Val Broeksmit, a wayward whistle-blower who wielded his dead stepfather’s passwords to reveal Deutsche Bank’s role in money laundering and other dealings with Russia and the Trump Organization, died mysteriously last month in Los Angeles. He was 46.
Custodial employees reporting for work shortly before 7 a.m. on Monday, April 25, found his body in the courtyard of Woodrow Wilson Senior High School in northeast Los Angeles. The police said they found no sign of trauma or foul play. The medical examiner said the cause remained undetermined.
Mr. Broeksmit was said to have been evicted with his girlfriend from a Los Angeles loft in late March and since then was believed to have been itinerant.
A refugee from Ukraine, abandoned by his parents when he was 5 to foster care in Chicago and later adopted by his banker stepfather into a life of privilege, Mr. Broeksmit evolved into a routine abuser of cocaine and opioids, a credit card fraudster and a rock musician without a job.
