Former Epstein associate found dead in Conn.
Police identfy Steven Hoffenberg as man found dead in Derby home
DERBY — Former Jeffrey Epstein associate, Steven Hoffenberg who was found dead this week may as well have been invisible, according to his neighbor across the street, Jim Corso.
“(I) don’t even know what he looked like,” Corso said.
But while his neighbor didn’t know him, Hoffenberg, who was sent to prison after being convicted in a Ponzi scheme, attempted a reinvention as a real estate developer in the area, according to several city officials in Ansonia and Derby.
Derby police said Friday the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner had identified the man found dead in a Derby apartment earlier this week as Hoffenberg. The report confirmed suspicions in news reports that Hoffenberg was the person found dead on Tuesday.
The 77-year-old was sentenced in 1997 to 20 years in prison after admitting to taking $460 million from investors in a massive Ponzi scheme, the Associated Press reported. He was released from federal prison in 2013.
But while he kept a relatively low profile in the community, Hoffenberg appeared to be much more open about his connections to Epstein on his Twitter account, where he frequently tweeted until his posts abruptly stopped on July 27.
Most people in Derby and Ansonia who spoke to Hearst Connecticut Media said they did not know him at all. But several former and current officials in both cities did.
Ansonia Mayor David Cassetti was favorably disposed toward Hoffenberg during a 2019 meeting about redeveloping the former Ansonia Copper and Brass property. But then Cassetti said he looked into Hoffenberg’s background.
A second meeting between the two men ended when Cassetti said he threw Hoffenberg out of his office.
“So I checked his background and I saw where he came from,” Cassetti said. “When I found out ... what he was about, I said no, not in this town, you’re out of here. I threw his ass out of town.”
Former Derby Chief of Staff Andrew Baklik said Hoffenberg had expressed interest in redevelopment projects for the downtown area of the city, but none of those projects ever took off.
“He was interested in downtown redevelopment a few years ago,” Baklik said. “He came independently, looking for interested partners, but no one bit.”
Other officials such as Ansonia Economic Development Director Sheila O’Malley and the city’s corporate counsel John Marini also said they had briefly interacted with Hoffenberg when former City Clerk Janet Waugh introduced them to him.
Hoffenberg was a tenant of Waugh’s before she demanded he move out in 2019.
Waugh did not respond to messages seeking comment.
The two also recalled Hoffenberg saying he was interested in redevelopment projects, but nothing came of it as word quickly spread at City Hall of Hoffenberg’s past.
“I didn’t have too much to say, he was just talking
about how he still had connections and he had done a lot in his life,” O’Malley said. “Then someone interrupted us. So it was a brief conversation.”
Marini said Hoffenberg did not bring up his connection to Epstein during his and O’Malley’s brief interaction with him, which he recalled as taking place some time around 2018 or 2019.
“I don’t recall any conversations about any of that,” Marini said.
While Hoffenberg didn’t bring up his connections to Epstein in person, he did not appear to be reluctant to talk about it either, stating he knew Epstein for nine years and included a personal email on his Twitter account for media outreach.
Epstein died in federal custody in 2019 while awaiting trial for the alleged abuse of dozens of girls, the AP reported.