A former associate of the late Jeffrey Epstein was reportedly found dead in his apartment during a wellness check.
Police called to Steven Hoffenberg’s home in Derby, Connecticut, found his body decomposing on his bedroom floor, the Daily Mail and New York Post reported on Thursday. He was 77.
Hoffenberg was discovered around 8pm on Tuesday after a friend called cops.
‘Every indication is that it is Mr Hoffenberg,’ a Derby Police Department spokesman told the Post. ‘There’s nothing to suggest that it isn’t. We believe it’s him. We’re just waiting for dental records.’
The cause of death has not been confirmed, but the body had no apparent signs of trauma, a police source told the Daily Mail.
Police said the body was ‘in a state where a visual identification could not be made’.
Cops believe the corpse had been rotting in the home for at least one week. A medical examiner is using dental records to identify the body.
Hoffenberg was once Epstein’s boss, and claimed that the disgraced financier was an accomplice in a half-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme he operated through his Towers Financial Corp. Hoffenberg pleaded guilty in 1995 and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
While Hoffenberg was incarcerated, Epstein allegedly sexually abused teenage girls procured with the help of his madam Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking and other offenses.
After completing his sentence, Hoffenberg reached out to Epstein’s victims and joined in their fight for justice.
Convicted sex offender Epstein was found unresponsive in his jail cell in August 2019 as he awaited his trial on sex trafficking charges.
Hoffenberg was appointed by a court to manage the Post for a brief period in 1993 and helped the newspaper out of bankruptcy.
The first person to call police to check on Hoffenberg was reportedly his friend Maria Farmer, an artist who survived Epstein’s abuse.
‘Hoff was one of my dearest friends on earth, more like a father than my own father ever was to me. He lived in kindness, always giving what little he had, never asking for anything,’ Farmer told the Daily Mail. ‘This man was beyond incredible and a dear friend to survivors of Epstein… as he was also.’
Farmer told Rolling Stone: ‘I want people to know how kind this gentleman was to survivors, while asking for nothing.’
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