Correction re: Lillian Vernon, Fred Hochberg, Norman Hsu

In this post on September 21st, I inaccurately referred to Fred Hochberg (Dean of Milano at the New School, HillRaiser, financier of many of Norman Hsu's favored Democratic candidates and committees, and member of Bill Clinton's cabinet), as the current CEO of Lillian Vernon and his brother David Hochberg as an executive at the company.

Fred Hochberg is not (nor was he ever) CEO of Lillian Vernon, but rather is the company's former president and COO, while David Hochberg is the former VP of public affairs.

Fred and David are both sons of the company founder, chairman emeritus, and former CEO Lillian Hochberg (later renamed Lillian Vernon), but neither son currently serves any role in the organization, nor does either maintain any ownership in the company.

Fred departed the company in the early 1990s, not long after Hsu first became a fugitive from justice and several years before the apparent onset of his current political imbroglio.  David left the company more than two years ago, according to Lillian Vernon's public relations specialist, who e-mailed to alert me of the error.

In the context of the previous post, I called attention to Fred Hochberg's identity as a Lillian Vernon executive (former executive) and offpsring of the founder, given the odd fact that the company is listed as the official intermediary of one of Norman Hsu's own direct political contributions (a singular distinction, so far as I've seen).  Hochberg's multiple linkages to Hsu (Hillary's A-list, the New School, their political contribution patterns) seemed to render Lillian Vernon's identity as the intermediary of that Hsu contribution all the more relevant.

The fact that neither son is currently involved in (nor owns any of the equity in) the company seems to refute any resulting suggestion of a relationship between Hsu and the company (though certainly not between Hsu and Hochberg).

The resulting question mark, as concerns Lillian Vernon, is then: Why is the company listed as intermediary of one of Hsu's contributions as recently as June 2007 (to NY City Council Speaker Christine Quinn), given that Fred (the one whose linkages to Hsu are well-documented) departed 14 years prior?

Occam might suggest mega-bundler Fred Hochberg is simply still using the Lillian Vernon name when filling out his bundling forms (of which he's filled out quite a few, based on the records from the NYC Campaign Finance Board, one of the few bodies that reports intermediaries).  Oddly though, Fred hasn't listed himself as an intermediary on any filing with the NYC CFB since 2003.

"Lillian Vernon", on the other hand, is the intermediary of record not only for Hsu's June 5, 2007 contribution to Quinn, but on precisely one other contribution - also to Christine Quinn, also on June 5th, 2007, made by Cathy Lasry.

Cathy's husband Marc is a member of a list that you're likely becoming increasingly familiar with.

So while this correction (as egregious and regrettable as the underlying error was) tends to sever the indirect connection between Hsu and Lillian Vernon, by way of Hsu's apparent association with Fred Hochberg, it renders all the more puzzling the fact that the company is listed as the bundler of these two very recent contributions, made by Hsu and a fellow HillRaiser's spouse - on the same day to the same candidate.

I've asked the public relations specialist who wrote in about this and will update this post with any insights he's able to offer.

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Update:  The PR rep indicates that the bundler in question here is "Lillian Vernon the person [not] Lillian Vernon the company."  In the 1990s, Lillian Hochberg did formally rename herself after the company that she'd partially named after herself, so were she to set to bundling, I suppose that's how her name would appear.