Access Funding's fake independent advisor and $21 million theft from lead-poisoning victims
Maryland prosecutors say Raffi Boghosian, the chief operating officer of structured settlement factoring company Access Funding, and two lawyers, Charles Smith and Anuj Sud, defeated the independent-advice safeguard required before buying a structured settlement from 94 Baltimore residents, primarily lead-paint poisoning victims, between 2013 and 2015. Smith posed as every victim's required independent advisor while secretly taking kickbacks through Sud tied to how many deals closed, and the pair made false statements to the court to get the transfer orders approved. Access Funding paid under $7 million combined for payment rights the state says were worth more than $21 million, as little as 8 cents on the dollar in some cases. A Baltimore City jury convicted all three in November 2022 of Theft Scheme Over $100,000 and Conspiracy to Commit Theft Scheme Over $100,000.
- Year
- 2022
- Where
- United States
- Outcome
- Convicted
- Victims
- 94
- Schemes
- Structured settlement purchase fraud
- Last reviewed
- 2026-10-15
The facts, as recorded
- Access Funding's offices and principal place of business were in Montgomery County, Maryland; the company bought structured settlement payment rights from 94 to 95 individuals in Maryland, primarily lead-paint poisoning victims in Baltimore City, between 2013 and 2015.
- The payment rights had a total present value of over $21 million. Access Funding paid the owners cash lump sums totaling less than $7 million combined, in some cases as little as 8 cents on the dollar of the discounted present value.
- Charles Smith, an attorney and Boghosian's self-described best friend, purported to provide the independent professional advice Maryland law requires before a structured settlement sale, for almost two years, while secretly receiving kickbacks through Anuj Sud tied to how many of his clients' payment rights the company successfully acquired.
- Anuj Sud was Access Funding's own attorney, who filed the petitions that obtained the court orders transferring the victims' payment rights to the company.
- The defendants are alleged to have made, or caused to be made, false statements to the court about the owners' receipt of independent professional advice, in order to induce the court to issue the transfer orders.
- A Baltimore City Circuit Court jury convicted Boghosian, Smith and Sud in November 2022 of Theft Scheme Over $100,000 and Conspiracy to Commit Theft Scheme Over $100,000; sentencing had not yet been scheduled at the time of Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh's announcement.
- In a related but separate federal civil action, the CFPB reached stipulated judgments in December 2021 and May 2022 requiring Access Funding, Access Holding, Lee Jundanian and Boghosian to pay a combined $50,000, Smith to pay $50,000 and a permanent industry ban, and Michael Borkowski to pay $5,000, plus bans on referring consumers to a specific advisor for structured-settlement advice.
- Attorney General Frosh: "These individuals preyed upon vulnerable victims of lead paint poisoning in Baltimore City. The victims received a small fraction of the actual value of their structured settlements, depriving them of a much-needed lifeline meant to support them long-term."
Why this case matters
This is the clearest documented example of the independent-advice safeguard being defeated from the inside rather than skipped: the “advisor” Maryland law required was real, licensed and present, and still delivered nothing close to independent advice because the company buying the settlements was paying him to sign off, through a third party, for every client who closed.
Two professionals, two different jobs, one scheme
Smith and Sud were not interchangeable conspirators. Smith’s role was to be the face of compliance, the named independent advisor on each file. Sud’s role was to get the court order, filing the petitions that turned Access Funding’s purchase into a legally binding transfer. Prosecutors say the money moved between them in the form of kickbacks tied to deal volume, meaning the more transfers Sud’s petitions secured, the more Smith was paid for having “advised” the sellers Access Funding wanted to buy from.
As little as 8 cents on the dollar
The $21-million-to-under-$7-million gap is the headline figure, but the per-transaction detail matters more: some individual sellers received as little as 8% of what their payment rights were actually worth, a number regulators reached only by comparing what was paid against the structured settlement’s own discounted present value, the same math the required independent advisor was supposed to walk each seller through and, prosecutors say, did not.
The caveat
The November 2022 verdict is a jury’s finding that Boghosian, Smith and Sud are guilty of the charges described above; it is not yet a sentence. At the time of Attorney General Frosh’s announcement, sentencing had not been scheduled in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, and this page has not located a later report confirming what sentence, if any, each defendant received. The separate CFPB civil judgments against Access Funding’s companies and individuals were stipulated settlements, the standard form of which typically resolves a case without the defendant admitting the underlying allegations; this page describes their dollar amounts and terms, not an admission of the facts alleged.
Sources
- Attorney General Frosh Announces Indictments of Three Individuals Relating to Access Funding. Office of the Maryland Attorney General. Accessed 2026-10-15. Supports: The December 2021 indictment, the 95-individual and over-$21-million figures, the under-$7-million and 8%-of-value payments, the independent-advice allegation, and the presumption-of-innocence language used at the indictment stage.
- Former Access Funding Chief Operating Officer and Two Lawyers Convicted of Theft from 94 Victims. Office of the Maryland Attorney General. Accessed 2026-10-15. Supports: The November 9, 2022 jury verdict convicting Boghosian, Smith and Sud, the 94-victim figure, the kickback arrangement, the false statements to the court, and the Frosh quote.
- Access Funding, LLC; Access Holding, LLC; Reliance Funding, LLC; Lee Jundanian; Raffi Boghosian; Michael Borkowski; and Charles Smith. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Accessed 2026-10-15. Supports: The CFPB's parallel civil case, the December 2021 and May 2022 stipulated judgments and their dollar amounts, the Reliance Funding successor entity, and the industry-referral bans.