Podcaster and journalist Mandy Matney has been ordered to pay $176,500 in attorneys' fees and fines for willfully defying a court subpoena in civil litigation connected to the Murdaugh family.
Circuit Judge R. Keith Kelly ruled in a 22-page order Monday that Matney deliberately disregarded a valid subpoena and a prior court order requiring her to appear for a deposition. The judge rejected Matney's claims that safety concerns justified her refusal, finding no persuasive evidence that attorneys for Parker's convenience stores, a defendant in the case, were attempting to harass her.
The contempt finding stems from a long-running civil lawsuit filed by the family of Mallory Beach, who died in a 2019 boat crash. Parker's convenience stores are among the defendants accused of selling alcohol to Paul Murdaugh, who was operating the boat, before the fatal incident. Matney, who has extensively covered the Murdaugh case, was subpoenaed as a non-party witness.
Beach, 19, died in the February 2019 crash in Beaufort County. Paul Murdaugh was later charged in connection with the crash, but those charges were dismissed after he and his mother, Maggie Murdaugh, were fatally shot at their family's hunting estate in June 2021. The civil lawsuit has been instrumental in uncovering financial crimes linked to Alex Murdaugh, Paul's father.
According to the judge's order, Matney acknowledged the court had denied her efforts to quash the subpoena and ordered the deposition to proceed. Despite this, she did not appear at the Bluffton deposition site on March 27. Instead, she appeared remotely via Zoom from another law office in Bluffton while attorneys waited at the designated location.
Judge Kelly wrote that Matney's actions demonstrated a "deliberate decision to disregard the subpoena and the Court's March 16, 2026 Order requiring that she be deposed within 14 days." He further noted that social media posts made by Matney after the scheduled deposition, showing her dining with an attorney and in Savannah, "evidence her intent to defy her obligation to appear at the noticed deposition location."
Attorneys for Parker's originally sought over $310,000 in fees and costs. Judge Kelly reduced the award, ordering Matney to pay $171,500 in attorneys' fees and $5,000 in fines. The fees were allocated among the law firms representing Parker's.
Following the ruling, Matney criticized the decision on social media, calling the South Carolina justice system "CORRUPT" and stating that the penalty was her punishment for her reporting. The judge concluded that the contempt proceedings were a result of Matney's own conduct, stating that had she complied with the subpoena or accepted alternative deposition locations, she would not have faced a contempt motion.