A lazy paralegal was sentenced to six months in jail Tuesday for forging the names of 76 New York State Supreme Court justices on more than 100 court documents — because he felt overworked.
Thomas Rubino, 44, formerly of Manhattan personal injury law firm Paris & Chaikin, previously pleaded guilty to 10 counts of forgery as part of a plea deal.
Justice Thomas Farber handed down the sentence over the objection of prosecutors who requested a term of 2-to-6 years.
In 2011, Rubino was drowning in insurance settlement forms when he discovered that forgery was a real time saver.
“Each year, the workload increased and I had difficulty keeping up,” Rubino told investigators after his 2015 arrest. “I made the forged orders when I felt overwhelmed with work. I was motivated out of fear that the work wouldn’t get done.”
He used scissors to snip a judge’s signature from a legitimate document then used tape to paste it to a fake settlement form, prosecutors said.
“Although it looks like it took a lot of time to make each forged order, to get a legitimate order signed was a lot more work,” he admitted to authorities.
The scheme unravelled in late 2013 when he got a letter from a judge questioning the validity of a signature.
But Rubino didn’t stick around to witness the fall out. “I told [the firm] my uncle died, that I needed to leave town, and I just never returned,” he told officials.
His old law firm is facing a $1 million lawsuit from insurance settlement company J.G. Wentworth, which had to resubmit 27 claims that were voided due to the bogus signatures.