Paralegal forged names of 76 judges to ‘make work easier’

The New York Post reports:

A lazy paralegal forged the names of 76 New York state Supreme Court justices on more than 100 court documents — because, he claims, he was overworked and thought faking signatures would make his job easier.

Thomas Rubino, 42, first got the idea to lighten his load by dummying up insurance-settlement forms in 2011 as he toiled at the Manhattan personal-injury law firm of Paris & Chaikin, according to court records.

He said he soon discovered that forgery was a real time saver.

“Each year, the workload increased and I had difficulty keeping up,” Rubino told investigators. “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 described his forgery as a simple cut-and-paste system, in which he used scissors to snip a judge’s signature from a legitimate document then used tape to put it on a phony settlement form, prosecutors said.

The great moments of Blue America.