BUSTED: Which NYC Firm’s Former Managing Partner Is Accused of Ripping Off $2 Million From Investors?

A CPA and former managing partner at New York City-based Marks Paneth LLP was arrested by federal authorities in Florida on Oct. 8 for allegedly bilking investors out of $2 million through an intellectual property scheme.

Steven Henning, Ph.D., 57, was charged with one count of wire fraud in a federal court in Jacksonville, Fla., on Oct. 9. He was arrested on Monday afternoon in St. Johns, Fla.

While the complaint states that Henning “was a managing partner at an accounting firm in Manhattan,” Law360 reported that accounting firm was Marks Paneth. The complaint also states that Henning was the partner-in-charge of advisory services at the accounting firm and served on the firm’s executive committee. He previously was a professor of accounting at a university in Texas.

A now-deleted bio of Steven Henning on Marks Paneth’s website said that he indeed was partner-in-charge of advisory services and served on its executive committee. An executive bio on Bloomberg shows that Henning had served as partner-in-charge of advisory at Marks Paneth since Jan. 1, 2016, and “served as an accounting professor for several years at the University of Colorado and most recently, at Southern Methodist University,” which is located in Dallas.

Marks Paneth has not responded to an email from Going Concern confirming Henning as a former employee.

While employed at the accounting firm, Henning formed OpportunIP in June 2008, which he allegedly told investors “was a company specializing in assisting other entities in taking intellectual property to the market,” Geoffrey Berman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement.

“Henning allegedly induced victims to invest in OpportunIP by providing them with false documents showing OpportunIP’s involvement in multi-million dollar transactions that would reap millions of dollars in future profits. Ultimately, the victims learned that the deals did not exist and they were victims of an alleged scheme to defraud them out of millions of dollars.”

U.S. Postal Inspection Service Inspector-in-Charge Philip Bartlett called Henning’s claims “nothing more than a bag of lies.”

The complaint states that OpportunIP had, at different times, offices in Purchase and Terrytown, N.Y. Henning was the CEO and “owned an interest in OpportunIP through an entity known as the Henning Family Partnership. Members of the accounting firm also owned interests in OpportunIP.”

Wire fraud carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or loss from the offense.

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