Steven Hoffenberg, pictured in 1993, was discovered lifeless in a Connecticut residence earlier this week. The 77-year-old Hoffenberg is believed to have died a minimum of seven days earlier than his physique was discovered.
Alex Brandon/AP
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Alex Brandon/AP
Steven Hoffenberg, pictured in 1993, was discovered lifeless in a Connecticut residence earlier this week. The 77-year-old Hoffenberg is believed to have died a minimum of seven days earlier than his physique was discovered.
Alex Brandon/AP
HARTFORD, Conn. — Health workers confirmed Friday that convicted Ponzi schemer and Jeffrey Epstein mentor Steven Hoffenberg was the individual discovered lifeless in a Connecticut residence earlier this week.
Hoffenberg, 77, is believed to have died a minimum of seven days earlier than his physique was discovered Tuesday in Derby by police, who responded to a request to examine on his welfare, authorities stated. He needed to be recognized by dental information due to the decomposition of his physique, police stated.
His reason behind demise is pending toxicology check outcomes. An post-mortem confirmed no indicators of trauma, and there have been no indications of a battle or compelled entry on the residence, officers stated.
Epstein, the disgraced financier who killed himself in a New York jail in 2019 whereas awaiting trial on allegations he sexually abused dozens of women, labored for Hoffenberg’s invoice assortment firm, Towers Monetary Corp., within the late Eighties, when prosecutors stated the Ponzi scheme started.
Hoffenberg, who as soon as tried shopping for the New York Submit, ended up getting busted in one of many nation’s largest frauds. He admitted he swindled hundreds of buyers out of $460 million and was sentenced in 1997 to twenty years in jail. He claimed Epstein was truly the architect of the scheme, however Epstein was by no means charged.
He was launched from federal custody in 2013, in line with the U.S. Bureau of Prisons. It was not instantly clear how he ended up residing in a small residence in a multifamily residence in Derby, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) northeast of Bridgeport.
Gary Baise, one in all Hoffenberg’s pals and legal professionals and a former performing deputy U.S. legal professional basic, stated Hoffenberg and Epstein had a “particular relationship” and Hoffenberg stated Epstein was the neatest individual he knew when it got here to cash.
Baise stated Hoffenberg additionally was very clever, which can have contributed to his downfall.
“He was too good for his personal good,” Baise stated in a telephone interview Friday. “He thought he may get away together with his Ponzi scheme however he couldn’t. He didn’t have self-control. He all the time thought he was smarter than the following man and that was one in all his issues. … However he was a great man.”
Baise, who stated he had not had contact with Hoffenberg for a number of months, stated he wasn’t stunned by his demise as a result of Hoffenberg didn’t seem like taking excellent care of himself.
Police in Derby have been requested to do a welfare examine on Hoffenberg on Tuesday by a personal investigator for a girl who recognized herself as near Hoffenberg and a sexual abuse sufferer of Epstein’s, Derby police Lt. Justin Stanko stated. The investigator stated the lady had not heard from Hoffenberg for 5 days, and that was uncommon, Stanko stated.
Hoffenberg briefly took over the New York Submit in 1993 whereas bidding to personal it. The Submit reported that Hoffenberg funded the paper for 3 months and rescued it from chapter. His efforts to purchase the paper have been derailed by civil fraud allegations by the Securities and Trade Fee that led to the felony prosecution of the Ponzi case.
