Long Island Man Helped Dupe Investors Out of $700,000: Prosecutor

MASSAPEQUA, NY — A Long Island man has been charged with duping investors and potential investors out of $700,000 over a four-month span, according to a criminal complaint that was unsealed in federal court on Tuesday in Central Islip on Tuesday.

Mark Lisser was arrested Tuesday morning and was scheduled to appear in court Tuesday afternoon after the U.S. Attorney’s Office charged him with wire fraud for lying and convincing investors into buying what they believed to be shares of several companies before they were to go public, authorities said.

If convicted, Lisser faces up to 20 years in prison after acting U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Seth D. DuCharme said Lisser lied to potential investors about how much of their money he was keeping for himself and his own purposes.

According to the criminal complaint, Lisser was a partner in Knightsbridge Private Partners LLC, which ran a series of websites and call centers used to solicit investments in what was purported to be pre-IPO shares of companies, the U.S. Attorney said. Between Oct. 2018 and Jan. 2019, Lisser and other Knightsbridge employees solicited investments by telling people that Knightsbridge owned the supposed shares of the companies and that he and other employees would not earn any commissions or fees until the shares were issued to the public and investors made money on the deal.

In actuality, Knightsbridge did not own the shares — which Lisser knew, according to authorities —and was not on the capitalization table of any of the pre-IPO companies. The U.S. Attorney also maintains that Lisser and other employees were in fact receiving money and fees from the investments at the time they were made, according to the criminal complaint.

As result of the scheme, Lisser misappropriated more than $700,000 in investors’ money, which authorities say that he used to make payments to companies controlled by Knightsbridge employees, to pay salaries and sales commissions, to make payment on his mortgage and to pay personal credit card bills, authorities said Tuesday.

“As an investment firm partner, Lisser encouraged his victims to purchase pre-IPO shares of companies that weren’t his to sell, as we allege today,” FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney said Tuesday in a news release. “He purportedly used this money to make illegitimate payments, fund salaries, and satisfy his monthly mortgage payments. Padding one’s pockets at the expense of others isn’t only a bad way to do business, it’s a federal crime.”