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Steven Hoffenberg, a convicted Ponzi schemer and one-time Wall Avenue mentor to multimillionaire intercourse trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, was discovered lifeless in his Connecticut condo this week after a survivor of Epstein’s abuse referred to as native cops to do a welfare test.
Maria Farmer referred to as Derby police to test in on Hoffenberg, 77, after she failed to achieve him over the telephone. The 2 had been associates for years and spoke practically day-after-day. “He was household to me,” Farmer informed The Every day Beast on Wednesday. “I beloved him.”
In Hoffenberg, Farmer noticed a kind-hearted one that grew to become one other fall man for Epstein. He was somebody who misplaced his wealth and have become estranged from most of his household after his prison case. In jail, he grew to become a born-again Christian. Farmer says that lately, he was certainly one of a handful of individuals to help her throughout most cancers remedies. Now it seems he died alone in his modest condo not lengthy after getting COVID.
On Thursday, Derby Police Lt. Justin Stanko informed The Every day Beast that authorities consider a person found Tuesday at 8:08 p.m. is probably going Hoffenberg however that they had been ready for the medical expert to make a constructive identification. “Every bit of proof, his lease, paperwork, driver’s license… is pointing to the truth that it’s Mr. Hoffenberg,” Stanko mentioned.
Businessman Steven Hoffenberg in 1993.
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Stanko mentioned that a preliminary post-mortem confirmed no indicators of foul play or trauma and that police consider Hoffenberg, who was discovered on his bed room flooring, had died of pure causes.
Hoffenberg’s estranged daughter, who requested to not be named, informed The Every day Beast that he was not an lively a part of her life. They met a number of instances after his launch from jail.
“He spent 20 years in jail,” she mentioned. “I grew up with a single fantastic mom and by no means financially benefitted from any of his enterprise. I had an excellent life. He’s not a fixture.”
Different kin of Hoffenberg couldn’t be reached.
Farmer mentioned Hoffenberg struggled financially however wouldn’t settle for assist. She feared he was declining cognitively and had invited him to maneuver in along with her so she might take care of him. “He would by no means permit me to do something for him,” Farmer mentioned. “He solely needed to do for others. He mentioned, ‘Maria I’m spending the remainder of my life on this earth serving to folks.’”
Hoffenberg informed Farmer that he felt disgrace for trusting Epstein and taking him beneath his wing within the late '80s, after the financier left Bear Stearns. (Epstein had testified that his departure from the worldwide funding financial institution adopted a “reg d violation”; he’d lent a good friend cash to purchase inventory.)
“The world misplaced a real gentleman with one of many kindest hearts and one of the crucial loving souls I’ve ever met. He was so loyal. He was at all times there,” Farmer mentioned of Hoffenberg.
The financier, nevertheless, didn’t at all times have a glowing fame.
In 1995, Hoffenberg pleaded responsible to fraud and obstruction of justice in connection to his $460-million Ponzi scheme, then one of many largest in historical past.
A brash and cartoonish character, Hoffenberg made headlines in 1993 as the possible purchaser of the ailing New York Submit—a deal that was upended when the SEC sued him, claiming his debt-collection agency Towers Monetary Company had exaggerated revenue and property. In 1994, Manhattan federal prosecutors charged him with falsifying Towers’ information to current increased revenues for traders shopping for the corporate’s securities. Prosecutors mentioned Hoffenberg used the thousands and thousands he reaped to repay money owed and to fund his lavish life-style.
In 1997, Manhattan federal choose Robert Candy sentenced Hoffenberg to twenty years in jail for defrauding hundreds of traders in his debt-collection agency. (Earlier than he died in 2019, Candy would preside over Epstein sufferer Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s defamation swimsuit towards the intercourse trafficker's confederate Ghislaine Maxwell.)
Candy additionally ordered Hoffenberg to pay a $1 million effective and restitution of the $460 million he stole. Again then, The New York Occasionsreported, “In truth, the cash is gone, and people he defrauded bought again lower than a penny for each greenback they misplaced.” His sentence was longer than advisable by federal tips, partially due to victims’ letters that detailed to the courtroom how they’d misplaced their life financial savings, retirement cash, and different funds for well being care and schooling.
“I'm a 69-year-old girl who has been a instructor within the public faculties of Texas for many of my grownup life,” one sufferer wrote. “I invested virtually all of my life's financial savings, $112,000. . . . Mr. Hoffenberg has taken away what would have been a pleasant retirement revenue for me. So consequently, I've returned to instructing and can in all probability have to take action so long as I'm in a position.”
When Vainness Honest wrote a profile about Epstein in 2003, two years earlier than Palm Seashore cops started investigating him for molesting underage women, Hoffenberg’s identify surfaced in connection to the mysterious financier and his work for Towers. In keeping with the report, Hoffenberg employed Epstein as a marketing consultant and paid him $25,000 a month.
Three years after his 2013 launch from jail, Hoffenberg sued Epstein, blaming him for the fraud and arguing he ought to assist repay his hundreds of rip-off victims.
Earlier than he died, the Brooklyn native steadily commented to the press about Epstein and had accused the financier of being a “co-conspirator” in his Ponzi scheme. In one 2019 affidavit, Hoffenberg said, “Epstein has remained free and has used and benefited from the ill-gotten positive aspects he amassed because of his prison and fraudulent actions.”
“He was my greatest good friend for years. My closest good friend for years,” Hoffenberg informed CBS Information of Epstein in 2019. “We ran a staff of individuals on Wall Avenue, funding folks that raised these billion dollars illegally. He was my man, my wingman.”
Hoffenberg was additionally lively on Twitter, the place his bio nonetheless reads “NEW YORK POST C E O ( FORMER ), MEDIA, HOFFENBERG KNEW EPSTEIN FOR NINE YEARS, Epstein questions,” earlier than itemizing his e-mail deal with.
He steadily posted tales associated to the Epstein case and in help of Farmer. He additionally posted tweets accusing Epstein and Maxwell of being spies. (Neither Maxwell nor Epstein seems to have commented about these international intelligence claims.)
Final summer time, Hoffenberg recommended to Rolling Stone that Epstein “moved in intelligence circles” and had labored on initiatives with Maxwell’s media-mogul father, Robert, on his money owed.
Hoffenberg had vowed to the press to assist victims of his Ponzi scheme to recoup their losses by suing Epstein. He informed NPR in 2019, “I’m the primary one within the line to help the victims. At 74, I’d prefer to go to the pearly gates helping the victims.”
Whereas some folks balked at Hoffenberg’s public contrition, Farmer didn't.
Farmer mentioned she had tried reporting Epstein’s sexual abuse to the FBI within the mid '90s and had pushed for the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace to carry him accountable years earlier than his 2019 arrest. From her perspective, the Manhattan U.S. Legal professional made Hoffenberg a scapegoat for a criminal offense she believes was masterminded by Epstein.
“I grew to become his household and he grew to become mine,” Farmer mentioned of Hoffenberg. “Consider me, he had lots of people that beloved him.”
“It wasn’t somebody in his household who recommended that the police go get him. I used to be the one who observed he was gone.”
Donald Trump and his then-girlfriend Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted intercourse offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell in 2000.
Davidoff Studios Pictures/Getty
In keeping with Farmer and her good friend Michael Balcom, Derby cops initially appeared disinclined to test on Hoffenberg when Farmer phoned them on Saturday. “They mentioned, ‘We’re not doing a wild goose chase’,” Farmer mentioned, including that the officer she spoke to was reciting details about Hoffenberg that gave the impression to be from Wikipedia. “This police officer begins laughing and spouting out all these horrible issues about Hoff.”
Balcom, who's a former regulation enforcement officer, later referred to as police on Farmer’s behalf when she wasn’t getting solutions. He informed The Every day Beast that he gave police an deal with for Hoffenberg on Sunday however didn’t hear again. He mentioned that when he referred to as the division once more on Tuesday and warned he’d test on Hoffenberg himself, one other officer agreed to go to the house. The officer discovered Hoffenberg lifeless at his residence.
However Stanko mentioned that cops did reply to Farmer’s welfare-check requests however the deal with they initially obtained was incorrect. “Somebody figuring out themselves as a sufferer of Jeffrey Epstein was the one who initially referred to as,” he mentioned. “She was calling as a good friend of Mr. Hoffenberg and said she had not heard from him in a number of days. She was from out of state.”
Days later, Stanko added, a good friend of “the preliminary caller” supplied a second deal with.
“You'll be able to’t make everybody glad,” he mentioned when requested about Farmer’s complaints that it took days for cops to search out Hoffenberg. “The officer responded, contacted the owner, tried to do a canvas. Nobody knew something.”