SC podcaster Mandy Matney on the hot seat — will Judge Kelly hold her in contempt?

South Carolina podcaster Mandy Matney will learn in the coming days or weeks whether a judge will hold her in contempt for failing to appear to give a deposition in a South Carolina civil case involving a death in a 2019 boat crash.

After a June 22 hearing at the Spartanburg County courthouse, Judge R. Keith Kelly asked Matney’s lawyers and lawyers for Greg Parker, who owns a chain of convenience stores and whose lawyers had tried for months to take her deposition, to both submit proposed orders as to whether she should be held in contempt.

The proposed orders have apparently been turned in. But so far, Kelly has not issued an order.

Matney, 35, is a former Island Packet and Fits News reporter who became a true crime podcaster after covering a deadly 2019 Beaufort County boat crash and its links to the family of Alex Murdaugh, now a disbarred lawyer and convicted multimillion dollar fraudster in state prison.

If Matney is found in contempt, sanctions could range from a reprimand to fines and paying court costs of Parker’s lawyers — costs that could run into the tens of thousands of dollars.

Kelly has already ruled — on April 30 — that Matney disobeyed a lawful subpoena to sit for a deposition and a court order requiring her to appear.

Since then, Matney has given a deposition.

And Kelly has held public hearings to hear her reasons for not showing up for her March 27 deposition. Matney has testified she fears harm from stalkers. She has also said she didn’t believe she should be required to give a deposition because she has no relevant information for the lawyers who wanted to depose her.

The lawsuit

Matney is not a party to the ongoing lawsuit, filed in Hampton County and titled Renee Beach vs Greg Parker and others. Renee Beach is the mother of Mallory Beach, 19, who died after a 2019 nighttime boat crash in a craft believed to have been piloted by a drunken Paul Murdaugh.

In 2023, Parker’s company, which sold an underage Paul Murdaugh alcohol before the crash, paid Renee Beach $15 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit that Beach had brought against Parker.

In a separate lawsuit, now pending, Beach sued Parker, alleging he had leaked photos of Mallory Beach’s dead body to the public. It is that lawsuit in which lawyers for Parker sought Matney’s deposition to see if she had any knowledge about leaked autopsy photos of Mallory Beach’s body.

Arguments against contempt

A June 22 hearing about was held on the sixth floor of the two-year old massive Spartanburg County courthouse, which reports say cost $120 million and has 17 courtrooms.

At that hearing, Parker’s lawyers argued that Matney flouted the law by refusing over a monthslong period to show up to give a deposition.

That view was contested by one of Matney’s two attorneys, Meredith Bannon, of Bluffton, who told the judge that Matney is “world renowned as being a fierce investigative reporter” who has been harassed by Parker’s lawyers in their attempts to get her to appear for a deposition.

Bannon told the judge that two of Parker’s lawyers had represented accomplices of financial fraudster Murdaugh, describing the lawyers as “two people who defended some of the most notorious criminals in South Carolina.”

Meanwhile, Matney “is just a young girl trying to expose crime and corruption, live her life and shine sunlight on the truth,” Bannon said.

Another Matney attorney, Rebecca Lindahl, of Charlotte, told the judge that Matney had indeed filed various motions objecting to a deposition, but she was “exercising her right ... She shouldn’t be punished by filing those motions.”

The deposition controversy has exposed Matney to “significant emotional distress and harassment online,” Lindahl told the judge, mentioning a Matney critic by the name of James Seidel who had indicated he would attend her deposition but later “backtracked” and said he was just joking. Like Matney, Siedel hosts a true-crime podcast.

“Ms. Matney is entitled to take such threats seriously,” Lindahl told the judge.

In fact, the day before she was scheduled to give a deposition in Bluffton on March 27, Seidel was posting photos of a sign saying “welcome to Bluffton” on social media, Lindahl told the judge.

“The clear intent of that post is to indicate through social media that he is watching, and he is there, and he is physically or emotionally imposing himself for the purpose of intimidating or mocking or threatening or however you want to describe it...,” Lindahl said.

Moreover, having to appear in court has been costly for Matney, who has missed writing and publishing days, and has had to deal with a “significant intrusion on her personal and household finances,” Lindahl said.

Matney had to take three two-day trips from her residence in Beaufort County to the Upstate where Judge Kelly held court. Each trip involved overnight hotel stays, paying her lawyers, private security and other expenses, all of which Matney had to pay for, Lindahl said.

“Ms. Matney didn’t invite herself to this party. She was hauled into it,” Lindahl said, saying Matney’s cost in time and money has been “extraordinarily burdensome,” Lindahl said.

Arguments for contempt

Parker attorney Debbie Barbier of Columbia told Judge Kelly that Matney’s actions to avoid giving a deposition were inexcusable and, if allowed to go unpunished, would erode respect for the rule of law.

“Your honor, the matter before you today is about something very simple. It’s very simple, but it’s very fundamental to our system of justice. It’s about respect for the rule of law and respect for the authority of this court. It’s about whether a witness may knowingly refuse to comply with a lawful subpoena and a direct order from the court simply because she disagrees with it,” Barbier said.

Moreover, Matney had gone on her podcasts and social media platforms and “told half-truths and created false narratives ... And in every false narrative that she contrives, she is the hero, and she is the victim,” Barbier said.

Matney “masquerades the false narrative as journalism for the purpose of attacking this court,” said Barbier, referring to the podcaster’s sharp-edged criticisms of Judge Kelly and Parker lawyers on her various platforms.

“She does all this to make money. Controversy and content drive clicks, and clicks generate cash,” Barbier said.

Over an eight-month period, Matney and her lawyers fought appearing to give a deposition, and March 27 she intentionally disobeyed a court order to give a deposition in Bluffton, Barbier said.

Her refusal “was willful, it was deliberate, it was calculated, and it was contemptuous,” Barbier said. “It was a conscious decision to ignore the authority of this court.”

Although Matney has asserted fears for her safety if she went to the Bluffton location to give a deposition, she could not “articulate one specific threat tied to that location,” Barbier said.

And although Matney has said she fears for her safety, she has gone out in public and advertises public appearances, Barbier said.

Matney has launched a public campaign attacking the legitimacy of the proceedings, mocking the judge and repeatedly asserting that “our legal system is evil,” Barbier said.

“If public figures are allowed to ignore lawful orders while telling the public that compliance is optional when someone feels aggrieved, then respect for our courts and ultimately the rule of law is undermined,” Barbier told the judge.

Also, Barbier said, she and her fellow lawyers have had to absorb considerable expenses as well as Matney and her team.

Matney’s expenses were all brought upon her by herself by not sitting for a deposition in the first place, Barbier said.

Barbier asked the judge to hold Matney in contempt, award attorneys’ fees to the Parker lawyers and “make it unmistakably clear that court orders are not optional suggestions to be obeyed only when convenient.”

The State newspaper reached out to Matney, who has not replied.

This story was originally published July 11, 2026 at 5:30 AM with the headline "SC podcaster Mandy Matney on the hot seat — will Judge Kelly hold her in contempt?."