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Disgraced businessman and longtime mentor of Jeffrey Epstein, Steven Hoffenberg, was found dead by police during a wellness check. There is currently no cause of death released.
His corpse was found rotting inside his home. Hoffenberg spent 18 years in prison after stealing nearly $500 million from investors as part of a fraudulent Ponzi scheme.
It’s unclear when 77-year-old Hoffenberg died. A friend called the police out of concern, which led to the wellness check.
There were no immediate signs of trauma on his body, police noted.
It wasn’t possible to visually identify whether the dead body is Hoffenberg so police are waiting for dental records.
“Every indication is that it is Mr. Hoffenberg,” a Derby Police Department spokesman said. “There’s nothing to suggest that it isn’t. We believe it’s him. We’re just waiting for dental records.”
Hoffenberg was Epstein’s boss and claimed that Epstein was an accomplice in the Ponzi scheme.
In 1995, Hoffenberg pleaded guilty to the scheme and was sentenced to 20 years in prison, which he served 18. Epstein allegedly committed the bulk of his crimes against teenage girls while Hoffenberg was in prison.
A lawsuit filed in 2018 claimed that Epstein “knowingly and intentionally utilized funds he fraudulently diverted and obtained from this massive Ponzi scheme for his own personal use to support a lavish lifestyle.”
“He was my colleague daily, seven days a week,” Hoffenberg said of Epstein in a 2019 interview.
More on this story via NY Post:
Hoffenberg was briefly the court-appointed manager of The Post from January to March 1993, rescuing the newspaper from bankruptcy. The news was announced with an iconic Post cover that said “Last-minute deal saves The Paper…Hoffenberg Saves The Post,” calling him the paper’s “white knight.”
Hoffenberg briefly funded The Post from January-March 1993, rescuing it from bankruptcy.
But the staff ultimately rebelled against Hoffenberg, and the paper was briefly handed over to Abe Hirschfeld before being bought for a second time by Rupert Murdoch, the current owner…
He became a born-again Christian in prison, he told Quartz.
