by Structured Settlement Watchdog®
Real Life Drama involving Exploitation of Lead Paint Victims by Access Funding
Beginning in August 2015 Access Funding, a Chevy Chase company, now resurrected as Reliance Funding, is subject to a series of blistering exposes in the Washington Post concerning the exploitation of lead paint victims with structured settlements in the Baltimore City area. The story is bad in and of itself but was gas lighted by the discovery that Freddie Gray was also one of the victims.
Anuj Sud, a College Park Maryland lawyer, who lost his job in disgrace after Anuj Sud was caught taking bribes while liquor commissioner of Prince Georges County, MD and charged by the Feds. He was later convicted of a theft scheme in November 2022. See link below in the Charles E. Smith Jr. section
Charles E. Smith Jr, a Maryland lawyer discovered to be in cahoots with Access Funding’s corrupt lawyer Anuj Sud, purported to provide independent professional advice as required by Maryland law. Smith was disbarred and later convcted of a theft scheme in November 2022. See Access Funding’s Boghosian and Lawyers Charles E Smith and Anuj Sud Convicted of Theft Scheme – Structured Settlements 4Real®Blog November 11, 2022
Art Imitates Life?
The Blacklist is an American crime thriller television series that premiered on NBC on September 23, 2013. Raymond “Red” Reddington, played by James Spader, a former Naval officer turned high-profile criminal turned informant, who voluntarily surrenders to the FBI after eluding capture for decades. He tells the FBI that he has a list of the most dangerous criminals in the world that he has compiled over the years and is willing to inform on their operations in exchange for immunity from prosecution. [ Source: Wikipedia]
In last week’s episode, Ressler and Liz meet with Stanbury’s parents, who insist that Scotty would have been unarmed when he was shot. Interestingly, their lawyer looks just like the blond dominatrix/cop-hiring mercenary, just missing all the high heels and leather. Apparently, Scotty grew up in a house full of lead paint that left him with cognitive impairment, so his parents sued and Scotty was awarded a $500,000 structured settlement. But a company called Waterday Financial offered to buy his settlement for an immediate lump sum of $100,000, and he took it because he didn’t know any better. “Ain’t no way he shot the officer,” his mother says. “But for him to be in a position where that’s a question — I blame Waterday for that.”
Aram does too. His research shows that Waterday buys a ton of structured settlements “from people without the cognitive ability to know they’re being duped.” It’s not a crime, but it is suspicious that Waterday also makes loans, frequently to cops — cops like Officer McGuiness
Cue the CEO of Waterday saying of course it’s a coincidence that a cop with a loan from Waterday just killed a man with a settlement buyout from Waterday. His reasoning: “Look, we’re a nationwide company. We made over 1,400 home loans in the past fiscal year, 174 of them to cops.” Um, excuse me sir. I’m no mathematician, but 174 cop loans all over the nation, and one of them kills someone who has also recently done business with the company? Those are not “of course it’s a coincidence” odds. The bit that finally makes this guy seem a little less guilty is that the structured settlements only pay out as long as the victim is alive. Waterday recently payed (sic)$100,000 for Scotty’s settlement, but they had only recouped $62,000 at the time of his death. So it simply couldn’t be them…
But Liz and Samar aren’t buying it. They’re unable to get a warrant for Waterday’s records though, because they only have an example of this one possible instance of corruption. So Aram, precious FBI angel, finds more. He reviewed the class action lawsuit that Stansbury was a part of, and he found that four of the other plaintiffs also sold their settlements to Waterday and that three of them…are dead. Killed by police officers who got loans from Waterday that they never seem to have paid.
Oh, and there’s our ol’ pal, Squeaky, strung up like a latex ham by the blond woman — most certainly Miss Rebecca Thrall at this point — in a sex dungeon. But this time, the mask comes off, and wouldn’t you know it: It’s the slimy president of Waterday. Soon he’s getting a call from his office, and Ms. Thrall lets him answer since they only call for emergencies during his happy special fun time. It’s bad news: The FBI is raiding his office; they know about the Waterday scam. Then it’s worse news: Rebecca realizes the Feds don’t yet know about her connection to Waterday, so she goes ahead and just holds homeboy’s latex breathing valve shut and is on her merry way
The Feds are really working double-time tonight — Aram has already figured out who the next target is. Waterday doesn’t just buy settlements from the cognitively impaired; they also take out life insurance policies on them. So they’d only been paid a small part of Scotty’s lawsuit settlement before he died, but the $5 million policy they took out on his life, and all the other victims’ lives, proved much more fruitful. Based on that, Aram pinpoints Robert Erwiler as the next cop target [Source: October 12, 2017 Critique of Season 5 Episode 2 by Jodi Walker in Entertainment Weekly]
Commentary
As a practical matter, while settlement purchasers who buy life contingent structured settlement payment rights often buy life insurance to hedge their investment positions which may only start paying out years into the future, the amount of life insurance paid to the settlement purchaser upon the death of the measuring life is limited to the amount of the payments purchased. Thus what amounts to declining balance could leave something for the measuring life’s family.
Nonetheless the fact that the targeting of cognitively impaired lead paint victims has made it into a popular television series and paints the structured settlement factoring industry in such an unfavorable light is bad news for settlement purchasers already reeling from:
- two high profile cases of forgery in New York and Florida, involving perps’ forgery of judge’s signatures on structured settlement transfer documents in which the perps are serving jail time. One of the convicted perps, a disbarred Miami lawyer named Jose Manuel Camacho Jr., notoriously claimed that he forged judges’ signatures because he was lazy and claimed that he didn’t profit from the illegal activity. Of course Camacho’s pre-sentencing excuse was a load of bull, given that the result of his illegal conduct was more business, therefore more profit. The story of Camacho’s arrest was covered up by the structured settlement factoring industry for 3 months before I broke the story on January 6, 2016, six weeks before the mainstream press.
- The stock price of the structured settlement factoring industry’s 800 lb gorilla, JG Wentworth is emaciated at less than 20 cents a share. Ironically JG Wentworth does mortgage loans.
- A lawsuit was filed in Montgomery County Maryland in early September in which there are more allegations of corruption and alleged forgery.
- A RICO class action lawsuit alleging an Annuity Fraud Enterprise was filed on September 14, 2017 against JG Wentworth and Seneca One and alleges that Steve Heretick, a Portsmouth VA lawyer and member of the Virginia House of Delegates was the central figure. Judges in Portsmouth VA Circuit were alleged to be Complicit in the Annuty Fraud Enterprise and devoted about as much time to consider best interest as it takes for a fart to dissipate in the wind, if they did at all in one to two minutes per case alloted, with no annuitant present.
- One of the companies, Novation Funding, based in West Palm Beach, Florida which is backed by New York hedge fund York Capital continually and falsely advertises it gives maximum payouts even after it shafted a number of young African Americans for high discount rates as I have shown in prior blog posts
- Todd Dyer a convicted Ponzi schemer and money launderer from Wisconsin who was involved with Income Stream Exchange, before he was sentenced in March 2017 to 15 years in prison for Fraud.
- Investors have lost money in structured settlement derivatives scam labeled Secondary Market Annuities by intermediaries and financial planners.
A “Murder of Crows” ?
A “Murder of Crows” might have been a better working title. The business practices of factoring companies have led to them being characterized by lawyers and noted Rhode Island judge Netti Vogel, as vultures, beaky flesh ripping scavengers of carrion. The Black List plot however, implies that a crow might have been more appropriate, very witty at the very least. Crows are both predators and scavengers and a plurality of crows is called a Murder. Get it?
