Christopher Szechenyi has nineteen years of experience as a private investigator. As the president and founder of On Point, Chris has conducted a wide range of investigations into corporate securities fraud, qui tam and antitrust cases for law firms from coast to coast. His firm and he have investigated dozens of cases that have settled for more than $1 billion.

Before he became a licensed private investigator, he worked as the Director of Investigations of a boutique law firm in Boston where he conducted financial, accounting and fraud investigations. He is a former newspaper reporter, science writer and producer for 60 Minutes based in Paris, France, working primarily for Mike Wallace, on stories all over the world.

He taught journalism for ten years at Emerson College in Boston. Chris’ awards include two regional Emmys and a national award from Investigative Reporters and Editors. He earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism at Lehigh University and graduated cum laude from Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, CT.

Before he launched his career as a journalist and private investigator, Szechenyi originally studied the sciences with the goal of becoming an oceanographer. He worked as an intern in high school aboard a Woods Hole Oceanographic research ship in the Atlantic Ocean, and then he crossed the Indian Ocean for two months with Woods Hole researchers aboard another vessel, which was later used to discover the Titanic on the sea floor.

Szechenyi speaks French and has worked as an investigative reporter and producer in many countries around the world, including Argentina, Britain, Cambodia, France, Japan, Italy, the Philippines, South Africa and the former Yugoslavia.

Among hundreds of interviews that he has conducted during his career, three stand out: one with Correspondent Ed Bradly of Nelson Mandela, on the eve of his election as South Africa’s first black president; another with Abdullah bin Laden, one of Osama’s brothers, a week after 9/11; and another with John Connolly, after the corrupt FBI agent in Boston was accused of being an accomplice of Whitey Bulger, the Irish mobster convicted of multiple murders.

Jake Bernstein is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist. He won his first Pulitzer for National Reporting in 2011 for coverage of Wall Street's role in the 2008 financial crisis. His second Pulitzer for Explanatory Reporting came for his work as a Senior Reporter with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) on the Panama Papers investigation. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, ProPublica, and The Guardian, among others. He was the editor of The Texas Observer. Bernstein is the author of The Laundromat and the coauthor of Vice: Dick Cheney and the Hijacking of the American Presidency. Berstein is investigating securities fraud, whistleblower cases and antitrust matters for On Point.

Based in Los Angeles, Stephanie Stanley has been working with On Point as a senior investigator since 2013 on complex securities fraud, whistleblower and antitrust cases. She produced witnesses for cases against Tesla, Facebook, Etsy, Barclays, Chipotle, Fiat Chrysler, Lumber Liquidators, DeVry, Insys, Rite Aid, and Kay Jewelers, among others. Prior to her work as a private investigator, Stephanie spent a decade as an award-winning investigative newspaper reporter. Stephanie holds a M.S. in journalism from Columbia University in New York. She is a licensed private investigator in California.

Sara DV Szechenyi is On Point's Vice President of Finance. She is a former financial advisor and wealth management advisor, who worked at Bank of America and Merrill Lynch, and other financial institutions. She graduated from Merrimack College with a degree in marketing and psychology. She is an avid horseback rider, scuba diver and world traveler.

Based out of North Florida, James joined On Point in January 2022 after retiring from a distinguished 24-year career as an FBI Supervisor and Special Agent. An accomplished investigator, he led hundreds of high profile, pressing investigations in international organized crime, money laundering, violent crime, narcotics trafficking, terrorism, public corruption, and complex financial crimes. A skilled interviewer, James recruited some of the FBI’s top informants. Consistently recognized for his investigative work, James earned some of the FBI’s most prestigious awards during his career including the Attorney General Award for Excellence as well as a NY Federal Executive Board, among others. James has extensive investigative training and has testified in several high-profile trials and court matters. He is a trained crisis negotiator and an expert in criminal enterprise and terrorist group communications. Since working for On point, James has produced witnesses for several whistleblower and security fraud investigations including Context Logic, Affirm, Longeveron, Gingko Bioworks, Resonant, and several opioid manufacturers, amongst others. James holds a B.A in Sociology from Le Moyne College in Syracuse and an M.A in Criminology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, NY. NY.

Based near Portland, Steve Bursey joined On Point in 2021, after a distinguished career as an FBI agent in which he worked undercover on the ABSCAM political corruption case and on Operation Daisy, a fuel scam involving Russian and Italian organized crime as well as the Donnie Brasco mob infiltration operation.

He created the 17-member investigative team at Milberg Weiss and headed up investigations of Enron, Worldcom and Bernie Madoff.

He is a graduate of Tufts University and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering. He has investigated hundreds of whistleblower cases, antitrust and securities fraudcases, including those involving Tyco, Xerox and Lucent.

Based in Seattle, Lael Henterly joined On Point in 2015 as a senior investigator and has a special knack for getting people who are reluctant to share their stories and tell all for qui tam, securities fraud and antitrust cases. Lael has worked on cases involving mining, crypto-currencies, the pharmaceutical and banking industries. She probed opioid manufacturers and distributors and a securities fraud case involving the infamous pharma-bro Martin Shkreli.

Lael is a licensed private investigator in Washington state and has conducted interviews with hundreds of witnesses. Before she became an investigator, Lael worked as a journalist for various media outlets covering workers’ rights, criminal justice, immigration, and many other key issues. Her articles won both regional and national awards from the Society of Professional Journalists.

Lael earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of Washington. She is an active member of the Washington Association of Legal Investigators and the Pacific Northwest Association of Investigators, where she has served as treasurer and public relations committee chair.

Alex Ruppenthal joined On Point in 2019 as a researcher and has since conducted hundreds of investigative interviews and meticulous research in support of more than 75 cases. Alex conducted key interviews for a lawsuit against a major real estate software provider accused of price-fixing and inflating rental prices, a case that was picked up by the U.S. Department of Justice. Alex has contributed to numerous major antitrust investigations, including against some of the world's biggest tech firms, along with cases against a multinational bank with ties to sex traffickers and terrorists, corporate pharmacy chains accused of illegally distributing highly addictive opioid medications and a healthcare technology provider that schemed to defraud the government, among others. Alex has worked as a journalist covering local, state and federal levels of government for WTTW/PBS Chicago and GateHouse Media New England, and his work has also been published by Chicago magazine, ProPublica Illinois, WBEZ and other outlets. He won a first-place investigative journalism award from the New England Newspaper and Press Association for uncovering the lengthy history of misconduct by a Boston-area police detective. His journalism work also exposed brain-damaging pollutants threatening the health of Chicago residents and a gymnastics coach who was later charged with sexually abusing teenage gymnasts.

Allison Connolly joined On Point Investigations in 2013 as the firm's Director of Data and Research Management, assisting the firm's investigators with a wide variety of support. She helps identify potential witnesses for On Point’s class action cases, including securities fraud and antitrust cases. She works directly with On Point's President and Founder to maintain cases and to ensure all investigations move forward with successful results.

With a BA in Accounting and decades of experience with various technologies, Elizabeth joined On Point as its Finance Director in 2017. She handles all of On Point’s finances, accounting and client invoices. She has assisted clients both small and large, with tiny budgets and not-for-profits with budgets up to $45 million. She works closely with On Point’s president and each of the firm’s investigators to make sure all of its finances are accurate.

Leticia Miranda has been investigating business, retail and consumer goods for a decade for BuzzFeed News, NBC News and Bloomberg Opinion Based in Brooklyn, she has obtained confidential documents that uncovered third-party business schemes to manipulate search results and product listings on Amazon's marketplace. She has scoured public records that detailed how Dollar General’s negligence and thin staffing strategies led to violence against workers, theft and egregious health violations. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in Latin American/Latino Studies and Feminist Studies from the University of California, Santa Cruz and a master of arts degree in journalism from New York University's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute.

Sachi McClendon investivative reports have been published in USA Today, The Marshall Project, The Arizona Republic, Daily Beast, and many other outlets. In 2022, he published a series on the high rate of shootings in the U.S. Marshals Service, which became a finalist for the Harry Frank Guggenheim prize for Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting. His latest investigation for The Marshall Project revealed how a for-profit medical company was providing inadequate care to its incacerated patients. He holds a M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism.

Based outside Philadelphia, Nicki Egan joined On Point Investigations in 2020. Most recently, Nicki investigated a class-action lawsuit against a major international bank alleging the bank defrauded shareholders by making false and misleading statements before it agreed to pay a $150 million fine for compliance failures linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. She has a unique ability to get people to open up and a knack for bringing in even the most difficult interviews.

Nicki comes to On Point with more than 30 years' experience as an award-winning newspaper and magazine investigative journalist. During her career, she has exposed wrongdoing by the Pennsylvania State Police, freed innocent men from prison, and revealed loopholes in laws that resulted in those laws being changed. Most recently, she wrote CHASING COSBY, a book (and later a podcast) about the Bill Cosby drugging and sexual assault scandal, which is based on her reporting on the case dating back to 2005, when she was the first journalist in the world to dig into the allegations against him. Her second book, VICTIM F, which she co-authored with the subjects, comes out in June 2021.

She has a master’s degree in criminal justice from Temple University in Philadelphia and a journalism and political science degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Based in Tampa, John W. Allman is a skilled interviewer and a meticulous researcher. He is adept at getting people to talk about sensitive issues that they might not otherwise discuss, and he has extensive experience analyzing complex financial documents and identifying hidden corporate and individual assets.

John joined On Point’s team in 2015 as a senior investigator. He investigated a multinational mining company that he proved was bribing public officials in Indonesia for land rights, using slush funds illicitly. He was part of On Point’s opioid team for a national class action against the drug producers and distributors.

Prior to joining On Point and working an independent investigator since 2009, John worked as an investigative journalist of more than 20 years. He is a licensed private investigator in Florida, who is skilled in producing in depth interviews with witnesses for federal false claims securities fraud cases and antitrust investigations.

He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English and Mass Communications from Emory & Henry College in Virginia.

SALT LAKE CITY Andrew Becker joined On Point Investigations in 2021. Among other assignments, he has investigated a major pharmaceutical chain for violatons related to its opioid prescription practices. Andrew comes to On Point with more than 20 years' experience as an award-winning print and radio investigative journalist. He spent more than a decade covering border, homeland and national security issues, most recently for The Center for Investigative Reporting + Reveal in the San Francisco Bay Area. He has focused on waste, fraud and abuse, with stories ranging from corruption and the expanded use of drones along the U.S.-Mexico border to police militarization and the intersection of politics and policy related to immigration, terrorism and drug trafficking. His reporting has appeared in news outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Public Radio and PBS/FRONTLINE, been cited in U.S. Supreme Court and District Court briefs and highlighted by John Oliver on “Last Week Tonight.” He has a master’s degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

Jeff J. McDonald is a licensed private investigator located in Kansas City who started working with On Point Investigations in 2017. He is adept at doing surveillance on the ground and in the air, using multiple drones.

For On Point Investigations, McDonald conducted surveillance of large agricultural companies to investigate whether they were meeting USDA requirements to label their products - eggs, chicken and beef – as free range and charge consumers for it.

He is a graduate of the University of Kansas with a degree in Personnel Administration (Psychology, Sociology, Business) He is a charter member of the Kansas Association of Licensed Investigators and attends biannual investigation conferences.

Based in Mexico City, Megan Wallace has worked as an investigator and strategic partner for On Point since 2017. Among others, Megan has worked on a case against a Columbian mining company allegedly involved in a bribery scheme related to its business dealings. Wallace began her career in Kroll Associates’ New York office, where she worked as director of field research and she also was an associate partner at GPW Ltd.

Megan is fluent in Spanish and English, regularly conducting interview-based cases in both languages. Wallace attended the honors college at the University of Michigan, where she majored in art history. She has additionally studied law, placing first in her first-year class and qualifying to practice in New York.

Based in Los Angeles, Ryan Jawetz is a licensed private investigator who joined On Point in 2021, bringing with him nearly a decade of experience. He is currently working on a nationwide consumer fraud case involving the auto industry.

He previously worked for the Public Defender Service in Washington, DC and numerous public interest law offices in the New Orleans area. His investigations career has included discovering evidence of actual innocence in high-profile death row cases, uncovering juror misconduct during the assault trial of a public official, and gathering mitigation support for clients sentenced to life in prison as juveniles.

Ryan graduated from Pomona College with a degree in philosophy and is a member of the National Defender Investigator Association and the California Defense Investigators Association.

Mary Fesq joined On Point in 2013 as a senior member of its due diligence team. She has more than 30 years of experience in the investigative industry, specializing in sophisticated online database and publicly available resources on the national and international level. Among the cases she has investigated:

• an environmental lawsuit in West Virginia on behalf of local activists, which resulted in a multinational chemical company agreeing to stop the practices in question on the first day of trial;
• researched the international trail of certain antiquities from initial discovery through international drug smuggling routes to final sale, which resulted in the individual collector turning over the artifacts to the origin country;
• investigated targets in a nationwide investigation of illegal cigarette sales from Native American tribal lands on behalf of a nationwide transportation company being sued by a state attorney general for transporting untaxed cigarettes;
• conducted background due diligence of potential investors of professional sports teams to determine suitability for ownership;
• investigated professional and personal backgrounds of proposed directors in several well publicized proxy battles and hostile takeovers;
• and, conducted political opposition research for presidential and federal congressional campaigns, as well as state level races.

Mary previously worked for The Investigative Group International and The James Mintz Group. She attended Pomona College.