-county area of South Carolina's Lowcountry region within the 14th Judicial district;[2][3] the Murdaugh's influence in the area led to it being colloquially known as "Murdaugh Country."[4] In South Carolina, the solicitor, analogous to the district attorney in other U.S. jurisdictions, is in charge of prosecuting all criminal cases in the jurisdiction.[5] The 14th circuit district oversees Allendale, Colleton, Hampton, Beaufort, and Jasper counties. It is the only judicial circuit in the state to cover five counties.[6] According to columnist Kathleen Parker, the jurisdiction of the 14th circuit district was known as "Murdaugh Country", where the justice system was regarded as rigged and local attorneys would make a motion to settle a case rather than go to trial there.[4]
The Murdaugh family was one of South Carolina's most prominent legal families for nearly a century and were featured in the cover story for a 1989 issue of Carolina Lawyer magazine.[7][8] Because of the family's decades-long control of the office of solicitor, they wielded enormous judicial and political power for almost a century.[9] After several Murdaugh family members were implicated in a fatal boating accident in 2019, and after two family members were murdered in a double homicide in 2021, the family's influence on the local judicial system was scrutinized
Lee said that family’s influence is intertwined with her custody case: because Robert has ties to the family. Here is part of an editorial she wrote.
As much of the country is captivated by the ongoing trial of the Murdaugh Murders trial taking place in Walterboro, SC, insight into understanding the family’s background is especially valuable. Long before Alex “Big Red” Murdaugh was standing trial for the double murder of his wife and son, his great-grandfather was the Solicitor (equivalent to District Attorney) of the 14th judicial circuit from 1920-1940. Alex’s grandfather would succeed his great-grandfather until Alex’s father assumed the reins. In those 87 years when a Murdaugh was deciding who, when, and if to prosecute criminal activity, the family was also establishing a lucrative civil law practice in another town of the same judicial circuit. A 2002 Forbes article titled Home Court Advantage described how the Murdaughs and their associates deftly exploited a ‘venue clause’ that allowed bringing suits against out-of-state corporations that did any business in the state. For instance, since Goodyear tires were sold in Hampton county, Goodyear was fair game for ‘the firm.’ The Murdaughs’ ability to capitalize on this forum shopping not allowed in other states was routinely rewarded by hometown jurors who would award exponentially higher than anticipated financial award to plaintiffs of the firm; the partners would subsequently reinvest in various altruistic ventures into the same community.
Lee’s spouse, Jimenez, boasted of these deep ties to the SC barrier islands’ power player attorneys dating back to the early 1980s when he had played tennis for the US Navy’s team in Beaufort and often taught tennis lessons at a local club frequently by the Murdaughs and their associates. He would later follow friends he had met in Beaufort to Columbia, SC to attend the University of South Carolina where those same local sons, like Alex Murdaugh, would further their education at USC Law School before ultimately returning to their low country roots. Another one of those native sons, Robert Achurch, Esq. was especially close to Jimenez; Achurch now serves as county attorney for Beaufort, often representing Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO).
According to Lee, these old connections had a palpable influence in her legal proceedings that would rival most anything daytime television producers could imagine; in fact, a CBS producer invited her on to the Dr. Phil Show in December 2020, but this was blocked by her ex-husband who would not allow their minor children to receive any assistance from Dr. Phil. Now into her 5th year of fighting for her children, Lee has often sought and retained the assistance of nationally renowned experts who cannot believe that such backroom deals, also termed courtroom ‘home-cooking,’ is still the norm in some areas.
Robert denies any connection.
“I do not know any of the Murdaugh family.” Robert told me in an email.
In this way, this is a story as old as time itself: of power, influence, and the corruption it spreads, like a cancer, on a community.
Now, Lee is hoping to change the way things are done in South Carolina.
Lee recently attended a press conference by South Carolina State lawmakers Heather Bauer and Joe White, who have sponsored legislation to reform the family court system.
Two bills aimed at reforming the way judges are chosen in South Carolina are gaining significant legislative support – signaling a potential thawing within the S.C. General Assembly as it relates to its stranglehold over this ostensibly independent branch of government.
Last week, we reported on legislation introduced by freshmen lawmakers Heather Bauer of Columbia and Joe White of Newberry. Both Bauer’s bill (H. 4179) and White’s bill (H. 4183) would make significant changes to the current composition of the much-maligned Judicial Merit Selection Commission (SCJMSC).
For those of you unfamiliar with this entity, the SCJMSC is a 10-member panel controlled by powerful lawyer-legislators. The panel screens judges prior to submitting their names for legislative election – a process rife with corruption and insider deal-making.
I have previously written about how judges in many states are chosen in f’ed up ways.
