LI Financial Advisor Lied To Clients About Investments

MASSAPEQUA, NY — An investment advisor from Massapequa pleaded guilty today to charges of lying to his clients about the initial public offerings (IPOs) of companies.

Mark Lisser, 40, pleaded guilty to securities fraud conspiracy for lying about the IPOs.

“With today’s guilty plea, the defendant admits to personally profiting from the false representations he made to his customers about the nature of their investments in valuable pre-IPO companies,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Mark Lesko. “This office and its law enforcement partners are committed to preventing dishonest advisors like the defendant from taking advantage of the investing public.”

According to prosecutors, between October 2018 and January 2019, Lisser was a partner at Knightsbridge Private Partners LLC, which operated a series of websites and call centers that were used to solicit investments in pre-IPO shares of companies. Employees of Knightsbridge, including Lisser, solicited the investments by lying to potential investors and saying that Knightsbridge owned the shares it was selling and that Knightsbridge employees didn't earn commissions or fees until after the shares were issued to the public and the investors were paid.

In reality, Knightsbridge did not own any shares and the employees earned money and commissions from the investments.

Through the scheme, authorities say Lisser misappropriated more than $700,000 in investors' money to make payments to companies controlled by Knightsbridge employees, pay salaries and commissions, pay his personal credit card bill and make payments on his mortgage.