Steven Hoffenberg is the former chairman of Towers Financial Corporation, a bill collection agency, that Hoffenburg used in a Ponzi scheme

Ponzi scheme

A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to its investors from their own money or the money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned by the individual or organization running the operation...

. The firm collapsed in 1993, and in 1995 Hoffenberg pled guilty to bilking investors out of $475 million. Judge Robert W. Sweet sentenced him to 20 years in prison, plus a $1 million fine and $463 million in restitution. He settled a civil suit with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for $60 million. He briefly was the owner of the New York Post

New York Post

The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...

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At the time the SEC considered the fraud to be "one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history."