https://www.thesteepletimes.com/brainst ... in-madoff/
Jeffrey Epstein worked at financial firm that engaged in massive Ponzi scheme in 1980s and 1990s“Buckingham Palace isn’t half as flash as this” enthused Giles Coren of London’s ritzy The Lanesborough hotel in the final episode of his and Monica Galetti’s BBC series Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby ..
Continuing of a hotel “not so known as The Dorchester or The Ritz” and “extra discreet” when it comes to protecting the privacy of its very, very, very wealthy and often very, very, very secretive guests, Coren and Galetti waxed lyrical about a rather large guest book.
That book featured not only Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the late Diana, Princess of Wales, but also entries from Arnold Schwarzenegger, Madonna and Stevie Wonder – the latter played the piano in the bar in December 1994. They rather conveniently forgot to bring up, however, two of the property’s more notorious and now deceased Barry Big Bollocks bigspenders, the late convicted criminal Ponzi schemer paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and the late Ponzi schemer ex-NASDAQ chairman Bernard L. Madoff...
Originally St George’s Hospital and subsequently converted into a 93-room – 47 of which are suites – hotel in 1991, The Lanesborough, Coren pointed out, was decorated “with no expense spared” by Alberto Pinto. Mr Pinto happened to also be the decorator of Jeffrey Epstein’s homes in New York, New Mexico and Paris and thus one can see why that the creepy taxi driver turned sex trafficker likely felt that The Lanesborough was his favoured “home-away-from-home” when in London...
Whilst staff at the palatial property that is The Lanesborough have not openly declared anything of Jeffrey Epstein’s preferences – the hotel keeps notes on all its guests and even has motion sensors in every room to help them predict their wants and needs – in January 2009, Insider reported on what the notoriously demanding Madoff liked to have when visiting.
..Equally secretive in their business dealings and both known for having obsessive compulsive disorder tendencies about how their homes were run, both monsters-not-men maintained residences in Palm Beach, Florida and of them an investor formerly connected to Madoff just yesterday told us: “They most definitely frequented the same establishments and they most definitely had business associations.”..
Now, with news of Bernard L. Madoff’s sister Sondra Wiener being killed on Thursday 17th February by her husband Marvin in a supposed murder-suicide in Boynton Beach, Palm Beach County just days before Epstein’s grubby supplier of 12-year-old twins for his sexual gratification Jean-Luc Brunel’s suicide in a Paris jail on Saturday 19th February, the plot undoubtedly thickens.
With suicide by hanging being a seeming connector in terms of it allegedly – though questioned by some – being Epstein’s choice of death and that also the choice of one of Madoff’s sons – though once again that has been questioned by some – here are two now dead deviant men who are known to have pandered to the desires of equally demanding money motivated women, Ghislaine Maxwell and Ruth Madoff (née Alpern).
The timing of the latest ‘suicides’ are undoubtedly curious and given that in the wake of Ghislaine Maxwell’s conviction in December, the judge in her trial was appointed to a higher court by President Biden as America seeks to protect America by protecting other associates of Epstein and Maxwell including Presidents Clinton and Trump, there is a certain stench of a bit of final “cleaning up” apparent.
With Prince Andrew having supposedly paid upto £12 million to a sex trafficked woman he supposedly never met, Jean-Luc Brunel dead and Jes Staley removed as CEO of Barclays – which curiously also turfed Maxwell out as a client – this “stain” that has for too long now upset royals, politicians and financiers is being put out to pasture.
Equally, with Bernie Madoff dead of “natural causes” and conveniently cremated in April last and his sister and children passed also, the embarrassment caused by the Wizard of Lies having duped the wallies of Wall Street will soon be a chapter closed if the powers that be get their way.
Today, it is time to remind these people that that will not be the case. In this, the Internet age, there are still people out there searching and as I have previously urged in these matters it always a case of one thing: “Follow the bloody money.”
..On Monday, crusading author of ‘Ghislaine Maxwell: An Unauthorized Biography’ shared her thoughts about how she believes Bernie Madoff was linked to Jean-Luc Brunel, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. Of such people, she observed: “All connected. Now Bernie Madoff’s sister, Sondra and her husband, are dead.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeffrey-ep ... me-crimes/
Towers Financial CorporationTowers was a bill collection agency founded by Steven J. Hoffenberg, who told CBS News he hired Epstein in 1987 to help commit a billion dollars worth of financial fraud.
"He was my best friend for years. My closest friend for years," Hoffenberg told CBS News, speaking of Epstein. "We ran a team of people on Wall Street, investment people that raised these billion dollars illegally. He was my guy, my wingman."
The scheme worked like this, according to prosecutors who later brought charges against Hoffenberg: Between 1988 and 1993, Towers raised more than $400 million by selling bonds and promissory notes to investors. Hoffenberg and his associates then used the money to cover operating costs, repay earlier investors —and enrich themselves.
"I was one of the investors," said Marvin Gerber in an interview with CBS News. "He swindled me out of $250,000."
Hoffenberg was investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Attorney's office for the Southern District of New York, and pleaded guilty in 1995 to five criminal charges. He was sentenced in 1997 to 20 years in prison and was released in 2013. Towers Financial executives Mitchell Brater and Michael Rosoff were given prison sentences between seven and nine years. Other employees who pleaded guilty received civil judgments. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/di ... 6/1626039/
Epstein was never charged in the fraud. His legal team did not respond to CBS News' request for comment. ..
.. Terrence Corrigan, a lawyer for a committee tasked with getting back money for an estimated 2,800 investors in the scam..likened Towers' business model to the classic con movie "The Sting." He described an operation where Hoffenberg and other executives would woo investors in a Manhattan wood-paneled boardroom before giving tours of operating floors one floor below. Someone would make a call downstairs to make sure employees would look busy once investors arrived.
Corrigan's team did not pursue a financial claim against Epstein. He turned the product of his investigation over to the SEC, which brought its own charges against Towers executives that did not involve Epstein..
"I do not recall Jeffrey Epstein," said Alan Cohen, the trustee for Towers after it filed for bankruptcy when the scheme collapsed. "All of the old management — and I don't know if Epstein was or wasn't — were no longer there by the time we got there."
Two business deals executed by Towers in the 1980s show an Epstein connection. In 1987, Towers acquired two failing Illinois insurance companies, United Fire and Associated Life. They rolled them into a Towers shell company called United Diversified Corporation. That same year, Towers attempted to take over Pan Am Airways by using millions in bonds from the newly acquired insurance companies.
State insurance regulators say Towers and United Diversified made improper investments and misused funds, in violation of Illinois law. Hoffenberg told CBS News that Epstein was in charge of the illegal transfer and sale of bonds and investments out of United Diversified accounts.
James Schacht, the former director of the Illinois Department of Insurance, told CBS News that Epstein was involved in the transactions.
"I recall Mr. Epstein's involvement with United Diversified Corp., and affiliated insurance companies," Schacht told CBS News. "The insurers were United Fire Insurance Co. and Associated Life Insurance Co., as I recall. United Diversified was owned by Towers Financial which was controlled by Steven Hoffenberg. This person, I believe, had the connection with Mr. Epstein."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Towers_Fi ... orporation
Hoffenberg hired Jeffrey Epstein in 1987 to help with the Towers Financial Corporation.[8][1] Hoffenberg set Epstein up in offices in the Villard Houses in Manhattan, and paid him $25,000 ($60,000 in current dollar terms) per month for his consulting work.[8] They unsuccessfully tried to take over Pan Am in a corporate raid with Towers Financial as their raiding vessel. Their bid failed, in part because of the 1988 terrorist bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, which ultimately contributed to the airline's bankruptcy. A similar unsuccessful bid in 1988 was made to take over Emery Air Freight Corp..
Hoffenberg began using Towers Financial funds to pay for a lavish lifestyle that included a Locust Valley, Long Island mansion, homes on Sutton Place in Manhattan and in Florida, and a number of cars and planes.[8][14] The Ponzi scheme was the largest financial fraud in American history prior to Bernie Madoff's being uncovered..
In 2020 Hoffenberg added some corroboration to evidence published in a 2019 book indicating that Epstein was a top-level spy for Mossad.[28][29][30] Over three decades after the Towers Financial scandal and six years after his prison release Hoffenberg suggested an overall intelligence aspect to Epstein. He paints a picture of Epstein's long-term ability to avoid justice, stating this was enabled by being "needed by the CIA or the FBI for intelligence, because he was manipulating the American intelligence for the overseas organizations".[28] Jeffrey Epstein's apparent capacity to frustrate the law's probe has come to be seen in retrospect as central in his profile since his Towers Financial years, indeed rather definitive..
In mid-2021, confirmation of some of Hoffenberg's statements was given. Former high-ranking Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe imparted his own, old knowledge Epstein had "started working with Israeli Intelligence... collecting secrets" (year or era not given).[34] Whatever the relevance of this might be to Epstein's special position with US authorities, meanwhile further commentators again speculated that Epstein's unknown modes of involvement with intelligence went beyond one agency or country..
It was reported in late August 2022 Steve Hoffenberg passed away at his home in Derby, Connecticut, around two or more weeks after having contracted coronavirus, his body discovered August 23.[43] The body was found in a decomposed state, thought to be of around a week's progression, such that visual identification wasn't possible.[44] A cause of death was not known by the stage of a preliminary autopsy in late August, when authorities believed no suspicious circumstances were involved.
