Alex Murdaugh indicted on 22 federal counts for alleged financial schemes

A federal grand jury has indicted disbarred South Carolina attorney and double murderer Alex Murdaugh on 22 charges in connection with schemes aimed at stealing money from his clients, according to the US Attorney's Office for the District of South Carolina.

The charges include conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud and money laundering, the office said Wednesday, May 24, in a news release.

Murdaugh, 54, "has been cooperating with the United States Attorneys' Office and federal agencies in their investigation of a broad range of activities," his attorneys, Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, said Wednesday in a statement.

"We anticipate that the charges brought today will be quickly resolved without a trial," they said.

Murdaugh, a former personal injury attorney, is appealing his conviction this year in South Carolina for murdering his wife and grown son; he was sentenced to life in prison. He's being held at McCormick Correctional Institution, a maximum-security South Carolina prison about 40 miles north of Augusta, Georgia.

"Trust in our legal system begins with trust in its lawyers," US Attorney Adair Boroughs said of the alleged financial crimes. "South Carolinians turn to lawyers when they are at their most vulnerable, and in our state, those who abuse the public's trust and enrich themselves by fraud, theft, and self-dealing will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."

Cory Fleming, a Murdaugh associate, has agreed to plead guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, pledging in exchange to work with state and federal prosecutors, according to a plea agreement. CNN has reached out to Fleming's attorney for comment.