Hoffenberg began pay month for Epstein’s exper The SEC had already | tling with him out of cou j 4 securities. But Hoffenberg 4 a In the 1980s, several n CH APT ER 27 4 q the greenmailing of pub a ; ‘ mailing means, in practic a a investors will start buyin, 4 a yulnerable to takeover att 4 a utives at those companies 4 "i It’s risky, but very often tl Steven Hoffenberg: July 10, 1987 ee ror r 4 : Yet another thing Hol q 4 American World Airways. efore there was Bernie Madoff, there was Steven Hoffenberg. q K : its downward trajectory, t B In 1987, Hoffenberg was the head of Towers Financial a For Hoffenberg,’ the s Corporation, a company that bought debts, such as unpaid huge. medical bills, at a very steep discount while pressing the debtors 4 q to repay in full. Hed started the company fifteen years earlier 4 with two thousand dollars and just handful of employees: B According to Hoffenberg, Thanks, in part, to a grueling work ethic, he'd turned that into a = _ over of Pan Am—a deal tl much bigger concern, with twelve hundred employees and stock q q Steven Hoffenberg stil that traded over the counter. But Hoffenberg still spent fifteen listening to him, one mus hours each day, six days a week, in his office. : ‘bu ilty to criminal conspir He wanted more. Hoffenberg was 4 Wall Street outsider. AT million swindle, a familie Brooklyn boy. A college dropout, like Epstein. 4 B ernie Madoff case. One thing Hoffenberg wanted was respect. The other ¥ 2S 9 Like so many others, someone who was familiar with Wall Street’s inner workings- Jee without the necessary w frey Epstein, who had traded options for Bear Stearns, fit the bill. *Pe nt at the office, he'd ails 110 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022079