by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
It seems that nothing constructive gets done on structured settlement factoring protections until the mainstream press enters the mix. That ex-Miami lawyer and officer of the court Jose Manuel Camacho Jr. admitted to having forged 114 structured settlement transfer orders and was arrested 4 months ago somehow flew under the radar, until I started to cover this last month is very troubling. The Sun Sentinel is on the scene now in what may be the opening salvo of articles to look into the the activities of the Florida structured settlement factoring scene. Today's article Lawyer accused of forging signatures of seven Broward judges appears in the Ft. Lauderdale based Sun Sentinel's Crime section. Already the story has been picked up by the ABA journal and other national publications. The Camacho forgeries are the second such forgeries off judges signatures on structured settlement transfer orders that have come to light in recent years, with 234 orders forged by an employee of a New York City personal injury law firm used by settlement purchasers.
On January 6, 2016 Jason Sutherland of DRB Capital, speaking on behalf of the National Association of Settlement Purchasers, said that "Recent news reports have attempted to portray the structured settlement purchasing industry as one that purposefully lacks transparency and persuades the disabled to sell a lifetimes' worth of income for much less in return. This is a biased take on the industry and the laws in place that govern structured settlement transfers.— the very opposite of secretive. Was there an oath of omerta among structured settlement factoring companies on the Camacho forgeries? There is evidence that the negative SEO crowd has already at work trying to bury the story from when it first came out last month.
The State of Florida is the home to a cluster of structured settlement factoring companies including several that hired accused forger Jose Manuel Camacho Jr. The State of Florida is the landing state for interstate forum shopping, where structured settlement recipients from other states are targeted, sometimes bribed, sometimes aided and abetted into making false statements on structured settlement transfer documents that if known, would jeopardize compliance with structured settlement protection act, not only hurting the targeted annuitants but also investors not aware that the deals were forum shopped. The State of Florida, like many states has no license requirement of solicitors of annuitants or investors, and no regulator of the settlement purchasing industry.
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