• e-mail

Heidi Planck, the 39-year-old Los Angeles accountant who mysteriously disappeared two weeks ago, told her mother she was planning to visit her back home in the Buffalo area for Thanksgiving just two days before she vanished, the mom said.

Suzanne Smeader, Heidi Planck’s 61-year-old mother, told DailyMail.com it was unusual for Heidi to disappear without any explanation. 

In her last conversation with her daughter, Smeader said she got no indication that there was anything wrong. She said she was 'leaning toward her employment' as one possible link that could explain her disappearance. 

Since 2016, Heidi has worked as an accountant at Camden Capital, the financial planner based in El Segundo, California. She has never been accused of any wrongdoing. 

Planck's LinkedIn says she works as a controller at Camden Capital - a role which sees her overseeing all employees involved in the accounting process, including accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, inventory and compliance. 

The mother of Heidi Planck (above), a 39-year-old Los Angeles accountant who mysteriously disappeared two weeks ago, says that she spoke to her daughter two days before she went missing and that she was planning to visit her back East for Thanksgiving 

Home surveillance footage shows Planck leaving her home in the Reynier Village district of Los Angeles, with her dog Seven on October 17. She climbs into the Range Rover and drives off

Heidi Planck was last seen at her son's football game more than two weeks ago - after her dog was found alone on the 28th floor of an apartment building 12 miles from home.

She vanished after leaving her 10-year-old son's football game 'looking a little bit antsy' on October 17. 

Police have released home surveillance footage of Heidi leaving her home with her dog, Seven, in the Reynier Village district of Los Angeles on October 17.  

The same day, Planck met her ex-husband, Jim Wayne, at a sports ground in the Downey district of LA to watch their 10-year-old son play football.

However, Planck said she needed to leave at half time and was reportedly acting 'a little bit edgy', and has not been seen since. 

Her dog was found alone later that day in downtown Los Angeles on the 28th floor of a high rise building, and was traced to her thanks to his microchip.    

Her son was due to be with her ex-husband following the game but the alarm was raised three days later when she failed to pick him up from school on October 20. 

Investigators may be probing whether Planck's disappearance could be connected to her job as a financial controller.

Her employer is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for a $43 million fraud. 

‘It's bizarre, it's so unlike her...People don't just go missing like that, you know,’ she said from her home in Cheektowaga, New York, which is located some 10 miles east of Buffalo.

‘I just can't imagine. I just feel for her son and I just can't imagine what that poor little kid is going through being without his mom,’ Smeader said.

Suzanne Smeader, Heidi's mother, told DailyMail.com that she has been in contact with her daughter's ex-husband, Jim Wayne (seen right with his then-wife in 2008)

In her last conversation with her daughter, Smeader said she received no indication that there was anything wrong. She said she was 'leaning toward her employment' as one possible link that could explain her disappearance

Planck, 39, (pictured) was last seen at her 10-year-old son's football game in Los Angeles, on October 17. She was reported missing on October 20 when she failed to pick him up from school

The mother-of-one left her home on October 17 Reynier Village district was last seen at her son's football game in Downey. Her dog was found later that day in downtown LA. The alarm was raised when Planck failed to pick her son up from school in Westwood, on October 20

‘She was so attentive to him.’

When asked if she had any idea what could possibly be behind her daughter’s disappearance, Smeader said: ‘I have no idea...I Google her name and I'm in touch with her ex-husband and I'm in touch with a detective out there [in Los Angeles].’

Smeader said her daughter moved out to the West Coast in 2001 to attend college.

According to Heidi’s Facebook page, she attended California State University, Los Angeles.

Smeader said her daughter completed a certification course in real estate and other business-related classes.

When asked if her daughter gave any indication that something was amiss, Smeader told DailyMail.com: ‘No, none whatsoever.’

‘She was going to be coming home for Thanksgiving,’ Smeader said.

Heidi was also planning to attend a class reunion, according to her mom.

Smeader said that Heidi was due to travel back East with a girlfriend.

‘Everything was happy times,’ Smeader said.

When asked if Heidi mentioned whether she was dating someone, Smeader replied: ‘She mentioned she had dated somebody off and on [and] that she didn't really know that she could call him her boyfriend or not.

‘That was about it on that.’ 

 Smeader said her daughter moved out to the West Coast in 2001 to attend college. According to Heidi’s Facebook page, she attended California State University, Los Angeles

Smeader said that Heidi’s father, Kevin Smeader, passed away in 1990, when Heidi was around eight years old.

‘She was just a little girl,’ Smeader said.

When asked how she was coping with the news of her daughter’s disappearance, Smeader told DailyMail.com: ‘I'm a wreck, I am a total wreck.

‘I can't imagine what's going on out there.’

She then said that she was ‘leaning towards her employment’ as the possible link that could explain her disappearance.

When asked what was going through her mind, Smeader said: ‘I’m naturally thinking the worst. I feel like I have to prepare myself for the worst.’

‘I hope that's not the case. I’m hoping they find her and she’s fine, but that’s about where I stand.’

Smeader added: ‘I'm in prayer. I’m a Christian woman and I've been in constant prayer and I have a lot of people praying for her - all my family and friends - and that's about where I stand. 

‘I'm leaving it in the Lord’s hands. I know he'll carry me through no matter what happens.’ 

She vanished later that day after leaving her son's football game looking 'antsy' and the alarm was raised when she failed to pick him up from school three days later, on October 20

Seven, Planck's dog (pictured together), was found alone wandering the corridors of an apartment building in downtown Los Angeles on October 17 and was traced to her via its microchip

A couple who lived in the apartment block looked after the dog for a week as they were unable to get in touch with the owner, before Planck's ex-husband eventually tracked it down

A couple who lived in the apartment block looked after the dog for a week as they were unable to get in touch with the owner.

But the owners of that apartment complex are reportedly refusing to cooperate with investigators and have denied requests to search the building's parking structure and security footage without warrant, CBS 2 reported. 

Onni Group, a real estate development company, is the owner of the building, the Hope + Flower luxury residential complex in downtown Los Angeles.

DailyMail.com has reached out to Onni Group seeking comment. 

'People are very, very attached to their pets, and their pets do not just go missing,' said Jarrod Burguan, a retired San Bernardino police chief. 'There clearly is something out of place here.'

Friends and family said that Planck was not known to have any connection to the building. 

On Friday, federal agents and robbery homicide detectives from the LAPD entered her home with their guns drawn. Sources told CBS that officers believed they could be walking into a crime scene. 

Photographers for LAPD were present at the house, as well as nearly a dozen other agents, who CBS reported went through every room, the garbage and planters around the home.  

Jason Sugarman (left) is the managing partner of Camden Capital, where Planck works and was charged in 2019 by the SEC with participating in a $43 million fraud scheme. Pictured right: Jason with his wife Elizabeth Guber-Sugarman and their son in May 2014

Sugarman is the son-in-law of Peter Guber (left), the Hollywood mogul and co-owner of the NBA's Golden State Warriors. Guber is seen (right) alongside Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban at Chase Center in San Francisco in January 2020

Jason Sugarman, a managing partner at Camden Capital, was charged in June 2019 by the Securities and Exchange Commission for his role in a scheme to steal $43 million of client funds they purported to invest in Native American tribal bonds.

Sugarman is a minority owner of Los Angeles Football Club and son-in-law of Hollywood mogul Peter Guber, CEO of Mandalay Entertainment and owner of the Golden State Warriors NBA team. 

In 2020, Sugarman's business partner, Jason Galanis, was sentenced to 189 months in prison for his participation in multiple fraudulent schemes including the tribal bond scheme.

Camden Capital is an investment advisory firm that handles wealth management and legacy planning for prominent high net worth individuals. 

Meanwhile, Planck's family and friends are deeply concerned that foul play was involved in her disappearance and say they are hopeful she can return home to them, and her son. 

Wayne, who has 50/50 custody of their son, said that last time her saw her, at their son's game, she had been 'a little bit edgy' but he didn't know why.

He said that she wasn't due to pick up their son until October 20, but unusually, he didn't receive any calls or texts from her after she left the game.

'She doesn't let a day go by without either a text message or a phone call, even if she was really busy,' Wayne said. 

When she failed to pick up the boy from his school in Westwood, near Beverly Hills, on October 20, he knew something was deeply wrong.

'She's a devoted mother who would never, ever leave her son,' Wayne told DateLine. 

'She wouldn't let a day go by without talking to her son, there's no way.

'We have a 10-year-old boy at home that's looking for his mom and we just need to find her.'

Jim Wayne, Planck's ex-husband, said that he knew something was deeply wrong when she failed to collect their son from school and filed a missing person report

Wayne, who has 50/50 custody of their son, said that last time her saw her, at their son's game, she had been 'a little bit edgy' but he didn't know why

He said that she wasn't due to pick up their son until October 20, but unusually, he didn't receive any calls or texts from her after she left the game

The owners of the apartment building (pictured) in downtown LA where Planck's dog was found are refusing to cooperate with investigators and hand over footage without a warrant

Planck's dog was found in an apartment inside the Hope + Flower luxury residential complex in downtown Los Angeles. DailyMail.com has reached out to the building's owner, the Onni Group, a real estate development firm, seeking comment 

On friday evening, federal agents and robbery homicide detectives raided Planck's home (pictured) in Reynier Village, Mid-City, LA, believing they could be walking into a crime scene

That's when he filed a missing persons report with the LAPD who found her home empty.

However, Wayne said they did find a text on her phone, which had been left behind, from a woman who had found her dog Seven and traced her via its microchip. 

Wayne said he's desperate to get Planck back for the sake of their son, who turns 11 this week and doesn't want to celebrate without his mom.

Planck's house was raided on Friday night and evidence removed from the property

'He was doing OK until he saw a photo of them the other day - and then he just broke down,' he said. 'He told me that he just wanted one more time to talk to her. That hurt. That was really painful.'

'We're just hoping for a miracle and that she comes home.'  

Planck is described as having blond hair and blue eyes, standing five feet, three inches tall and weighing about 120 pounds. 

When she was last seen, she was wearing jeans and a gray sweater and was driving a gray 2017 Range Rover with California license plate U840X0. 

Anyone with information is asked to call the Los Angeles Police Department's Missing Persons Unit at 213-996-1800. 

During non-business hours or on weekends, tipsters can call 1-877-LAPD-24-7 (877-527-3247). 

Heidi Planck's boss was sued by SEC for 'pocketing $9million in cash as part of a scheme hatched with "Porn's New King" to swindle Native American tribe out of $60million' 

Jason Galanis, who was once dubbed 'Porn's New King', is serving 11 years in prison for hatching a scheme to steal $60million from a Native American tribe. Sugarman was his alleged co-conspirator

Heidi Planck, the missing Los Angeles woman, works at a company whose managing partner, Jason Sugarman, was alleged to have hatched a massive scheme to swindle a Native American tribe out of $60million.

Sugarman's alleged co-conspirator in the plot, Jason Galanis, was sentenced last year to 11 years in prison. 

The federal government declined to pursue criminal charges against Sugarman, instead opting to sue him in civil court in hopes of recouping the $9million that he is alleged to have pocketed from the scheme.

Galanis, the son of reputed white-collar criminal John Peter Galanis, was once dubbed 'Porn's New King' in 2002 after his company purchased iBill, which at the time was the largest processor of credit card payments used to procure pornographic material online.

In 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission named Sugarman in a complaint alleging that he and his business partner, Jason Galanis, orchestrated a scheme in which they and others 'stole $43million from unwitting pension funds' to finance the acquisition of a conglomerate of European and Bermuda-based insurance companies.

Sugarman and Galanis are then alleged to have used the funds to pay off debt, buy real estate, shore up the operations of their existing businesses, compensate co-conspirators, and make other investments to enrich themselves.

In order to 'cover their tracks,' Sugarman and Galanis made several 'complex' transactions that involved 'victimizing' a Native American corporal tribal corporation, the Washington State-based Wakpamni Lake Community Corporation, according to the SEC.

Sugarman and Galanis were accused of 'surreptitiously siphon[ing] millions of dollars in cash from the entities that they acquired,' the complaint read.

The scheme destroyed the European insurance conglomerate, Liechtenstein-based Valorlife and Wealth-Assurance AG, which was placed in adminstrative receivership.

Administrative receivership is a procedure in which a creditor is legally empowered to take control over a company's assets, run the business, and then dispose of the assets, either piecemeal or as part of the sale of the business as a going concern, in order to satisfy the secured debt.

The Bermudan insurance holding company, VL Assurance, was delisted from the Bermuda Stock Exchange, according to the SEC filing.

Sugarman and Galanis victimized a Native American corporal tribal corporation, the Washington State-based Wakpamni Lake Community Corporation, according to the SEC

The SEC claims that in March 2014, Galanis and his father, John Galanis, convinced the Wakpamni Lake Community Corporation, which is said to have been owned by the federally recognized Oglala Sioux Tribe, to become the issuer of limited recourse bonds that the father and his son had already structured

The Native American tribe was left indebted for $60million.

According to the SEC, Sugarman 'was the biggest winner from the fraud.'

He 'ended up with voting control over corporate assets that were acquired with bond proceeds, and from which he ultimately siphoned almost $9million in cash for his direct and personal benefit,' according to federal investigators.

The SEC claims that in March 2014, Galanis and his father, John Galanis, convinced the Wakpamni Lake Community Corporation, which is said to have been owned by the federally recognized Oglala Sioux Tribe, to become the issuer of limited recourse bonds that the father and his son had already structured.

The plan was for the tribal corporation to use the proceeds from the bond sales to buy an annuity as an investment that could generate income, which would then pay interest to bondholders.

The sale of the bonds was also supposed to have generated funds that were to be used for tribal economic development purposes.

But the SEC alleges that Jason Galanis and Sugarman instead used the proceeds from the bonds for their own benefit.

They allegedly hatched a scheme to identify investors who would then buy the tribal bonds. 

In order to do that, they 'devised a plan to obtain control over investors' funds by acquiring investment advisers who would use their investment authority to purchase the bonds for their clients,' according to the complaint.

After acquiring the adviser firms, Sugarman and Galanis installed Michelle Morton at the helm, the SEC said. Morton then 'used client funds to purchase the tribal bonds in client accounts,' the complaint read.

Morton assumed the role of CEO of Hughes Capital Management LLC, a company that oversaw some $900million for various pension funds, according to the government.

The acquisition of Hughes Capital Management was allegedly financed by Sugarman.

The SEC alleges that Sugarman also engineered the acquisition of Atlantic Asset Management LLC. Morton was once again installed as CEO of that firm after the purchase, according to the SEC.

The plan was for the tribal corporation to use the proceeds from the bond sales to buy an annuity as an investment that could generate income, which would then pay interest to bondholders. The sale of the bonds was also supposed to have generated funds that were to be used for tribal economic development purposes

Without those companies' knowledge, 'Sugarman and Galanis exercised undisclosed control over both Hughes and AAM,' according to the SEC.

In August 2014, Hughes clients were told to buy $27million worth of tribal bonds, the SEC said.

Instead of using the proceeds to purchase an annuity, as per the terms of the bond's issuing documents, most of the profits would instead be used to personally benefit Sugarman, Galanis, and the entities they controlled, according to the SEC.

In April of 2015, Sugarman and Galanis directed Morton to buy another $16.2milion in tribal bonds with funds from AAM clients, according to the complaint.

'Again, none of the proceeds was ever invested in a legitimate annuity,' the SEC said.

Wealth-Assurance was the company that provided financing for the purchase of Hughes, according to the complaint.

Sugarman and Galanis arranged for Wealth-Assurance to buy Valorlife with $11million in tribal bond proceeds, according to the SEC.

The two are also alleged to have arranged for VGL in Bermuda to buy VL Assurance using a tribal bond. VL Assurance is then alleged to have funneled over $8million to Sugarman as purported loans to him or his affiliated entity. 

Advertisement