Jeffrey Epstein was an important consultant to Towers Financial Corporation, a Ponzi scheme run by Steven Hoffenberg.
Other videos mentioned in this video:
Jonathan Aubrey’s Video
Other Resources
- Rolling Stone coverage of Leese-Maxwell-Epstein relationship
- Vanity Fair coverage that mentions the scheme
- Washington Post coverage of Hoffenberg lawsuit
- Coverage of Hoffenberg wedding
- CBS News coverage
- New York Times coverage of his death and business practices
- Washington Post coverage of SEC lawsuit
Credits
“Circus of Freaks” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Transcript:
00:00:00:08 - 00:00:25:04
Bennett Tomlin
Jeffrey Epstein was a really bad guy who did lots of really bad things. Hot take. I know he was also sometimes believed to be a billionaire, but it's less clear where that money came from. There's the easy answers. Like blackmailing, secretly getting funding from governments as an intelligence asset. But I don't think most people in those categories end up with $1 billion.
00:00:25:06 - 00:00:47:11
Bennett Tomlin
And it's hard to blackmail rich people until you're powerful enough to be in their orbit. I was reminded a couple of months ago when I was watching Jonathan Aubrey's videos about Jeffrey Epstein, that he was connected to a Ponzi scheme called Towers Financial Corporation. I have not been able to stop thinking about that Ponzi scheme since that video.
00:00:47:13 - 00:00:50:08
Bennett Tomlin
So it's time for us to talk about it here. I think
00:00:55:07 - 00:01:13:17
Bennett Tomlin
Towers Financial Corporation was a classic bad corporation even before it was a Ponzi scheme. It was started as a debt collection agency led by Steven Hoffenberg. Even before Hoffenberg was a Ponzi schemer. He was a classic New York asshole known for buying up small businesses that were about to close.
00:01:13:19 - 00:01:23:05
Bennett Tomlin
Buying as much stuff as he could on their credit, and then ignoring the lenders. He was a huge fan of Donald Trump eventually getting married in front of Trump Tower
00:01:23:05 - 00:01:33:04
Bennett Tomlin
For those who were unaware, debt collection agencies or businesses that will buy up debts from other businesses and then hound desperate people to try to collect as much as they can on those debts.
00:01:33:06 - 00:01:58:16
Bennett Tomlin
However, even among this category of less than savory businesses, Towers Financial Corporation was uniquely bad. Not actually running a business that does the already unsavory thing, but instead running an entirely fraudulent scheme. And if you listen to Steve, the entire shift to an explicit Ponzi scheme was orchestrated by one Jeffrey Epstein.
00:01:59:03 - 00:02:02:14
Bennett Tomlin
Now, I do not like to get conspiratorial on here.
00:02:02:16 - 00:02:13:12
Bennett Tomlin
This office here is a serious place for serious thought. So give me just one moment, please. And I'm going to send you to to nip a conspiratorial asshole who lives in a basement.
00:02:13:12 - 00:02:53:17
Bennett Tomlin
Steve. Steve. Steve! This fucking asshole. I hate this asshole. Steve. Hoffenberg is the type of dude who would get married in front of Trump Tower because he loves Trump's energy. Or more accurately, as he said himself. Donald's crowd was my crowd. This guy, this criminal, this fraudster, claims that this other asshole.
00:02:53:19 - 00:03:21:20
Bennett Tomlin
Jeffrey Epstein was actually behind a Ponzi scheme that Steve ran. However, Steve lies so fucking often that it's not actually clear what role Jeffrey Epstein, the pedophile, had in this fucking Ponzi scheme. But hey, let's fucking try to figure it out.
00:03:23:09 - 00:03:24:06
Bennett Tomlin
Steve definitely knew Epstein, and Steve claims that he was introduced to him by Douglas Lee.
00:03:24:10 - 00:03:40:13
Bennett Tomlin
Steve definitely knew Epstein, and Steve claims that he was introduced to him by this guy. Sir Douglas Lease, a British arms dealer. I mean defense contractor. But he was an arms dealer. Definitely an arms dealer.
00:03:44:01 - 00:03:44:07
Bennett Tomlin
Sir. Douglas Lee,
00:03:44:07 - 00:03:57:07
Bennett Tomlin
sir. Douglas lease, apparently. Maybe. Possibly is the one who introduced Epstein to Robert Maxwell. Who, of course, is the father of Glenn Maxwell.
00:04:00:07 - 00:04:02:09
Speaker 2
Who.
00:04:02:15 - 00:04:21:05
Bennett Tomlin
If we trust Steve Epstein helped Maxwell with his debt issues. But the problem with that is when Maxwell died under extraordinarily suspicious circumstances, he had a ton of debt, including the funds he embezzled from his company.
00:04:21:07 - 00:04:35:19
Bennett Tomlin
So Steve was wrong. But the lifelong friendship between Jeffrey and Glenn undercuts Jeffrey, pretending he never met Robert Maxwell.
00:04:38:22 - 00:05:21:07
Bennett Tomlin
The fact that Jeffrey was probably lying about never meeting Robert is not the focus today. Today we need to discuss the relationship between our asshole Steve and our asshole Jeff. Once they met, they started working together and trying to be the biggest dicks in New York. Massive financial dicks. Jeffrey Epstein helped mastermind it was involved with. The exact rule is not entirely clear, but was involved in a hoffenberg scheme to take over Pan American Airlines when they were working together at Towers Financial Corporation.
00:05:25:17 - 00:05:39:08
Bennett Tomlin
Steve claims that Epstein had this idea to help them acquire the airline. By first acquiring two insurance companies in my home state, Associated Life and United Fire.
00:05:44:12 - 00:06:18:11
Bennett Tomlin
Steve and or Jeffrey then engaged in a scheme to basically use the assets from those insurance companies. To pretend like they had enough money to buy this airline. However, they first had to tell regulators they were going to inject 3 million in new capital to keep these failing insurance companies solvent. However, instead of injecting the capital, they took the capital, forged orders and tried to buy the airlines
00:06:18:17 - 00:06:25:08
Bennett Tomlin
First Pan American, and then later they went back and tried to acquire Emory Airfreight.
00:06:29:09 - 00:06:40:02
Bennett Tomlin
These acquisitions failed, with Steve claiming Epstein did some market manipulation to try to minimize the impact. But the insurance companies never recovered.
00:06:40:06 - 00:07:08:20
Bennett Tomlin
It was actually the struggle of these insurance companies that led to the next phase of the Ponzi scheme, where Epstein and Hoffenberg decided to start selling promissory notes that promised impossible returns, and used the funds from selling those out of Towers Financial Corporation to try to recapitalize the insurance companies to convince regulators they were solvent and hadn't committed any crimes.
00:07:08:22 - 00:07:41:03
Bennett Tomlin
Epstein and Hoffenberg supposedly worked together to falsify financial statements, and got an accountant to sign off on them in order to induce other investors to buy these promissory notes and keep the Ponzi scheme running. Eventually, Hoffenberg had the ill fated idea to try to buy the New York Post, a move that Mario Cuomo encouraged him to do, which drew enough attention that the SEC finally had to file a suit and accuse towers of being a Ponzi scheme.
00:07:41:05 - 00:07:49:06
Bennett Tomlin
When Steve was finally called in front of a grand jury, he was asked a few questions and repeatedly tried to point the finger at Epstein,
00:07:49:12 - 00:08:24:15
Bennett Tomlin
Stating when he was in front of the grand jury. Jeffrey Epstein was the person in charge of the transactions. When he was asked if Epstein was trying to manipulate the price of the stock, he replied yes. Over and over, Hoffenberg blamed Epstein for this scheme. However, sometime after this, Epstein was removed from the case entirely in Hoffenberg cooperation, agreement with authorities blew up because Hoffenberg had been lying about a whole bunch of things.
00:08:25:21 - 00:08:50:12
Bennett Tomlin
We do know, however, thanks to a deposition that Epstein gave, that he did execute all of Hoffenberg orders. But Epstein continued to insist until the end that Steve was the one issuing the orders and was behind this. So was it Steve, or was it Jeff? I don't think you should trust someone as conspiratorial as me to answer that question.
00:08:50:14 - 00:08:52:15
Bennett Tomlin
So I'm going to send you back upstairs.
00:08:52:23 - 00:09:25:03
Bennett Tomlin
Jeffrey Epstein was absolutely a financial consultant with a pretty small but exclusive list of clients. And he definitely did work for Hoffenberg. Use an image from one of the cases that was shared by CBS news. Those payments were some of the many payments Hoffenberg made to Epstein over a 5 to 6 year period. The Washington Post says that Hoffenberg paid Epstein approximately $25,000 per month, as well as a $2 million loan that was never repaid, though Epstein has denied that loan.
00:09:25:05 - 00:09:50:21
Bennett Tomlin
Epstein was definitely doing work for Hoffenberg and high paid work for Hoffenberg. That much is definitely true. Some financial executives who were involved in these transactions claimed to have had interactions with Epstein, but others claimed not to remember him or to remember him kind of at the periphery of whatever was going on. Everything beyond that core of evidence becomes much shakier.
00:09:50:22 - 00:10:18:12
Bennett Tomlin
Epstein was definitely involved in some of the transactions based on his own deposition, but that doesn't mean he masterminded it. Hoffenberg was definitely trying to pin Epstein back when he was cooperating with authorities, but his cooperation deal blew up. Blew up because he kept lying. Now, Hoffenberg says he was lying because Epstein was threatening him. But prosecutors considered that claim desperate and ludicrous.
00:10:18:14 - 00:10:33:22
Bennett Tomlin
So where does that leave us? Hoffenberg would eventually work with victims of his own Ponzi scheme in an attempt to sue Epstein. Hoffenberg involvement in that lawsuit seems to have doomed it.
00:10:33:22 - 00:10:34:04
Bennett Tomlin
But
00:10:34:04 - 00:10:48:02
Bennett Tomlin
in the course of it, he alleged that Epstein had misappropriated approximately $100 million in this scheme and hidden it offshore. This is not a claim that regulators in my enforcement seem to take seriously.
00:10:48:21 - 00:11:09:12
Bennett Tomlin
So Jeffrey Epstein was absolutely an important consultant to a Ponzi scheme. Both Steve and Jeff are assholes. Jeffrey Epstein's wealth is still somewhat unexplained, but several million dollars coming from this Ponzi scheme partially explains it, potentially.
00:11:10:00 - 00:11:25:03
Bennett Tomlin
But we are once again at the part of the story where we go. Jeffrey Epstein and also most of his friends are liars, so it's hard to know exactly who came up with this scheme and who just pushed the trades through.
