GAFFNEY, S.C. — Competing versions of podcaster Mandy Matney vied in a contentious hearing this week in a sleepy South Carolina courthouse as she took the witness stand and defended herself against allegations of reckless journalism under a withering hail of questions from a lawyer for wealthy businessman Greg Parker.

Is Matney a heedless hack whose podcasts and social media postings unfairly savage people? Or is she a brave crusader covering stories of crime and double-dealing no one but her dares to touch?

Those questions, which had no clear answer by the end of the day, were aired during a nearly three-hour hearing at the Cherokee County courthouse in Gaffney on Tuesday before state Judge R. Keith Kelly.

The subject of the hearing was whether Matney should be held in contempt for not showing up for a March 27 deposition in Beaufort County. The hearing was requested by lawyers who were seeking a contempt ruling from the judge in connection to an ongoing lawsuit involving businessman Parker.

The judge did not rule on the contempt request. Matney did sit Wednesday for a deposition at the Spartanburg County courthouse.

Mallory Beach’s death photos

Matney is not a party to the pending lawsuit in which Parker is a defendant. Relatives of Mallory Beach, who died in a 2019 boat crash in Beaufort County, contend in the lawsuit that Parker and others leaked confidential photos of Beach’s dead body to the public. Autopsy reports are not public in South Carolina.

Parker lawyers believe Matney may know something about the leaked photos and wanted to question her about what she knows. In an affidavit filed in the case on Monday, Matney wrote she has searched her records and found few if any documents that would be of use to Parker’s lawyers.

The ongoing Parker-Beach lawsuit is part of a series of high-profile legal events involving the notorious ex-lawyer and convicted killer Alex Murdaugh. Murdaugh’s son Paul, who was killed by his father in 2021, was piloting the boat in the crash that killed Beach.

Matney was a reporter for the Island Packet at the time of the fatal crash. The Island Packet is a sister paper to The State, and covered the initial boating fatality.

The well-to-do Parker owns a chain of South Carolina and Georgia convenience stores called Parker’s Kitchen, one of which sold alcohol to an underage Paul Murdaugh hours before the boat crash in which Beach died. In 2023, in the Beach’s family’s first lawsuit against Parker, he paid $15 million to settle their wrongful death lawsuit against him. Parker admitted no fault in the settlement.

Matney has published on digital platforms numerous items about the current ongoing lawsuit, often portraying Parker as a highly dubious character, according to her Tuesday testimony. She testified that her podcasts took off in popularity in 2021 after Alex Murdaugh staged a suicide attempt. Murdaugh had just been fired from his prominent family law firm for stealing money from clients, thefts that would come to light at that time.

“Would you ... agree that in the course of your posts, you have said that Mr. Greg Parker is corrupt, that he’s dishonest, that he’s committed illegal conduct, that he’s a buffoon, that he’s morally bankrupt, that he’s loser, a harasser and that he plays dirty? ... Have you said those things about Greg Parker?” Parker lawyer Deborah Barbier asked Matney, sitting in the witness stand.

Matney replied, “Yes.”

Barbier: “And you also said his lawyers are corrupt and dishonest, haven’t you?”

Matney: “Yes.”

Barbier: “And you said that to multiple people haven’t you?”

Matney: “Yes.”

Barbier: “You in fact defamed Mr. Parker and his attorneys, haven’t you?”

After Matney’s attorney, Rebecca Lindahl, objected, Barbier moved on to other questions. “Do you know what defamation is?”

Matney replied she knew what defamation is, and “that the best defense against defamation is the truth and I believe in everything that I’ve said against Greg Parker is true.”

The proper subject of the hearing, Matney then said, ought to be what Parker did to the Beach family.

A bathing suit and a stalker: Hearing highlights

At times during Tuesday’s hearing under questioning by Barbier, Matney, 35, was reduced to tears and dabbed at her eyes. Once, Kelly called a 15-minute recess so Matney could recover herself.

Apart from the hearing’s obvious drama, Matney’s appearance in public was unusual in its own right. Matney testified she avoids being in public much of the time because she she fears for her life and is plagued by stalkers, one of whom she testified is a convicted felon who has been menacing her online.

Matney identified an alleged online harasser, convicted felon and another true crime podcaster James Seidel, a Fort Mill businessman who federal court records say pleaded guilty in 2023 to making false statements to get Economic Disaster Loans during the coronavirus pandemic. In 2024, he was sentenced to five years probation and to pay $200,000 in restitution by U.S. District Judge Mary Geiger Lewis.

Matney testified she filed an official police report against Seidel last week.

Seidel, asked through his lawyer for comment, texted that he is an “investigative journalist” and his reporting on the Beach case is “based on public records, court filings and the parties’ own statements. Ms. Matneys’s name appears dozens of times in filings on the S.C. (Court) Public Index, making her a relevant figure in ongoing litigation that I am covering.”

Seidel added, “Reporting the public record is not harassment. It is journalism.”

Many of her harassers who post menacing messages are online and she doesn’t know who they are, Matney testified. She has been so afraid of harasser that for a time, she stopped driving, she testified.

Barbier was skeptical about her fears.

“Didn’t you just a few days ago post a picture of yourself in a bathing suit — were you on the beach?” Barbier asked Matney at one point.

Matney replied, “Oh, yeah, is that against the law?”

When Matney’s attorney Lindahl objected, calling the question “not relevant” and “harassing,” Barbier had a ready answer.

“Your honor, if she has security concerns, the last thing in the world a female with security concerns does is post a picture of themselves in a bathing suit for her stalker to see,” Barbier said.

Matney’s attorney said, “This is beyond the pale your honor. Women are allowed to be in public in their bathing suits.”

Kelly signaled for Matney to answer.

The bathing suit was not that revealing, Matney explained, and her husband was right next to her.

Her husband and business partner, David Moses, was in the courtroom Tuesday. Obviously devoted, he sat in the front row, his eyes on his wife the whole time she testified.

Moses, 45, told a reporter before court started Tuesday, that his wife was a “celebrated champion of the First Amendment” and requiring Matney to go across the state for this hearing amounted to harassment “that is only intended to prevent the truth from coming to light.”

Also accompanying Matney on Tuesday was her bodyguard, a fit-looking man in a dark suit and tie who repeatedly turned his head left, right and around to scope out possible threats. There were none. Except for lawyers, court security officials and one reporter from The State newspaper, the courthouse was nearly empty.

Another person with Matney was a casually dressed man who videoed the hearing and pointed his camera at a State newspaper reporter before and after the hearing. The man wouldn’t identify himself.

Matney had answers to some of Barbier’s questions, but said she didn’t know the answers to others.

In response to Barbier, Matney said her Instagram account had 73,000 followers and her Facebook account had 55,000.

But asked by Barbier for the name of her bodyguard and his security company, Matney said she didn’t know.

Another time, explaining why she didn’t show up for depositions at scheduled times, Matney said she had spoken to “a lot of lawyers” and they had told they would have gone to a separate locale where she wanted the deposition to be taken, not the place where Barbier and her colleagues wanted.

What lawyers, Barbier asked?

“I’m not aware,” replied Matney.

“You’re not aware of who you spoke to?” Barbier asked.

“No,” replied Matney.

Matney also explained that to her, the idea of switching the March 27 deposition from the site the Parker lawyers wanted was being legally contested by her lawyers, and the request to switch locations seemed very reasonable in light of her security concerns.

Besides, she testified, an alternate site she favored that was more conducive to her safety was just a short distance away from the site that Parker lawyers wanted She wondered why Parker lawyers didn’t show more sensitivity to her concerns, given that they concerned her safety, she testified.

She never had any intention of not sitting for a deposition, she testified.

In questioning Matney, her lawyer Lindahl elicited testimony about Matney’s journalistic credentials: graduating from University of Kansas journalism school and working as an editor of several small newspapers before coming to South Carolina to work for a newspaper. In 2020, Matney joined the digital platform FitsNews and the next year left to start her own independent digital media group.

In support of her journalist credentials, Matney testified, “I do anything to protect my sources.”

Contempt for law?

Barbier sought to show that Matney’s avoidance of a court-authorized subpoena was part of the podcaster’s general contempt for the law, an attitude that extends to presiding Judge Kelly, whom Matney has referred to in podcasts as “Judge R. Kelly.”

Matney has called the judge in social media posts “R. Kelly”, and R. Kelly — a well-known former singer-songwriter — is a “convicted sex trafficker,” Barbier mentioned in one question.

Matney replied that the judge’s first name begins with an R, indicating there was nothing wrong with referring to the judge that way.

“You’re familiar with R. Kelly, he’s a convicted sex trafficker?” Barbier asked.

“Yes,” replied Matney.

Barbier asked Matney about her public statements that she was “standing her ground” in not appearing for a legally required deposition. “You glorified your contempt.”

Kelly was apparently not amused. He did not smile during the entire hearing.

Matney’s version

Parker lawyers contend that Matney may know information about the leaked Beach dead body photos or may have other information that could help their case.

“I still do not to this day understand what you guys want with me,” Matney said at one point in answering one of Barbier’s questions.

Matney said a reporter who works for her, Liz Farrell, had been deposed by the Parker attorneys and had told Matney what a traumatic experience it was. Matney testified she did not want to expose herself to such trauma.

In an affidavit filed in the Parker case, Farrell — who has a lengthy journalism background and now lives in Maryland — alleged that Barbier and her colleague, attorney Mark Moore, had made her life difficult in the extreme when they deposed her last summer in Baltimore. Like Matney, Farrell said in her affidavit, she now fears for her life because of the crime stories she’s done with Matney. She even has a concealed carry gun permit and has equipped her house with panic buttons and interior and exterior cameras, Farrell wrote.

Particularly disturbing, Farrell wrote, is that matters about her personal life gleaned in her deposition, including the salary that Matney pays her, have been put in the public record by Parker attorneys. One Nov. 25 filing by Parker attorneys in the Beach case, for example, revealed that Farrell is paid $15,000 a month by Matney, for an annual salary of $180,000.

These days, Farrell said in her affidavit, she is a co-host with Matney for three podcasts each week, including one with attorney Eric Bland, who helped break open the criminal case against Alex Murdaugh’s thefts of millions of dollars from clients and associates.

In her own affidavit, filed Monday, Matney spelled out other reasons for not wanting to sit for a deposition with Parker lawyers, including not having any relevant information, protecting her journalistic sources and her personal safety.

“I am frequently the target of online vitriol because of my journalism work, to the point where, to the best of my knowledge, Reddit and YouTube removed abusive channels about me and I have suffered mental anguish and anxiety, a topic about which I speak about on Luna Shark’s podcasts, social media, and my published bestselling book.”

Seidel has been particularly harassing in recent days and claimed he would show up at her deposition, Matney wrote, saying she regarded his statements as “valid threats to my safety and an escalating obsession with me.”

Unwanted mail and phone calls, and the publication of her personal cellphone number, which caused her to have to obtain a new phone number, have been distressing, Matney said in her affidavit.

“I experience night terrors and recurring nightmares, have to hire private security at public appearances (which I must make for my professional success) and court proceedings, and secure my home with enhanced security,” she wrote in her affidavit.

On the witness stand Tuesday, Matney repeated these assertions.

But Barbier questioned Matney why, if she has felt threatened for a long period of time she only made an official complaint to police in recent days.

And Barbier wanted to know, if Matney really felt threatened, why did she go to Savannah on March 27, the day of her deposition, and have lunch at an open-air restaurant and then publish photos online about the lunch?

After the hearing, Barbier was asked if Parker — a highly successful businessman who has given millions to charity — is considering filing a defamation lawsuit against Matney for her statements that he is corrupt and has done illegal things.

“No comment,” said Barbier.

The Beach family lawsuit was brought against Parker and other defendants in December 2021. Lawyers representing the Beach family are Mark Tinsley, Tabor Vaux and John Nichols.

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