Steven Hoffenberg Identified As Man Found Dead At Derby Home: Police

DERBY, CT — Police have officially identified a man found dead in a Derby home Tuesday night as Steven Hoffenberg, a former New York Post manager and associate of Jeffrey Epstein.

In a Facebook post late Friday morning, police said the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner positively identified the man found dead at the Mount Pleasant Street home as Hoffenberg. He was 77.

Police also noted his next of kin has been notified.

News of Hoffenberg's suspected death death broke Thursday afternoon after the New York Post and a number of other news outlets reported the body found at a Mount Pleasant Street home was him.

See also: Epstein Associate Steven Hoffenberg Found Dead In Derby Home: Report

Derby police said officers were called to the home around 8 p.m. to perform a welfare check and found a man dead inside.

According to police, the body was "in a state where a visual identification could not be made." The body was brought to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, where an autopsy was performed Wednesday.

It is unclear exactly when Hoffenberg died. A cause of death has not been determined yet, however the autopsy did not indicate any immediate signs of trauma to the body, police said.

Hoffenberg was the founder of Towers Financial Corporation, a debt collection agency that was revealed to be one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in U.S. history in 1993, according to BNO News.

According to Dailymail.com, the firm swindled $460 million out of 200 victims and Hoffenberg spent 18 years in prison for the crimes.

Hoffenberg hired Epstein to help at Towers Financial Corporation in the late 1980's and the two worked closely together for a number of years.

Dozens of women have accused Epstein, who faced sex trafficking charges when he ended his life at the Metropolitan Detention Center in 2019, of sexual abuse during a period that spanned two decades.

After being released from prison, Hoffenberg befriended a number of Epstein's accusers and joined their fight against him.

According to the New York Post, he also briefly served as a court-appointed manager of the news publication for about three months, from January to March 1993, and rescued the newspaper from bankruptcy.

Dailymail.com reports Maria Farmer, the first woman to report Epstein to police, was the one who called Derby police and asked them to check on Hoffenberg before his body was discovered. She referred to Hoffenberg as a dear friend who was like a father to her in his later years.