Norman Hsu had an ugly secret, and was desperate for sympathy.
He phoned a woman he had briefly dated – after duping her in an investment scam – picked her up in his car, and peeled off his shirt.
“It was horrible,” she recalled. “There were bubbling, yellow acid burns from his shoulder down his arm to his elbow.”
Hsu told her Chinese gangsters had kidnapped and tortured him, angrily demanding, “Where’s the money?”
More than 17 years later, she and many other furious people are asking the same question.
In the past month, Hsu’s checkered past and murky business practices have come under increasing scrutiny.
He not only swindled investors but strong-armed them into donating thousands of dollars to Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign and to other Democratic candidates, authorities and lawsuits say.
He wowed one investor in Orange County, Calif., during a meeting in which he had Clinton join them “live” via videoconference. From a huge screen, the New York senator greeted Hsu warmly, and called him a “good friend and trusted associate.”
Trying to impress would-be investors, he also dropped names like supermarket magnate Ron Burkle, Sen. Ted Kennedy, “Spider-Man” star Toby Maguire and movie director Steven Spielberg.
Last week, federal prosecutors charged the 56-year-old Hsu with stealing $60 million from unwitting investors nationwide in various Ponzi schemes.
He’s being held without bail in California on a 1992 arrest warrant. The FBI caught him on a train in Grand Junction, Colo., after he sent out a suicide note and took an overdose of sleeping pills, according to his lawyer.
The trail of deceit and greed reaches back to the 1980s, when the then-young entrepreneur, who boasted a master’s degree from the elite Wharton School of Business, dabbled in various businesses, including a Chinese restaurant, a real-estate partnership, and apparel.
By the end of 1990, Hsu filed for bankruptcy, claiming little more than a $250 wedding ring from his failed marriage. He owed 52 creditors – including his ex-wife, father-in-law and friends – more than $1.6 million, records show.
Meanwhile, Hsu dreamed up his first business scam, raking in more than $1 million from 18 associates in a purported venture to sell latex gloves.
In classic Ponzi style, he paid a handsome return to the first investors, convincing others to jump in. But no latex was ever sold.
The woman dating Hsu at the time sank $100,000 in the deal. Dazzled, she forked over her life savings.
“He was charming and smart,” she said.
He soon revealed his dark side, she said: He was hooked on Chinese poker. He lived like a slob. He sobbed about his miserable childhood.
“He’s mentally unstable,” she told The Post, requesting anonymity to shield her husband and kids. “This guy is very angry – and very weird.”
In rambling phone calls during their brief romantic relationship, Hsu bemoaned how his father went AWOL, leaving his unmarried, humiliated mom to raise him alone in Hong Kong.
“He kept crying about this, over and over again,” the woman recalled. “His mother was never happy with him.”
Hsu, the divorced father of a son who now attends college in California, also confided that another woman had accused him of fathering her child. Hsu denied paternity, she said.
Hsu gambled into the wee hours in San Francisco’s Chinatown and in nearby Indian casinos.
“I lost a ton last night,” he would tell her.
But he never discussed politics.
“He always talked about Donald Trump – his hero,” she said. Hsu admired how Trump managed to divorce Ivana without losing his shirt.
The woman said after her disastrous investment, she lost her home and tried to get her money back from Hsu when he moved into a fancy condo, which he kept filthy and littered with dirty dishes and laundry.
At first he brushed her off, saying the money was tied up in the business. When she persisted, he screamed: “Don’t you yell at me!”
She slapped him and he hit back. “He punched and smacked me in the face because I was asking for my money,” she said.
Months later, a humble Hsu showed her his burns.
Police in Foster City, Calif., had arrested two men linked to the Chinese mob on kidnapping charges, but dropped the case because Hsu disappeared in 1992, after pleading no contest to grand theft in the latex swindle.
He also skipped out on his sentencing – and stiffed his 18 victims of promised restitution. They had gathered in court to see justice done.
“That guy really wasted all his talent,” one victim said last week. “He could have made real good, legal money.”
Hsu fled the country and lived in Hong Kong for several years, running several businesses that eventually went bust. He returned to America in the late 1990s – and his star began to rise as a political fund-raiser.
Meanwhile, California law enforcement hardly bothered to look for the fugitive, considering him a harmless crook.
“It’d be a different story if he were a serial killer,” a spokesman for the California attorney general explained.
So Hsu went on to pull off bigger and bigger Ponzi schemes.
A group of New York-area investors lost $40 million in Hsu’s fake venture to sell designer menswear made in China. They now accuse Hsu of blowing the money on politics and his “extravagant international lifestyle.”
Hsu rented a luxury SoHo apartment and hosted parties at posh restaurants.
Besides giving campaign cash in his own name – using addresses including the Mid-Manhattan Public Library – he hit on possible investors.
Hsu fooled the most sophisticated business people by boasting of his involvement with powerful Democratic politicians, says a suit filed Friday in Orange County, accusing Hsu of ripping off more than $28 million from 50 investors in a phantom venture to sell short-term loans.
“Hsu maintained the appearance of a reputation beyond reproach,” the suit says.
Take scam victim Marty Waters, who was hooked in by Hsu “in a careful and calculating fashion,” the suit says.
Hsu invited Waters to take part in 40 small investment deals. Each time, Hsu gave Waters a promissory note agreement and a post-dated check for the full principal and interest promised as a return. The bank always honored the checks.
Because of the success of the small deals, word spread and Waters recruited family and friends to also invest.
Eventually, the big deal came around. In May, Hsu announced a major venture to sell short-term “bridge” loans to businesses for a high rate of return. Investors poured in $28 million.
But the first payoff never came – and Hsu’s check to Waters bounced.
The duped investors now say Hsu gained their confidence in his business acumen by bragging that Hillary Clinton “carefully screened” her fund-raisers to ensure their integrity and credibility, the suit says.
However, they say Hsu further exploited that trust starting in 2006, when he “imposed a condition” that future investors had to donate cash to specific campaigns, including Clinton’s presidential run.
“He would say, ‘You had a great investment with me before. If you want another, I want you to contribute the maximum under federal election law to Hillary Clinton,’ ” said lawyer William Bollard, who represents the investors.
One victim hand-delivered to Hsu nearly $30,000 in checks from investors made payable to the Clinton campaign, the suit says.
Elected officials lapped up his cash, but some admit they had no idea why Hsu was so involved.
“It appeared that he was very interested in politics and knew the political landscape,” said Matt Paul, a spokesman for Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). “But at the same time, he didn’t really have an agenda.”