Leona Helmsley was known for treating the hotel staff terribly and evading taxes. At the Helmsley Palace, she treated the workers cruelly in order to give her guests her version of the best experience possible. In advertisements for the hotel, she appeared as a perfectionist "queen" who wanted the best for her guests. However, most saw her as somewhat of a tyrant who would treat others terribly to get exactly what she wanted.
Helmsley is most known for her arrogant statement, "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes." The hotel's housekeeper reported her, and as this became public knowledge, she was increasingly condemned. The "Queen of Mean" had elaborate schemes to get out of her taxes, which is very cheap for someone so rich. In 1989, she was put on trial and deemed guilty. Federal judge John Walker reprimanded her, saying, "Your conduct was the product of naked greed and the arrogant belief that you were above the law."
She was sent to jail in 1992 and was released two years later. Even though she was supposed to spend 16 years in prison, she only served two and paid an $8 million dollar fine. Fittingly, the judge ordered her sentence to start on Tax Day, April 15. But the scandals did not end there. In 1997, she was ordered to pay more than $11 million in damages after being sued by Charles Bell, an employee who accused Leona Helmsley of firing him only because he was homosexual.Both the Helmsley's and Trump's also clashed many times in the 1990s. As two of the leading property owners in New York City, they argued over the city's most famous landmark, the Empire State Building. Despite sharing a similarly lavish lifestyle, they did not get along. Donald Trump called Leona Helmsley a "horrible, horrible human being" and she more curtly said, "I hate Donald Trump."
Leona Helmsley also disinherited two of her grandchildren, leaving them no money in her will. She died in 2007, and she was more generous to two other grandchildren.
Most notably, she left $12 million to her dog, a Maltese named Trouble.
Sources:
http://taxtrials.com/famous-fridays-leona-helmsley-angry-employees-strike-back/
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/aug/21/usnews
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-queen-of-mean-is-sentenced-to-the-slammer
http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1891335_1891333_1891317,00.html
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/09/29/rich-bitch
I found this blog post really interesting and I like how you talk about her legal issues even after the main scandal. Upon further research I found that before marrying her third husband, Harry Helmsley, she had already been in the real estate industry herself and was a millionaire in her own right. In 1968, she met and started with then-married Harry. When she joined one of Harry's firms as a senior VP two years later, Harry eventually divorced his wife of 33 years and Leona and Harry married. Their marriage actually may have saved her career because the year before she was sued for millions for forcing people to buy condos. The rest is history.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leona_Helmsley
Very interesting blog post! I was surprised that neither me nor my parents knew about Leona Helmsley based on the fact that she only died 13 years ago. I was inspired to do a little bit more research and learned that apparently Leona was born in a very middle class family. All the money she got was through the real estate business she created for herself. Also, interesting fact, When her son died, his wife was evicted from the Helmsley property she was living in.
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