Bob Hoffman's Strange Finances

By HOWARD BLAISE

EVEN cynical sports writers have long considered Bob Hoffman, of York, Pa., AAU coach and chief factotum of America's weightlifting world, as a sort of philanthropist. Bob made a lot of money selling barbells, vitamin concoctions, sun-tan lotions and a basket full of other items and used a good portion of this money to build a powerful weightlifting team and to build American bodies - so ran the carefully built-up legend.

The startling fact is (and Bob Hoffman has sworn to it under oath) that the few bucks he gives to the AAU and even to the YMCA are given for the benefit of his profit-making business!

The country might never have known how little he actually gave to the AAU, which he has long been accused of dominating; and to the YMCA if the Treasury Department had not suspected that Rah! Rah! Rah! Hoffman! was secretly defrauding the Government and pocketing a lot of money while making with the philanthropic propaganda.

The Federal government launched a lengthy investigation into Hoffman's finances and concluded that the man, held up as a model for young America, deliberately tried to defraud the United States Treasury of taxes in the three year period government agents investigated.

As a result of its investigation the Government slapped a suit against Hoffman for unpaid

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