Hell and Gone Murder Line: Heidi Planck [Update]

0:46Speaker 1:School of Humans. Helen Got Murder Line actively investigates cold case murders in an effort to raise public awareness invite witnesses to come forward and present evidence that could potentially be further investigated by law enforcement. While we value insights from family and community members, their statements should not be considered evidence and point to the challenges of verifying facts inherent in cold cases. We remind listeners that everyone has presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.

1:18Speaker 1:Nothing in the podcast is intended to state or imply that anyone who has not been convicted of a crime is guilty of any wrongdoing. Thanks for listening.

1:29Speaker 2:On Sunday, October seventeenth, twenty twenty one, thirty nine year old Heidi Plank left her home in West Los Angeles near Culver City to head out to her eleven year old son's football game in Downey, which was about seventeen miles away. Heidi and her husband, Jim Wayne, had divorced a few years earlier. They shared custody of their son. When she left the house that day, security footage showed her dressed in jeans and a white T shirt with a smiley face on it. She had a gray sweater wrapped around her waist. Heidi had her black purse with her and also had her dog, a labradoodle named Seven, with her when she got into her silver range Rover.

2:09Speaker 2:The dog and the purse will become very important later. I have covered and followed this story for several years now. We covered it a couple of years ago on a previous episode of Helengne Murder Line. And when I first saw this story, I remember thinking that I related to Heidie immediately because I also have a small dog who goes everywhere with me. Heidi Plank went to her son's game. At that game, people noticed that she seemed nervous. Her ex husband, Jim Wayne later used the word agitated. Heidi left abruptly at halftime at around four thirty pm and was never seen alive again by her friends and family, and it didn't take long for the rumors to start flying about Heidie's past struggles with drugs, Heidie's boss, his links to big money and powerful people in Los Angeles.

3:01Speaker 2:I said before that this story was playing out like a real life version of the movie Chinatown, and there are a lot of new updates in this case about illegal gambling rings, organized crime, and what happened to Heidie's boss, Jason Sugarman and the millions of dollars that prosecutors allege he stole from a Native American tribe. I'm Catherine Townsend. Over the past eight years of making my true crime podcast, Telling Gone, I've learned that there is no such thing as a small town where murder never happens. I have received hundreds of messages from people all around the country asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. If you have a case you'd like me and team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six one four five.

3:51Speaker 2:That's six seven eight seven four four six one four five, or you can send us a message on Instagram at Helen Gonepod. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Everyone in Los Angeles seemed to be obsessed with the Heidi Plank case. There were a lot of threads to follow, and from the beginning, one thing that struck a lot of people was that, from the outside, Heidi's story didn't seem to make sense. The details of her life didn't quite add up. There were a lot of angles for police to consider.

5:10Speaker 2:Heidi had had a contentious divorce with her ex husband, a high power job that it wasn't clear that she had the experience for, and her boss was being investigated by the SEC. But before all that, and before the rumors of wild parties, illegal gambling rings, and organized crime kicked in, we have to back up and figure out who was Heidi and what was going on in her life at the time she disappeared. Heidi was born and raised in Buffalo, New York. She moved to California in two thousand and one to go to college. Heidi started her career in in real estate. After graduation. According to her LinkedIn page, Heidi worked for Coldwell Banker and Douglas Ellman, and then she started working for a company called Camden Capital Partners. Her boss there was forty eight year old Jason Sugarman. Now Jason Sugarman is well known in Los Angeles finance circles. He graduated from Yale and is described as a leader in the finance industry, and he describes himself on his website as a father, CEO, and philanthropist.

6:13Speaker 2:Jason Sugarman's father in law is Peter Goober, the owner of the Dodgers. Police were taking a look at everyone in Heidie's life, including her ex husband, Jim Wayne, a sixty three year old hairstylist in Beverly Hills. Heidi and Jim married in two thousand and eight, and they divorced four years later. Now, Jim and Heidi had had their issues like many divorce couples, and they went through a custody battle during their divorce. Jim claimed that after their son was born, Heidi had to struggled with postpartum depression, and according to court documents, Jim claimed that in late twenty fifteen, Heidi had had what he described as a full psychotic break. He said due to her addiction to adderall.

6:58Speaker 2:At that time, Jim had had full custody of their son, named Bond, But then Jim said that Heidi got better and in twenty seventeen they began sharing joint custody. Since then, they had been getting along and successfully co parenting. Police did look into the relationship between Jim Wayne and Heidi. He was completely cooperative with the investigation. He reported her missing immediately and also court records show that Jim had paid Heidi a lump sum in twenty twelve when they divorced, but he had not sent her money since then. Heidi earned more than Jim, and actually Heidi paid Jim child support, So Jim did not appear to have any motive, either personal or financial, for causing Heidi harm, and the police did not consider Jim a suspect in Heidie's disappearance. Jim told LA magazine that after their split, Heidi had started her new job working for Camden Capital Partners, first as an assistant and later as a financial controller. Jim later told Dateline Heidi didn't have the education for that type of senior finance job, and he claimed that before Heidi went missing, she told him that she was nervous about

8:13Speaker 2:the fact that her boss, Jason Sugarman, supposedly put her name on financial documents connected to the firm. So what was going on on the day Heidi disappeared? What caused her to be on edge at the game and to leave early. Jim said that after the game, the last time that he saw or heard from Heidi was at around seven pm that night, when she responded to one of her son Bond's texts about the game. Bond sent another text after that, talking about a play he made, but Heidi did not respond to that text. Jim told multiple media outlets that that was completely out of character for Heidi and that she would never not respond to her son. Court record show that Bond continued to reach out to his mother. On October eighteenth, at seven thirty one pm, Bond wrote in a text message, can you please call me back? I called you two days in a row and you haven't picked up. On October twentieth, Heidi was supposed to pick Bond up from school to start her custody time, but she never showed up. Jim picked his son up and drove straight to the police station to report Heidi missing, and once Jim started calling

9:27Speaker 2:around to Heidie's friends, he realized the last confirmed sighting of her seemed to be at Bond's football game on Friday. Police talked to Heidie's friends and acquaintances, including a guy she was seeing at the time, Naim Salaam, who worked for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative in San Francisco, but police quickly found out Heidie's boyfriend had been in the Bay Area during the entire time when Hidie went missing. In fact, he told police he thought Hidie had been annoyed with him and possibly ghosting him. Police quickly confirmed he was hundreds of miles away at his home when Hidie went missing, and they did not consider him a suspect. Hide's boyfriend told police something else. He said that one of the last times he talked with her, Heidi said she was afraid or worried about something. Heidie's boyfriend told Jim Wayne that she had texted him that she was scared and asked him to come down to La to visit her the weekend she went missing, but Naim said he couldn't make it that weekend. So what was the source of Heidie's stress and fear? Could it have been connected to her job or her boss, Jason Sugarman. There had been

10:40Speaker 2:some major stresses on Jason Sugarman at that time related to the SEC investigation that detailed an alleged multimillion dollar scam perpetuated by Jason and his business partner, Jason Galanis. Jason Galanas had a lot of business interests, including creating a billing service for adult websites, which led to Forbes calling Jason Galanis, Porn's new king. According to the SEC indictment, Galanas and Sugarman, the two Jasons, as they referred to them, stole forty three million dollars from pension funds of a Native American tribe of the Sioux Nation. Court documents stated that this alleged scam started back in twenty fourteen, when Jason Galanis and his father, John Galanis obtained tribal bonds and convinced the tribe that they would sell these bonds and use the proceeds to invest the money for the tribe. Instead, the SEC claimed they simply stole the money. Later, Jason Galanis and Jason Sugarman bought a bunch of companies together, including Hughes Capital Management LLC and Atlantic Asset Management LLC. Now, the SEC said that they also named a code defendant into a management role of these enterprises, but the indictment

11:57Speaker 2:claimed this person they had named was really just a straw man, and that actually the two Jasons remained in control of everything. And then, according to the indictment, Jason Galanis and Jason Sugarman allegedly began laundering money through a series of fraudulent transactions. They and their co defendants allegedly stole sixty million dollars from the Native American Travel Corporation and more money from other companies they'd acquired. The indictment stated that Jason Sugarman was quote the biggest winner from the fraud and that he ultimately siphoned almost nine million dollars in cash for his direct and personal benefit end quote.

12:38Speaker 2:Jason Sugarman was also mentioned in connection with Hunter Biden's now notorious life laptop. Emails from Hunter's laptop reportedly showed that Jason was a director and key shareholder of Burnham Financial Group, and that group pitched a major deal to Hunter's Chinese business partners in twenty fifteen. Another one of Jason Sugarman's partners who's also mentioned in the SEC indictment is Hunter's friend and business partner Devon Archer. Hunter Biden's lawyer has said that Hunter had nothing to do with the Native American bond scheme. The lawyer said this scheme just happened to be happening at the same time as the negotiations with the Chinese investors. According to The Sun, Hunter's lawyer said Hunter's name had been used without his knowledge, and that Hunter's business interests were not affiliated with the Burnham Group or with the defendants and the tribal bond case.

13:31Speaker 2:In January of twenty seventeen, Jason Galanis pled guilty to criminal charges in connection with the fraud, and he began serving a sentence of one hundred and seventy three months. Devin Archer was convicted for his involvement in the tribal scam in twenty eighteen. He was sentenced to three hundred and sixty six days in federal prison and ordered to make restitution in the amount of over forty three million dollars according to the Department of Justice. But the case against Jason Sugarman was very much active in twenty twenty one when Heidi Plankq went missing and there was another piece of evidence that would come into play, Heidi's work laptop.

14:16Speaker 2:Jim Wayne went to Heidie's house on October twentieth. He found her work laptop and phone. He turned those over to police, and at the same time, Jim was also starting to do some of his own detective work by trying to track some of Heidi's other devices. Jim tried to track Heidi's car with the location tracking system, but according to court documents, Heidi's location services were not on, and he tried to find my phone feature on her iPhone and Apple Watch and her earbuds, but he later said the location features for all of those devices were disabled as well. He openly stated he wondered if this was a coincidence or if someone other than Heidi had turned those tracking devices off. Jim Wayne said that on October twenty first, the day after he reported Heidi missing, he got a phone call from an SEC executive asking questions about Jason Sugarman. Then something else, very strange happened.

15:15Speaker 2:CBS Los Angeles ran video of Jason Sugarman ringing Heidi's doorbell and then leaving donuts on the doorstep, video that the news station says was captured a day or two after Heidi went missing. In that footage, you can see Jason ringing the bell once, dropping the donuts, and leaving. He doesn't seem to hesitate at all or try to look inside. Heidi's finances were also being question by investigators. As we said before, Heidi worked as a financial controller for Camden Capital Partners, which reportedly gave her a salary of one hundred and forty five thousand dollars per year, plus generous bonuses. Police were starting to ask how she could afford the rent on her one point seven million dollar townhouse and how she could afford to buy a ninety thousand dollars fully loaded land Rover. To complicate matters further, Heidi's rented Culver City property was listed in corporate documents and public records as the company office of Camden Capital Partners.

16:21Speaker 2:When he was questioned about her finances, Jim Wayne told Los Angeles Magazine, quote, You're going to have to ask Heidi or her boss. All I know is that she always had piles of cash and took a lot of vacations. She told me that her boss floats her money when they close a deal. End quote. According to a transcript of a hearing relation to Heidie's laptop, the prosecution in Jason Sugarman's case stated that Heidie's disappearance was separately being investigated by the LAPD as a homicide, while the judge in Jason's case was trying to figure out who might have rights to the items in Heidie's home in a rented storage unit. The filings to the SEC connected to the case were sealed with a protective order, so a lot of the details were not made public, which just added to the speculation and intrigue around this case. Jim Wayne told LA magazine and others that he believed Jason Sugarman could be connected to Heidie's disappearance, but there was no evidence that the police ever considered Jason Sugarman a suspect in Heide's disappearance, and he has never been arrested or charged in connection with her disappearance. Jim Wayne threw

17:38Speaker 2:even more shade on Jason Sugarman when he said that shortly after Heidie disappeared that Jim had called Heidie's office, and he said he did not feel that Jason was concerned about Heidie's whereabouts, but he told The Daily Mail, Jason Sugarman did seem to be very worried about something else, Heidi's work laptop. The laptop, again, was the one that was inside Heidie's house, the one that Jim had taken out of there and handed over to the police. But Jason's attorney told LA magazine that the work laptop should never have been taken by the sec and that the work laptop should have been considered stolen property. Jim Wayne said someone at Jason Sugarman's office had told him that they believed that Heidi was quote siphoning off money from the company end quote. Jim said, in his opinion, stealing would be completely out of character for Heidi and he does not believe that this could be true. Jim also claimed that he learned from police that Heidi did not have a lot of money in her personal accounts. On October twenty ninth, news broke that police and federal agents were entering Heidi planks townhouse, but they found no signs

18:49Speaker 2:of Heidi inside. Then there was another break in the case. Jim Wayne got messages from a young couple who lived in a downtown apartment building called the Hope and Flower Building. They said that Seven had been roaming the hallways on either the twenty eighth or twenty ninth floor alone. There was no sign of Heidi. Police were then able to pull surveillance footage from in and around the building where seven was found, and they found more footage of Heidi alive.

19:20Speaker 2:She was alive on October seventeenth, at around six thirty PM, several hours after she left her house and her son's game. The footage showed Heidi wearing the same clothing she'd had on when leaving her house and at the football game, with her dog, walking down an alley between eleventh and twelfth Streets. This is an alleyway that runs behind the Hope and Flower building. Speared to be wearing the sweater that had been tied around her waist in the earlier footage.

19:48Speaker 2:There was some question in the beginning, even about the footage in a case where nothing is what it appeared to be. Some people said the footage did not look like Heidi, that the hair looked darker, almost brown, or like she was wearing a wig. But some of Heidie's close friends did come forward and they stated that it was definitely Heidie, that the lighting was just a little bit weird. This footage appeared to be a major break in the case because it massively narrowed down the window of time when Heidie went missing. Heidi didn't have her purse with her, just her dog, and by the way, her black purse was never recovered, which pointed to the theory that Heidie could have gone to visit someone in the building and ducked out to walk her dog in that little alley. A lot of people online made the same comment that I was thinking, I wouldn't leave my purse with anyone that I did not fully trust. Again, none of Heidie's friends nor Jim had any idea if Heidi knew any one who lived in that building or what she was doing there, except for one person. Another one of Heidi's friends told reporters that they had talked

20:53Speaker 2:to building staff, who apparently told a friend that they had recognized Heidi and her dog. Seven attention focused more and more on the Hope and Flower Building. The Hope and Flower Building was billed as a luxury high rise, but several residents claimed that there had been theft, drug use, dogs defecating on their terraces, piles of trash in the hallway, and they claimed that their secured parking spaces are constantly vandalized and broken into. When I first started investigating this case, I went to a prayer vigil for Heidi held at the Hope and Flower Building. I met some of the residents there and a lot of reporters. This was a big story. A mom of one who seemed to have vanished into thin air in the middle of downtown LA in the middle of the afternoon. Then, on November fourth, twenty twenty one, police found Heidie's Range Rover. It was parked in a garage several blocks from the Hope and Flower building. The car, by the way, was very near the alley where Heidie was seen walking on video. So why would Heidie not park in the building's parking lot.

22:01Speaker 2:Why would she park several blocks away? Was Heidie's disappearance in any way connected to information on that work laptop and the pending SEC investigation. Could Heidi have had access to information that could have put her in danger? Or was everything going on at work just a coincidence. Police also considered the possibility the given Heidie's background, she could have gone missing voluntarily. Maybe she had some sort of mental health issue. Heidie's family said no way. They said that would not explain while all of her tracking devices were shut off, and they have been adamant that nothing in Haidee's behavior ever suggested that she would voluntarily leave her son, And apart from that, they say there's no way that Heidi would have abandoned her dog. She would never have left her dog to fend for himself by choice.

22:53Speaker 2:I lived in la for a long time, and I'm very familiar with the downtown area where Heidi went missing. I got messages on Instagram from several residents of that building who told me the LAPD had been to the Hope and Flower building. The residence said they had been smelling a foul stench from the trash chute. They said that they had heard that a bloody mattress or possibly even a body, had been taken from the building. Then the LAPD released a statement that indicated they might be following the evidence trail inside that building. The LAPD said in a statement quote forensic evidence was located inside the building, which has led detectives to believe an incident occurred resulting in Plank's death end quote, but they never publicly said what that forensic evidence was. They also said that further investigation has led investigators to the Chakiitaki Canyon landfill, which is about forty miles northwest of the downtown location where Heidi was last seen. The LAPD released a statement and said they were looking in a specific area of the landfill for human remains. The Sun newspaper reported that the

23:59Speaker 2:Shaquita Canyon Landfill is where the waste disposal company that services the Hope and Flower Building dumps its trash. The LAPD has not revealed much about what they found inside that building or at the landfill, if anything. The case was transferred from Missing Persons to LAPD Robbery Homicide in December of twenty twenty one. The LAPD stated that they now believe that the incident involving Heidi happened on October seventeenth, and that Heidi is now dead and they believe that whatever bad thing happened to her happened at that downtown building.

24:39Speaker 2:Jim Wayne told the Son that he has talked to the LAPD and says police have told him that up to five people were involved in what happened to Heidi. He wasn't the only one, because rumors started circulating among residents in the building and in downtown LA that Heidi had died at a party in the Hope and Flower Building and that her body and possibly a blood soaked mattress had been thrown into the trash shoe. Then the case took another weird twist. The Sun reported that people who lived in the Hope and Flower Building had told the LAPD that Heidi went to a party in the building and may have overdosed on drugs, and that someone at the party panicked and dumped her body in a trash shoe. A woman who hosts a true crime show on YouTube told the newspaper she went to the building and ran into someone there who claimed to have witnessed Heidi die of an overdose at a huge party in the building. This person claimed they had been told that Heidi had stopped at the building to see a guy she had been dating and to get some adderall from him, and that Heidi dropped her dog off with a dog sitter to go to this party. Then this person claimed

25:56Speaker 2:Heidi was at the party with drugs and strippers and cryptocurrency gambling. But then this person stated that Heidi overdosed in the middle of the dance floor and that she was later told that Heidi had taken something, possibly adderall lace with fentanyl. She then told the newspaper that quote a bunch of them took her out and put her in the garbage chute and pushed her down end quote. A reporter from the Sun saw one of these video clips that this person claimed showed Heidi overdosing, but the reporters said they were not able to verify either the videos or the photo, and this story sounded wild, but later a version of it would come up again. Dateline covered this case, and police stated that surveillance data from the Hope and Flower building showed that there were lots of people there to question. This was kind of a vague statement, but it seemed clear that investigators were considering the possibility that Heidi had gone to a party in this building. But Heidie's friend Natalie told Dateline she didn't buy the party theory. She pointed out that Heidi was dressed super casually, not for a party. Dateline also interviewed

27:05Speaker 2:an investigative reporter, Eric Leonard, who covered the case extensively for K ANDBC. Eric said that his reporting indicated that investigators were working on a theory that Heidi might have taken something laser fentanyl. He told Dateline that they were able to confirm that after Heidi died, she was likely put into an upper floor trash shoe and her body fell into the trash compactor. Heidi Plank was officially declared dead by a judge in twenty twenty three. Jason Sugarman has not been charged with any wrongdoing in connection with Heidie's disappearance. He settled his case with the SEC and paid his fine. Since we last reported on this story, there have been more developments in Jason Galanis and Devon Archer's cases. Both Jason Galanis and Devon Archer were pardoned by President Trump. When Jason Galanis was pardoned in twenty twenty five, it was reported that he does not have to pay back the one hundred and sixty two million dollars in fines. Jason Sugarman's civil case has also come to a close. On January tenth, twenty twenty three, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New

28:16Speaker 2:York entered a final judgment against Jason Sugarman. He was ordered to pay over ten point two million dollars and as a result, the charges against him were dropped. He was also banned from participating in the securities industry for three years. After settling his case with the SEC and paying his fine, Jason Sugarman moved on with his life. Heidi Plank's case faded into the background, but then into tenty twenty five Heidie's name was in the news again.

28:47Speaker 2:A big story broke that people were being indicted in connection with an underground gambling ring based in the San Fernando Valley, and that some of those same people had been suspected of running an illegal poker room in the Hope and Flower Building, the same building where Heidie was last seen. NBCLA reported that they had spoken to sources who indicated that Heidi might have either met up with someone who was at that poker game or visited the party in the building that day. This story was big news in Los Angeles because former NBA player Gilbert Arenas was one of the eight people, according to the indictment, who were alleged to have been involved in the San Fernando Valley gambling ring. However, NBCLA reported that there was no evidence that Gilbert, who played for the Washington Wizards, had any connection to the downtown gaming room. After appearing in court, Gilbert posted on x that he was back on the streets and that he was not part of any alleged illegal gambling at that residence. But federal prosecutors claimed that Gilbert texted co defendants' images of a poker table with Arana's Poker Club printed on it and provided

29:55Speaker 2:fourteen thousand dollars in startup funds. Federal prosecutors say that a forty eight year old professional poker player Evgeney, Eugene Terrevski, and ev Gueney Jora Gershman, a forty nine year old Israeli national from Woodland Hills, were involved in the illegal poker games, which prosecutors further alleged were run by Israeli or Russian organized crime families. Yeb Gueney Gershman, Eugene Tcherevsky, and Gilbert Arenas have pleaded not guilty and are slated to face trial in November of twenty twenty six. One investigator wrote in the affidavit about the organized crime families quote they are known for engaging in murder, car bombings, and extortion rackets throughout the world as a tool for intimidation and control end quote. According to the two ty twenty two search warrants, one of the people running these games told investigators that the players there could win or lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in a single night, and that the minimum by in was normally at least fifteen thousand dollars. But what connection do any of these people have with Heidi? If any, we don't know for sure.

31:07Speaker 2:Court records indicate that Heidi Plank attended a similar game in the Hope and Flower Building. Media reports indicate that the FBI raided homes in Sherman Oaks while investigating leads about Heidie's case, but the FBI has not made any public statements about these alleged connections. Law enforcement sources have stated that they believe that people who were at the building on the day Heidi vanished no more information, but they believe some people are unwilling to come forward due to their own involvement in alleged illegal activity. Heidi's family has continued to tell her story. They're still looking for her, and they have posted billboards all over Los Angeles asking for anyone who knows anything to please come forward. Jim Wayne now has full custody of Bond and Heidie's dog is also living with them. He has made statements to Los Angeles Magazine and others indicating that he continues to believe that Heidie's boss, Jason Sugarman, could somehow be involved in her disappearance. The Los Angeles Police Department has asked that anyone who was near or in twelve oh one South Hope Street on or around October seventeenth, twenty twenty one,

32:21Speaker 2:and has any information that could help detectives to contact the Robbery Homicide Division at two Pine three four eight six six eight four to zero. Everyone is talking about conspiracy theories and million dollar deals and alleged connections to politicians or drug dealing or poker rings. Meanwhile, a young boy has lost his mother and Heidie's family is unable to bear her because her remains have never been found. Eric Lennard, the reporter who covered this case, told Dayline that, in his opinion, the theory about attending a poker game would seem to explain why Heidi was reportedly seen on camera going into the building but was not seen leaving.

33:03Speaker 2:One thing that really sticks out to me about this case is Heidie's dog. All of Heidi's digital device's location services were turned off, so if her dog had not been microchipped, there would have been no connection to the Hope and Flower building, and no one might have ever known about the possibility that. On October seventeenth, twenty twenty one, Heidi Plank went into that building in downtown LA, and she never came out. I'm Catherine Townsend. This is Helen Gone Murder Line. Helen Gone Murder Line is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and narrated by me Catherine Townsend and produced by Etily's pres Special thanks to Amy Tubbs for her research assistance and to Sarah Burns for legal review. Noah camer mixed and scored this episode. Our theme song is by Ben Sale, Executive producers of Virginia Prescott, Brandon Barr, and L. C. Crowley.

33:57Speaker 2:Listen to Helen Gone ad Fred by subscribing to the iHeart True Crime Plus channel on Apple Podcasts. If you were interested in seeing documents and materials from the case, you can follow the show on Instagram at Helen Gonpod or on Patreon at Catherine Townsend Investigates. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder Line at six seven eight seven four four six' one four five at six seven eight seven four four six' one.

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34:33Speaker 1:School of humans