ELEGANT ELLIOT OFFEN, RIIIGHT!!!

Elliott Offen, accused of swindling up to $30 million from Florida
manufacturers, says he is too poor to afford a lawyer to fight the
perjury, racketeering, organized fraud, conspiracy and grand theft
charges he faces.

Offen, 37, also says that he has been beaten and sexually assaulted by
guards in the Broward County Jail.

Authorities call him a liar who thrives on media attention and is driving
jail guards crazy.

Even his attorney says that Offen has cried wolf so many times that
nobody believes him.

Offen, who has hired attorneys to represent him in New York and Fort
Lauderdale, told Broward Circuit Judge J. Leonard Fleet on Friday that he
is ''dead broke.'' He said friends were supplying his New York attorney,
Jay Goldberg, with money.

State authorities think Offen has stashed at least $47,500 with Goldberg
and has received at least $30,000 while in jail.

When asked what happened to a $24,380 check Goldberg sent him in October,
Offen replied: ''I ripped it up, tore it into a thousand pieces and
flushed it down the toilet.''

''Any money stored anywhere that you have tried to conceal from the
government?'' Fleet asked.

''Not three pennies,'' Offen replied.

When Offen declined to divulge who his moneyed friends were, Fleet
rejected his request for a public defender. Offen's perjury trial is set
to begin next week.

Fleet also refused to listen to Offen's allegations of jail assaults. He
told Offen's Fort Lauderdale attorney, David Collins, that conditions in
the jail were the subject of a federal class-action suit over which he
has no jurisdiction.

Offen told Fleet that bruises on his forehead and nose came from a severe
beating by jail guards.

Sam Price, legal counsel for the Broward Sheriffs' Office, said the
bruises were self-inflicted.

Price called Offen a pathological liar who randomly and regularly accuses
guards of assault.

''He's driving everybody nuts, from the guards to the inmates,'' Price
said. ''We have a running list of his allegations since October. It's
garbage, this stuff about rape and beatings.''

''They say he's a con man, but isn't that going a bit too far?'' asked
attorney Collins. ''He's cried wolf so many times people have problems
believing him now.''

Price refused a Sun-Sentinel reporter's request to interview Offen in
jail, saying it would be too disruptive.

''If he were a normal kind of man and his lies weren't so outrageous, we
could probably tolerate it,'' said Price, who said his orders to stop
Offen from talking to the media came from Sheriff Nick Navarro.

Collins calls the jail's attempt to silence Offen another violation of
his client's constitutional rights.

''This is just another gag in his mouth,'' Collins said. ''Since when did
Navarro become the judge and exalted ruler of free speech?''

Before police arrested him in New York on Aug. 20, 1988, Offen had been
one of South Florida's most wanted fugitives. He was charged in December
1985 with operating a planned bankruptcy, or bust-out, in Broward and
Dade counties in 1984 and 1985.