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CHAPTER 27 Steven Hoffenberg: July 10, 1987 re was Steven Hoffenberg. head of Towers Financial ch as unpaid efore there was Bernie Madoff, the In 1987, Hoffenberg was the Corporation, a company that bought debts, su medical bills, at a very steep discount to repay in full. He'd started the company with two thousand dollars an Thanks, in part, toa grueling wor much bigger concern, with twelve that traded over the counter. But hours each day, six days a week, in hi He wanted more. Hoffenberg was 4 Brooklyn boy. A college dropout, like Epstein. One thing Hoffenberg wanted was respect. The other ¥ + with Wall Street's inner worki Hoffenberg stil s office. someone who was familia frey Epstein, who had traded options for Bear Stear 110 while pressing the debtors ~ fifteen years earlier d just a handful of employees. j k ethic, he’d turned that into@ 4 hundred employees and stock — | spent fifteem 3 Wall Street outsider. A ngs. Jee ! ns, fit the billy Hoffenberg began pax month for Epstein’s exper The SEC had already tling with him out of cou securities. But Hoffenberg In the 1980s, several n the greenmailing of pub mailing means, in practic investors will start buyin, yulnerable to takeover att utives at those companies It’s risky, but very often tl profit. Yet another thing Ho! American World Airways. its downward trajectory, t For Hoffenberg,’ the ; huge. q According to Hoffenberg, _ over of Pan Am—a deal t] 7 Steven Hoffenberg stil listening to him, one mus penilty to criminal conspir: glion swindle, a familiz Bernie Madoff case. 4 Like so many others, Without the necessary wv lent at the office, he’d ts f Sp HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022079