Attorney's showy style is made to odor
If there's one thing Darnay Hoffman knows about, it's how to attract attention
When the lawyer came to collect Joel Steinberg from prison yesterday, he arrived in a white stretch limousine.
His list of clients has included subway vigilante Bernhard Goetz and Jon Benet Ramsey's nanny.
His personal life was equally notorious
One of Hoffman's ex-wives got a court order in 1989 to bounce him from their apartment because he smelled
"I was always surprised when he turned out to be a lawyer," said retired state Supreme Court Justice Walter Schackman, the judge who issued the famous stench order. "He was kind of an oddball".
But his reputed odor or oddness did not stop the former Mayflower Madam Sidney Biddle Barrows from marrying Hoffman in 1994.
His offbeat reputation, and the fact he switched careers from television producer to lawyer, prompted subway gunman Goetz to hire the newly minted lawyer to handle his $50 million civil suit. Goetz didn't trust lawyers so Hoffman was a perfect choice.
It was the second trial of Hoffman's legal career. He lost.
"Darnay was and is such an amazingly bad lawyer, and he's never bothered to get better" said Ron Kuby, Hoffman's courtroom rival in the 1996 civil trial.
The Bronx jury sided with Kuby's client and found Goetz liable for $43 million in connection with the fateful 1984 subway shooting.
But the case gave Hoffman lasting notoriety, which was only enhanced yesterday as the lawyer escorted Steinberg through the media horde.
Hoffman's relationship with Steinberg dates to the 1970's when he credits Steinberg with convincing one of his ex-wives to delay getting a divorce.
"He always used to say that he and Joel Steinberg had been close friends, before Steinberg adopted the little girl," said one of Hoffman's former mothers-in-law, Constance Sheppard. "How outrageous to have him for a client!"
Kuby agreed.
"The thing now is, Joel Steinberg is out of jail and doesn't need a lawyer", Kuby said, "so Darnay Hoffman is perfectly suited for the job".
