Missing Heidi Planck’s boss – under investigation for $43M fraud – drops off MUFFINS at her door

The boss of a missing California accountant who vanished without trace on October 17 was seen on surveillance camera footage dropping off muffins at her home ‘a day or two’ after she disappeared.

Heidi 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

Heidi Planck, a 39-year-old mother of one, works as a financial controller, overseeing all employees involved in the accounting process at Camden Capital Partners, where Jason Sugarman is a managing partner.

Sugarman is currently under investigation for a $43million fraud scheme. 

‘Heidi knows all of Jason’s and the company’s secrets. She knows where the bones are buried,’ said Planck’s ex-husband, Jim Wayne.

Sugarman was caught on camera casually dressed, leaving a gift at Planck’s home in the Reynier Village district of Los Angeles.

He rings the doorbell of the modern home and, receiving no answer, leaves the box on the doorstep and drives away. 

CBS News, which obtained the footage, said that it was ‘a day or two’ after Planck vanished.   

Jason Sugarman’s car pulls up to his employee Heidi Planck’s house, and he rings the bell

With no one answering the door, he leaves the box of muffins on the doorstep

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

The owners of the apartment building (pictured) in downtown LA where Planck’s dog was found initially refused to cooperate with investigators and hand over footage without a warrant. According to Wayne, they started to cooperate after a warrant was issued

She has not been seen since she left her son’s football game with her dog, Seven, at a sports field in Downey, Los Angeles, on October 17. 

Wayne called police to report her missing after she failed to collect their son from school on October 20. 

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

Seven the dog was found wandering alone on the 28th floor of an apartment block in downtown Los Angeles, perplexing investigators. Planck has no known connection to the building, friends and family said. 

Wayne told DailyMail.com he believes ‘the answer to Heidi’s whereabouts lies with her boss, Jason Sugarman, and his company.’        

Wayne said he received a phone call from a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigator on October 21 asking him about Sugarman and the firm.

‘They were interested in Sugarman and his company. They wanted to know what I know about them, and just generally asked me what I thought about Sugarman,’ he said.

Sugarman was charged by the SEC in 2019 with hatching a fraudulent scheme that swindled $43million out of pension funds and left a Native American tribe $60million in debt. 

His business partner, Jason Galanis, was sentenced to 189 months in prison for his participation in multiple fraudulent schemes including the tribal bond scheme last year.

Wayne said he had spoken to Sugarman’s assistant shortly after Planck disappeared and noted that her boss ‘didn’t appear to be too concerned that she had gone missing.’ 

According to Wayne, he received a phone call from an official with the Securities and Exchange Commission asking about Jason Sugarman (left), the managing partner at Camden Capital Partners LLC, the company that employs Planck. Pictured right: Jason with his wife Elizabeth Guber-Sugarman and their son in May 2014

He claimed Sugarman seemed more interested in making sure that her work computer was returned.

‘While I was on the phone with his assistant, I heard Sugarman in the background barking at his assistant to tell me, “make sure he knows I want my laptop”,’ Wayne said.  

‘There was no concern at all from my ex-wife’s employer. It’s a multimillion-dollar company, they didn’t offer to hire a private investigator or put up a reward. 

‘The only thing they really seemed concerned about was Heidi’s computer,’ he added. 

Wayne said he never returned the laptop and instead turned it over to the police.

He then spoke with the assistant again a few days later, but claimed this time the employee accused Planck of ‘siphoning off money from the company.’

When Wayne said he didn’t believe the accusations, the assistant allegedly claimed they had ‘proof’ and sent him several of Heidi’s personal bank statements. 

According to Wayne, he never looked at the bank documents in detail and gave them to the police and soon as he got them. 

He said officers later told him that Planck ‘didn’t have a lot of money in her accounts.’  

He added: ‘It was pretty low of Sugarman and his minions to accuse Heidi of basically embezzling when she’s mysteriously disappeared.’ 

He said that he has no idea how her employer had obtained her banking information. 

Wayne, a hairdresser, revealed Planck doesn’t have a college degree or any accounting licensure but was making good money as a bookkeeper, earning $125,000 a year plus monthly bonuses of up to $1,500 a month. 

James Wayne, the ex-husband of Heidi Planck, says he suspect’s the missing 39-year-old Los Angeles accountant’s disappearance is linked to her job as he revealed that federal investigators called him to ask questions about her boss. Jim Wayne is seen right with his then-wife in 2008

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

She has been employed at Camden Capital Partners LLC for the past five years, starting out as Sugarman’s personal assistant and working her way up to a bookkeeper.

‘Heidi knows all of Jason’s and the company’s secrets. She knows where the bones are buried,’ Wayne said.  

‘This whole thinks just stinks. Something just isn’t right, and I can’t put my finger on it.’

Planck’s home was raided by the FBI on October 29, with agents carrying away boxes of her belongings. 

According to Wayne, Planck had been ‘antsy’ at their son’s football game and ‘kept switching her seat, one minute she sat by us, the next she was over sitting in a different bleacher.’

She eventually left the football game at halftime. 

She was scheduled to pick up their 10-year-old son Bond at his private school in West LA three days later on October 20, but never arrived. 

Later that evening, she did not text her son goodnight nor did she return his message, which Wayne said was a little strange.  

The father, however, said he wasn’t too worried about it at the time and told his son that his mother may have been busy.

It wasn’t until he didn’t hear from his ex-wife a second day that he began to grow concerned.

‘Heidi is the type of mother who texts or calls her son, every night without fail when he’s not with her,’ he said. 

‘Heidi had a boyfriend in the San Francisco area for the past three years.  

‘I thought she may have made a last-minute decision to go visit him.’ 

Planck’s boyfriend, Na’eem Salaam, 43, works for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s charitable foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, as a vice president for operations. Planck reported told Salaam that she feared for her safety

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 

Na’eem Salaam, her 43-year-old boyfriend, works for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s charitable foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, as a vice president for operations.

Wayne told DailyMail.com that Planck had been dating a San Francisco-based man for the last three years.

Salaam and Planck had recently rowed about their long-distance relationship, Wayne told The Sun. 

Planck wanted Salaam to spend more time with her in Los Angeles, but Salaam insisted that he needed to be mainly in San Francisco. Wayne said he did not think it was a serious rift.  

Wayne said his son began to grow worried for his mother and when he dropped him off for school on October 20, still not being able to contact his ex-wife, told him he’d be there to pick him up.   

Wayne said he later arrived to see Planck hadn’t shown up.

‘It was then I started to get worried. I took my son and we both went over to the LAPD and filed a missing person’s report.’

Planck’s cousin, Trey Hawkins, told The Sun that the family was deeply troubled by her disappearance, saying it was very much out of character.  

He said it was approaching her son’s birthday – he turned 11 this week – and she would not ‘have just taken off.’

He added: ‘That is not in her character at all. We all feel something has happened.’

He said the family fears ‘some kind of foul play’.

‘Something has happened,’ he said. 

‘We are definitely worried about her. Clearly something was going on.

‘I know that she spoke to her mom a few days before she disappeared about her intention to come home for Thanksgiving.

‘She also talked to my other aunt and told her she was coming home and wanting to see them all.

‘Nothing was out of the ordinary in those chats. There was no indication anything was wrong.

‘The fact that my cousin was planning to come home for Thanksgiving, plans she was making days before she disappeared, and that her son’s birthday was just days away leads me to believe she did not run.’