The Camacho settlement forgery scheme refers to Miami attorney Jose Manuel Camacho Jr.’s forging of Broward County judges’ signatures on more than 100 court orders that approved structured settlement transfers. He pleaded guilty to 14 felony counts in 2017, was sentenced to 364 days in jail and ten years of probation, and had already been disbarred by the Florida Supreme Court the year before. The fraud bypassed the judicial review that Florida law requires to protect people selling their future settlement payments for cash, and it helped push the state to rewrite the rules governing those sales.
What Camacho Did
Structured settlements pay injury victims in installments over years or decades instead of a single lump sum. A secondary market exists for payees who want cash now, but Florida law requires a judge to approve every transfer after finding that it is in the seller’s best interest and that the price is fair.1Florida Senate. Florida Statutes § 626.99296 That judicial check was exactly what Camacho circumvented.
Admitted to the Florida Bar in 2000, Camacho ran a high-volume Broward County practice filing transfer petitions on behalf of structured settlement purchasing companies, including Novation Settlement Solutions (formerly Novation Capital).2Sun-Sentinel. Lawyer Accused of Forging Signatures of Seven Broward Judges Rather than wait for judges to sign the transfer orders, he forged their signatures and filed the fraudulent documents with the Broward County Clerk of Courts. In a sworn statement he said he did it to avoid delays from backlogged judges.3ABA Journal. Lawyer Is Sentenced for Forging Judges Signatures on More Than 100 Documents
How the Scheme Was Uncovered
Two judges caught it. Marina Garcia-Wood and Carlos Rodriguez spotted their own forged signatures on documents filed with the clerk’s office. Garcia-Wood noticed an order dated during a period she had been out of town.2Sun-Sentinel. Lawyer Accused of Forging Signatures of Seven Broward Judges
Investigators eventually identified 114 forged signatures across orders attributed to seven judges: Garcia-Wood, Rodriguez, Eileen O’Connor, John Luzzo, John Bowman, Thomas Lynch, and Mily Rodriguez Powell.2Sun-Sentinel. Lawyer Accused of Forging Signatures of Seven Broward Judges Individual judges had their signatures forged dozens of times each, with counts of 30, 25, 19, and 18 attributed to different judges.
Criminal Charges and Sentence
Camacho was arrested in October 2015 and charged with 14 counts of uttering a forged instrument. Each count is a third-degree felony carrying up to five years in prison. He initially pleaded not guilty and was released on $14,000 bond. Broward Circuit Judge Matthew Destry recused himself, and the case moved to Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Ellen Sue Venzner, with Assistant Broward State Attorney Ryan Kelley prosecuting.2Sun-Sentinel. Lawyer Accused of Forging Signatures of Seven Broward Judges
Camacho pleaded guilty to all 14 counts.4FindLaw. Lawyer Forges Vacationing Judges Signature, Gets a Year Vacation in Jail On August 3, 2017, he was sentenced to 364 days in jail and ten years of probation.3ABA Journal. Lawyer Is Sentenced for Forging Judges Signatures on More Than 100 Documents
Disbarment
The Florida Bar moved on Camacho before the criminal case ended. He was first suspended for contempt after failing to comply with a trust accounting records subpoena and failing to respond to an official Bar inquiry, effective under a February 2016 court order.5The Florida Bar. Disciplinary Actions The Bar’s disciplinary summary also noted he had commingled trust funds with his operating account. The Florida Supreme Court disbarred him effective June 9, 2016, in Case No. SC16-145.6The Florida Bar. Disciplinary Actions
What Changed in Broward County
The most immediate procedural fix was in Broward County itself. Florida law had allowed attorneys to hand-deliver signed orders to the clerk’s office, and that is the door Camacho walked through. Chief Administrative Judge Peter Weinstein ended that practice, requiring a deputy clerk to physically pick up orders from judges’ chambers instead.2Sun-Sentinel. Lawyer Accused of Forging Signatures of Seven Broward Judges
Florida’s Statutory Overhaul
The Florida legislature passed Senate Bill 458 in March 2016. Signed as Chapter 2016-45 and effective July 1, 2016, it cleared both chambers unanimously (37-0 in the Senate, 116-0 in the House) and tightened Florida Statute § 626.99296 substantially.7Florida Senate. CS/SB 458 – Transfers of Structured Settlement Payment Rights The main changes:
- Venue lock. Transfer petitions must be filed in the county where the payee lives, ending the practice of shopping distant courthouses for cooperative judges.
- Mandatory hearings, with the payee required to appear in person unless excused for good cause.
- Transfer history disclosure. Applicants must give the court a summary of all transfers the payee has made to the same company within four years, to any other company within three years, and any denied applications within two years.
- Enhanced financial disclosures. Transferees must give payees a bold, 14-point-font disclosure itemizing all fees, the effective annual interest rate, and the net amount as a percentage of the discounted present value, at least 10 days before the payee commits.
The bill also clarified that once a valid court order approving a transfer is issued, annuity issuers and settlement obligors can rely on it and are released from liability for redirecting payments. In effect, the compliance burden was placed squarely on the transferee and its counsel.7Florida Senate. CS/SB 458 – Transfers of Structured Settlement Payment Rights
What Happened to the Tainted Transfers
The public record is thin on the fate of the 100-plus transfers approved by forged orders, but at least one case shows how the fallout kept moving through the courts. In Talcott Resolution Life Insurance Company v. Novation Capital LLC, Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed a trial court ruling, holding that factual disputes remained about whether a transfer complied with the Structured Settlement Protection Act because the validity of a 2012 order, allegedly one of the forgeries, was in question. The appellate court emphasized that the statutory requirements for a valid court-approved transfer cannot be waived, even by a payee who consents. The underlying Broward County proceeding for that transfer had been dismissed in early 2013 for failure to prosecute, and the docket showed no entries for the supposedly signed order.8FindLaw. Talcott Resolution Life Insurance Company v. Novation Capital LLC
A Parallel Scheme in New York
Camacho was not the only one. Around the same time, Thomas Rubino, a 42-year-old paralegal at the Manhattan personal injury firm Paris & Chaikin, was indicted for forging the signatures of 76 New York state Supreme Court judges on 117 fake judicial orders, also involving structured settlement transfers.9Courthouse News Service. Paralegal Charged With Forging Judges Signatures His method was cruder: he cut real judicial signatures from legitimate documents and taped them onto fabricated orders. The scheme ran from mid-2011 to October 2013 and unraveled after two transfers were questioned. J.G. Wentworth, the settlement purchasing company that relied on the fake orders, sued Paris & Chaikin for $1 million over its failure to supervise Rubino and had to resubmit 27 voided settlement purchases.10New York Post. Judge Forgers Law Firm Facing $1 Million Lawsuit
Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said the forgeries “caused financial harm to the companies that relied on the legitimacy of the process, deprived the individuals of their right to protection, and undermined the authority of state Supreme Court justices.”9Courthouse News Service. Paralegal Charged With Forging Judges Signatures