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Hartford (US), Aus 26 (AP) The Ponzi scheme and Jeffrey Epstein’s mentor, Steven Hoffenberg, who was found dead in a Connecticut apartment earlier this week, is a medical examiner confirmed Friday. convicted person.
Hoffenberg, 77, is believed to have died at least seven days before his body was found by police in Derby on Tuesday, authorities said, and police responded to a request to check on his welfare. Because his body was decomposed, his identity had to be confirmed through dental records, police said.
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His cause of death is pending toxicology test results. The autopsy showed no signs of trauma and no evidence of a fight or forced entry in the apartment, officials said.
Epstein, the disgraced financier who committed suicide in a New York prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on charges of sexually abusing dozens of girls, worked for Hoffenberg’s bill collection firm Towers in the late 1980s Financial Corp. when prosecutors said a Ponzi scheme began.
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Hoffenberg, who once tried to buy the New York Post, was eventually busted in one of the country’s biggest frauds. He admitted he defrauded thousands of investors out of $460 million and was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1997. He claimed that Epstein was actually the architect of the scheme, but Epstein was never charged.
He was released from federal custody in 2013, according to the US Bureau of Prisons. It is unclear how he ended up living in a small apartment in a multi-family home in Derby, about 12 miles (19 kilometers) northeast of Bridgeport.
One of Hoffenberg’s friends and lawyers, former acting U.S. Attorney General Gary Bess, said Hoffenberg and Epstein had a “special relationship,” and Hoffenberg said that when it comes to money, Epstein The smartest man he knew.
Hoffenberg was also very smart, which may have been the reason for his downfall, Baise said.
“He’s too smart for his own good,” Baise said in a phone interview Friday. “He thought he could get away with his Ponzi scheme, but he couldn’t. He had no self-control. He always thought he was smarter than the next guy, and that was one of his problems. … But he’s a good guy.”
Baise, who said he hadn’t been in contact with Hoffenberg for months, said he wasn’t surprised by Hoffenberg’s death because Hoffenberg didn’t appear to be taking good care of himself.
Derby Police Lieutenant Justin Stanko said on Tuesday a private investigator asked Derby Police to conduct a welfare check on Hoffenberg, a woman who claimed to be close to Hoffenberg and a victim of Epstein’s sexual abuse. Investigators said the woman had not heard from Hoffenberg for five days, which was unusual, Stanko said.
In 1993, Hoffenberg briefly took over the New York Post while it was bidding. The Washington Post reported that Hoffenberg financed the paper for three months and rescued it from bankruptcy. His efforts to buy newspapers were derailed by civil fraud charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission, leading to criminal prosecution in the Ponzi case. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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