Alex Murdaugh led on a leash for latest court hearing

Disgraced legal scion Alex Murdaugh was paraded on a leash Thursday as he appeared in a South Carolina court for the first time since being handed two life sentences for the murder of his wife and son.

Murdaugh, 65, appeared before Beaufort County Court Judge Clifton Newman to set a court date for the first of his trials stemming from his alleged $8.8 million fraud.

Murdaugh was brought into the courtroom in an orange prison jumpsuit and handcuffs — and with a leash controlled by three deputies, a live stream showed.

The convicted killer appeared to have lost weight behind bars, and was seen at times grimacing as his lawyers tried to push a trial date until next fall, along with a change of venue.

Murdaugh’s attorney, South Carolina state Sen. Dick Harpootlian, a Democrat, argued in vain that his client would not be able to get a fair trial in the Palmetto State on the 101 financial-crime-related state charges against him.

“Where are you going to get a jury? Mars?,” Harpootlian asked the judge during the at-times contentious hearing.

“This case was tried and finished six months ago … on national television,” he said, referring to the disbarred attorney’s highly publicized murder trial, in which he was found guilty of killing his wife Maggie and son Paul at the family’s hunting lodge in 2021.

Newman snapped back at Harpootlian, saying he was “not presuming that a jury can not be impaneled … based on speculation.”

“You first have to get a jury, according to the law,” the judge scolded, as he set a Nov. 27 trial date in the case the state considered most serious — the alleged theft of some $3.5 million from the estate of Gloria Satterfield, a longtime family maid who died under suspicious circumstances at the Murdaugh residence in 2018.

Murdaugh allegedly set up her children with his cohort, personal injury attorney Cory Fleming, and directed him to send her death settlement checks to his own bank account and tell her family that no settlement was ever reached.

Murdaugh also faces federal charges in connection with the alleged fraud, and was expected to plead guilty to a litany of charges next week in a Charleston courtroom, marking the first time he would cop to any of his misdeeds.

He is accused of money laundering, wire fraud, bank fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection to his alleged decades-long bilking of clients’ settlements.

The admitted opioid addict is also accused of stealing from his family’s law firm and laundering money through a drug ring he helped run.

He also allegedly hired his drug dealer to shoot him dead so his surviving son Buster would get a $10 million life insurance payout, but the bumbling hitman botched the job and delivered a non-fatal shot to his head.

Murdaugh was seen whispering to his lawyers Thursday but did not address the court, which also held a pretrial hearing for his co-defendants Fleming and ex-banker Russell Laffitte, who was convicted of helping him orchestrate his vast web of fraud.