A South Carolina circuit judge slapped true-crime podcaster Mandy Matney with $176,500 in penalties after finding she deliberately refused to show up for a court-ordered deposition, then rejected her claim that safety fears kept her away.
Circuit Judge R. Keith Kelly found Matney in civil contempt for defying a subpoena that required her to sit for a deposition in the Mallory Beach boat crash civil litigation. The case involves Parker's convenience stores and the Murdaugh family. Kelly ordered Matney to pay $171,500 in attorneys' fees and an additional $5,000 fine, the New York Post reported.
Matney was not a party to the lawsuit. She was subpoenaed as a non-party witness, a status that carries the same legal obligation to comply but often generates friction when journalists or media figures are pulled into civil discovery.
Judge Kelly left little room for interpretation. His ruling stated that the evidence met the "clear and convincing" standard required for civil contempt, a threshold that demands more proof than a simple preponderance but less than the criminal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt.
Kelly wrote in his order:
"Based upon the foregoing, there is clear and convincing evidence that Ms. Matney's failure to appear was not the result of confusion, mistake, or inability, but rather was a deliberate decision to disregard the subpoena."
That language matters. By ruling out confusion and inability, Kelly foreclosed the most common defenses witnesses raise when they skip depositions. The word "deliberate" signals the judge viewed Matney's absence as a conscious choice, not a scheduling mishap or a misunderstanding about the subpoena's scope.
Matney had raised safety concerns as her reason for not appearing. But Fox News reported that the judge rejected that justification, pointing to Matney's own social media posts showing her eating out and dining at restaurants after the aborted deposition. Kelly apparently concluded that someone genuinely afraid for her safety would not be posting public evidence of her whereabouts at local restaurants.
Matney did not take the ruling quietly. She responded publicly, framing the penalty as retaliation for her coverage of the Murdaugh family's legal troubles.
"The South Carolina Justice system is exactly what I've been saying all along, CORRUPT. And this is my punishment for calling it like it is."
That statement positions the contempt finding as part of a broader pattern Matney has alleged throughout her reporting on the Murdaugh saga. Whether her audience buys that framing or sees a journalist who thought she was above a court order will likely depend on where they already stand on the case.
What is not in dispute: a lawful subpoena was issued, Matney did not comply, and a judge found her defiance was willful. Civil contempt sanctions exist precisely to compel compliance, and the $176,500 price tag reflects the attorneys' fees the opposing parties racked up because of her refusal to appear.
The subpoena arose from civil litigation tied to the 2019 boat crash that killed 19-year-old Mallory Beach. That crash involved Paul Murdaugh, Alex Murdaugh's son, who was allegedly driving the boat while intoxicated. The civil case names Parker's convenience stores, which allegedly sold alcohol to the underage boaters, and members of the Murdaugh family.
The Beach family's wrongful death lawsuit became one thread in a sprawling legal disaster for the Murdaugh dynasty. Alex Murdaugh was later convicted of murdering his wife Maggie and son Paul in June 2021, though the South Carolina Supreme Court later threw out that conviction and ordered a new trial based on juror misconduct findings.
The retrial proceedings have generated their own cascade of legal battles. A new judge was assigned to oversee the murder retrial, and the defense has pursued aggressive pretrial strategies.
Matney built a significant following through her podcast coverage of the Murdaugh case, turning a local South Carolina legal saga into a national true-crime phenomenon. That profile made her a figure of interest to attorneys on multiple sides of the various Murdaugh-related cases, which is how she ended up on the receiving end of a deposition subpoena in the Beach litigation.
Civil contempt differs from criminal contempt in one critical way: it is coercive, not punitive. The sanctions are designed to force compliance, not to punish past behavior. That distinction means Matney could potentially purge the contempt by agreeing to sit for the deposition, though whether that would reduce or eliminate the $171,500 in attorneys' fees already awarded is a separate question the court would need to address.
Matney could also challenge the ruling on appeal. Contempt findings are reviewable, and appellate courts sometimes scrutinize whether the underlying subpoena was properly served, whether the witness had a valid legal privilege, and whether the sanctions were proportionate. Authorities have not publicly confirmed whether Matney intends to appeal or comply.
The defense team in the broader Murdaugh retrial has been pursuing alternate suspects and DNA evidence as part of its pretrial strategy, and the various civil and criminal cases continue to overlap in ways that pull in witnesses, journalists, and institutions across South Carolina's legal system.
The tension between press freedom and judicial authority is real, and it surfaces regularly when reporters are subpoenaed in cases they cover. South Carolina does have a qualified reporter's privilege under state law, but that privilege is not absolute, and the judge's ruling suggests Matney did not successfully invoke it as a basis for refusing to appear entirely.
Investigators and attorneys in the Beach litigation presumably believe Matney possesses information relevant to their case, whether from her reporting, her sources, or her interactions with figures connected to the Murdaugh family. Non-party subpoenas are a standard litigation tool, and courts consistently hold that a witness's personal objections to appearing do not override a lawful court order.
The retrial proceedings have also raised questions about sealed court records and juror misconduct claims, adding yet another layer to a case that has tested South Carolina's judicial system at every level.
Matney's social media response framing the penalty as proof of corruption may play well with her podcast audience. But inside a courtroom, a subpoena is not a suggestion, and a judge who finds you deliberately ignored one is not going to be moved by a Instagram post calling the system rigged.
Courts do not issue $176,500 sanctions to send a message about journalism. They issue them because someone refused to follow a lawful order and forced the other side to spend six figures proving it. Whether Matney views herself as a crusading reporter or a defiant witness, the law sees her as someone who was told to show up and chose not to.
When you cover the legal system for a living and then refuse to play by its rules, the system has a way of reminding you that nobody gets to opt out.
