Leona Roberts Helmsley (July 4, 1920 – August 20, 2007) was an American businesswoman. Her flamboyant personality and reputation for tyrannical behavior earned her the nickname Queen of Mean.
[
After allegations of non-payment were made by contractors hired to improve Helmsley's Connecticut home, she was investigated and convicted of federal income tax evasion and other crimes in 1989. Although having initially received a sentence of sixteen years, she was required to serve only nineteen months in prison and two months under house arrest. During the trial, a former housekeeper testified that she had heard Helmsley say: "We don't pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes", a quote which was identified with her for the rest of her life.
]
Early life
Leona Helmsley was born Lena Mindy Rosenthal in Marbletown, New York
Marbletown is a town in Ulster County, New York, United States. The population was 5,658 at the 2020 census. It is located near the center of Ulster County, southwest of the City of Kingston. US 209 and NY 213 pass through the town. It is at the ...
, to Polish-Jewish
The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Ashkenazi Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the lon ...
immigrants, Ida (née Popkin), a homemaker, and Morris Rosenthal, a hatmaker. Her family moved to Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
while she was still a girl, and moved six more times before settling in Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
. After dropping out of Abraham Lincoln High School to seek her fortune,[ she changed her name several times over a short periodfrom Lee Roberts, Mindy Roberts, and Leni Robertsbefore finally going by Leona Mindy Roberts][The Queen of Mean](_blank)
from Court TV's Crime Library. and having her surname legally changed to Roberts.
Roberts' first husband was attorney Leo Panzirer, whom she divorced in 1952. Their only son was Jay (1940–1982), who had four children with his wife, Mimi. Jay died of heart failure at age 42. Leona was twice married to and divorced from her second husband, garment industry executive Joseph Lubin. After a brief period at a sewing factory, she joined a New York real estate firm, where she eventually became vice-president.
Roberts was a chain smoker, consuming several packs a day. She would later claim that she appeared in billboard ads for Chesterfield
Chesterfield may refer to:
Places Canada
* Rural Municipality of Chesterfield No. 261, Saskatchewan
* Chesterfield Inlet, Nunavut United Kingdom
* Chesterfield, Derbyshire, a market town in England
** Chesterfield (UK Parliament constitue ...
cigarettes, but her claim remains unsubstantiated.
Career as a hotelier
In 1968, while Roberts was working as a condominium broker, she met and began her involvement with the then-married real estate entrepreneur Harry Helmsley. Two years later, she joined one of Harry's brokerage firms—Brown Harris Stevens
Brown Harris Stevens is an American real estate service company headquartered in New York City with offices across the East Coast serving Connecticut, New Jersey, the Hudson Valley, the Hamptons, Palm Beach, and Miami. The original firm was found ...
—as a senior vice-president. At that time, she was already a millionaire in her own right. Harry divorced his wife of 33 years and married Roberts on April 8, 1972. The marriage may well have saved her career, as several of her tenants had sued her the year before for forcing them to buy condominiums. They won, and she was forced not only to compensate the tenants but to give them three-year lease
A lease is a contractual arrangement calling for the user (referred to as the ''lessee'') to pay the owner (referred to as the ''lessor'') for the use of an asset. Property, buildings and vehicles are common assets that are leased. Industrial ...
s. Her real estate license was also suspended, so she focused on running Harry's growing hotel empire.
Supposedly under her influence, Harry began a program of conversion of apartment buildings into condos. He later concentrated on the hotel industry, building the Helmsley Palace Hotel on Madison Avenue. Together, the Helmsleys built a New York real estate empire that included 230 Park Avenue, the Empire State Building, and the Tudor City
Tudor City is an apartment complex located on the southern edge of Turtle Bay on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City, near Turtle Bay's border with Murray Hill. It lies on a low cliff, which is east of Second Avenue between 40th and ...
apartment complex on the East Side, as well as Helmsley-Spear Inc., their management and leasing business. The couple also developed properties that included the Helmsley Palace Hotel, the New York Helmsley Hotel, the Park Lane Hotel
The Sheraton Grand London Park Lane is a 5 Star hotel on Piccadilly, London.
The hotel opened in 1927 as The Park Lane Hotel to designs by architects Adie, Button and Partners, in a grand Art Deco style, and was constructed by the developer ...
, and hotels in Florida and other states. By the beginning of 1989, twenty-three hotels in the chain were directly controlled by Leona Helmsley.
Helmsley was featured in an advertising campaign portraying her as a demanding "queen" who wanted nothing but the best for her guests. The slightest mistake was usually grounds for firing, and Helmsley was known to shout insults and obscenities at targeted employees just before they were fired.
On March 31, 1982, Helmsley's only child, Jay Panzirer, died of a heart attack
A myocardial infarction (MI), commonly known as a heart attack, occurs when blood flow decreases or stops to the coronary artery of the heart, causing damage to the heart muscle. The most common symptom is chest pain or discomfort which may tr ...
resulting from arrhythmia. Her son's widow, who lived in a property that Helmsley owned, received an eviction notice shortly after his funeral. Helmsley successfully sued her son's estate for money and property that she claimed he had borrowed, and she was ultimately awarded $146,092.
Tax-evasion conviction
Despite the Helmsleys' net worth totalling over $1 billion, they were known for disputing payments to contractors and vendors. In 1983, the Helmsleys bought Dunnellen Hall
Dunnellen Hall is a private mansion located at 521 Round Hill Road in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA. It was sold by the estate of Leona Helmsley for $35 million down from the original asking price of $125 million when it was first put up on the mar ...
, a 21-room mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut, to use as a weekend retreat. The property cost $11 million but the Helmsleys wanted to make it even more luxurious. The work included a $1 million dance floor, a silver clock and a mahogany card table. The remodeling bills came to $8 million, which the Helmsleys were loath to pay. A group of contractors sued the Helmsleys for non-payment and the Helmsleys eventually paid off most of the debt owed to the contractors.
In 1985, during court proceedings in relation to the lawsuit, the contractors revealed that most of their work was being illegally billed to the Helmsleys' hotels as business expenses. The contractors sent a stack of the falsified invoices to the ''New York Post
The ''New York Post'' (''NY Post'') is a conservative daily tabloid newspaper published in New York City. The ''Post'' also operates NYPost.com, the celebrity gossip site PageSix.com, and the entertainment site Decider.com.
It was established ...
'' to prove that the Helmsleys were trying to avoid tax liabilities. The resulting ''Post'' story led to a federal criminal investigation.
Jeremiah McCarthy, the Helmsleys' executive engineer, also alleged that Leona repeatedly demanded that he sign invoices to bill personal expenses to the Helmsley-Spear and, when McCarthy declined to do so, exploded with tyrannical outbursts, shouting, "You're not my fucking partner! You'll sign what I tell you to sign." In 1988, then-U.S. Attorney
United States attorneys are officials of the U.S. Department of Justice who serve as the chief federal law enforcement officers in each of the 94 U.S. federal judicial districts. Each U.S. attorney serves as the United States' chief federal ...
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis Giuliani (, ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 198 ...
indicted the Helmsleys and two of their associates on several tax-related charges, as well as extortion.
The trial was delayed until the summer of 1989 due to numerous motions by the Helmsleys' attorneys, most of them related to Harry's health. He had begun to appear feeble shortly after the beginning of his relationship with Leona years before and had recently suffered a stroke on top of a pre-existing heart condition. Ultimately, he was ruled mentally and physically unfit to stand trial and Leona would face the charges alone.
At trial, a former Helmsley-Spear executive, Paul Ruffino, said that he refused to sign phony invoices billing the company for work done on the Connecticut mansion. Ruffino, originally employed to assist Harry through the Hospitality Management Services arm, said that Leona fired him on several occasions for refusing to sign the bills, only for Harry to usually tell him to ignore her and come back to work.
Another one of the key witnesses was a former housekeeper at the Helmsley home, Elizabeth Baum, who recounted Leona telling her, "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes." Leona denied saying this. By then, however, the trial was already highlighting her abusive and micromanaging behavior towards family members, employees, contractors and even senior executives. Former employees testified at trial "about how they feared her, with one recalling how she casually fired him while she was being fitted for a dress". Most legal observers felt that Helmsley's hostile personality, arrogance, and "naked greed" alienated the jurors.
On August 30, Helmsley was convicted of one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States
Conspiracy against the United States, or conspiracy to defraud the United States,§ 92318 U.S.C. § 371—Conspiracy to Defraud the United States U.S. Department of Justice's ''United States Attorneys' Manual''. is a federal offense in the United ...
, three counts of tax evasion
Tax evasion is an illegal attempt to defeat the imposition of taxes by individuals, corporations, trusts, and others. Tax evasion often entails the deliberate misrepresentation of the taxpayer's affairs to the tax authorities to reduce the tax ...
, three counts of filing false personal tax returns,[.] sixteen counts of assisting in the filing of false corporate and partnership tax returns, and ten counts of mail fraud
Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activity ...
. She was, however, acquitted
In common law jurisdictions, an acquittal certifies that the accused is free from the charge of an offense, as far as criminal law is concerned. The finality of an acquittal is dependent on the jurisdiction. In some countries, such as the ...
of extortion
Extortion is the practice of obtaining benefit through coercion. In most jurisdictions it is likely to constitute a criminal offence; the bulk of this article deals with such cases. Robbery is the simplest and most common form of extortion, ...
—a charge that could have sent her to prison for the rest of her life. Helmsley was instead sentenced to sixteen years in prison, which was eventually reduced when all but eight of the convictions were dropped. Nonetheless, when it was clear that she was going to prison, Helmsley collapsed outside the courthouse. She was later diagnosed with a heart irregularity and hypertension.
Helmsley's new lawyer, retained to appeal the judgment, was Alan Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz ( ; born September 1, 1938) is an American lawyer and former law professor known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appoin ...
. Following the appeal, which resulted in a reduced sentence, she was ordered to report to prison on tax day, April 15, 1992. She was released from custody on January 26, 1994, after serving twenty-one months.
After prison
Helmsley's later years were apparently spent in isolation, especially after Harry died in 1997. He left her his entire fortune, including the Helmsley hotels, the Helmsley Palace and the Empire State Building, estimated to be worth well in excess of $5 billion. Her few friends included Patrick Ward and Kathy
Kathy is a feminine given name. It is a pet form of Katherine, Kathleen and their related forms. Kathy may refer to:
In sports
* Kathy Bald, Canadian freestyle swimmer
* Kathy May, American tennis player
*Kathy Radzuweit, German volleyball playe ...
and Rick Hilton. A 2001 ''Chicago Sun-Times
The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago ...
'' article depicted her as estranged from her grandchildren and with few friends, living alone in a lavish apartment with her dog. Helmsley was forced to give up control of her hotel empire, since most of her hotels had bars and New York does not allow convicted felons to hold alcohol licenses. She spent her final years at her penthouse atop the Park Lane Hotel.
In 2002, Helmsley was sued by Charles Bell, a former employee who alleged that he was discharged solely for being gay
''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...
. A jury agreed and ordered Mrs. Helmsley to pay Bell $11,200,000 in damages. A judge subsequently reduced this amount to $554,000.
Although Helmsley had a reputation as the "Queen of Mean", some considered her generous in her charitable contributions after her prison term. After the 9/11 attacks
The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commerci ...
, Helmsley donated $5 million to help the families of New York City firefighters and police. Other contributions included $25 million to New York–Presbyterian Hospital The NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is a nonprofit academic medical center in New York City affiliated with two Ivy League medical schools, Cornell University and Columbia University. The hospital comprises seven distinct campuses located in the New Y ...
for medical research in 2006 through a charitable trust fund, the donations eventually grew to $65 million to establish the Center for Advanced Digestive Care at the hospital in 2009.
Death
Leona Helmsley died of congestive heart failure
Heart failure (HF), also known as congestive heart failure (CHF), is a syndrome, a group of signs and symptoms caused by an impairment of the heart's blood pumping function. Symptoms typically include shortness of breath, excessive fatigue, ...
at the age of 87, on August 20, 2007, at Dunnellen Hall
Dunnellen Hall is a private mansion located at 521 Round Hill Road in Greenwich, Connecticut, USA. It was sold by the estate of Leona Helmsley for $35 million down from the original asking price of $125 million when it was first put up on the mar ...
, her summer home in Greenwich, Connecticut. Cardiovascular disease ran in her family, claiming the lives of her father, son and a sister. After a week at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel
The Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel is a funeral home located on Madison Avenue at 81st Street in Manhattan. Founded in 1898 as Frank E. Campbell Burial and Cremation Company, the company is now owned by Service Corporation International. The fun ...
, she was entombed next to Harry Helmsley in a mausoleum constructed for $1.4 million and set on ¾-acres in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, New York, is the final resting place of numerous famous figures, including Washington Irving, whose 1820 short story " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" is set in the adjacent burying ground at the Old Dutch ...
, Westchester County, New York. Among the few distinctive features of the mausoleum are three wall-embedded stained-glass windows, in the style of Louis Tiffany, showing the skyline of Manhattan. Leona Helmsley was known for not liking dirt, and left $3 million for the 1,300-square-foot family mausoleum to be "washed or steam-cleaned at least once a year".
Helmsley left the bulk of her estate—estimated at more than $4 billion—to the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust is a foundation established in 1999 and administered by four trustees selected by Leona Helmsley. The Trust supports a wide range of organizations, with a major focus on health and medical resea ...
. In addition to providing directly for her own dog in her will, she left separate instructions that the trust, now valued at $5 billion, be used to benefit dogs. The courts have ruled that the trust is not legally bound to wishes separate from the trust documents.
The will left her Maltese dog, Trouble, a $12 million trust fund. This sum was subsequently reduced to $2 million as excessive to fulfill its purpose. Her choice was branded 3rd in ''Fortune
Fortune may refer to:
General
* Fortuna or Fortune, the Roman goddess of luck
* Luck
* Wealth
* Fortune, a prediction made in fortune-telling
* Fortune, in a fortune cookie
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''The Fortune'' (1931 film) ...
'' magazine's "101 Dumbest Moments in Business" of 2007.
Trouble lived in Florida with Carl Lekic, the general manager of the Helmsley Sandcastle Hotel, with several death threats having been received. Lekic, Trouble's caretaker, stated that $2 million would pay for the dog's maintenance for more than 10 years—the annual $100,000 for full-time security, $8,000 for grooming and $1,200 for food. Lekic was paid a $60,000 annual guardianship fee. Trouble died at age twelve in December 2010, at which time the remainder of the funds reverted to the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. Although Helmsley's wishes were to have the dog interred with her in the mausoleum, New York state law prohibits interment of pets in human cemeteries and the dog was subsequently cremated.
Helmsley had four grandchildren. Two of them each received $5 million in trust and $5 million in cash, under the condition that they visit their father's grave site once each calendar year. Their signing a registration book would prove that they had visited the grave. Her other two grandchildren, Craig and Meegan Panzirer, received nothing.
In a 2008 judgment, Manhattan Surrogate Court Judge Renee Roth ruled that Helmsley was mentally unfit when she executed her will. Roth reduced the $12 million trust fund for the pet Trouble to $2 million. Of the $10 million originally bequeathed to Trouble, $4 million was awarded to the charitable trust, and $6 million was awarded to Craig and Meegan Panzirer, who had been disinherited in the will. The ruling requires the Panzirers to keep silent about their dispute with their grandmother and deliver to the court any documents they have about her.
She left $15 million for her brother Alvin Rosenthal. Helmsley also left $100,000 to her chauffeur, Nicholas Celea.
The "Queen of Mean"
Helmsley acquired the moniker "The Queen of Mean", reportedly inspired after an advertising campaign promoting her as the "Queen of the Palace" of the Helmsley Palace Hotel. Helmsley became known by this nickname in the mainstream press.
Helmsley was known for "tyrannizing her employees". Alan Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz ( ; born September 1, 1938) is an American lawyer and former law professor known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appoin ...
, while having breakfast with her at one of the Helmsley hotels, received a cup of tea with a tiny bit of water spilled on the saucer
A saucer is a type of small dishware. While in the Middle Ages a saucer was used for serving condiments and sauces, currently the term is used to denote a small plate or shallow bowl that supports a cup – usually one used to serve coffee ...
. Helmsley grabbed the cup from the waiter and smashed it on the floor, then told him to beg for his job. In another account of Helmsley's behavior, she had a barbecue pit constructed for her home.[Hammer (1990), p. 243.] The work was performed by Eugene Brennan, a personal friend of Jeremiah McCarthy, the chief engineer of Helmsley-Spear.[ When the final bill came to $13,000, she refused to pay, citing shoddy workmanship.][ When McCarthy pleaded with her to honor the bill, citing the favor done on his behalf and informing her that Brennan had six children to support, Helmsley replied, "Why didn't he keep his pants on? Then he wouldn't need the money."][
In 1989, an unauthorized biography titled ''The Queen of Mean: The Unauthorized Biography of Leona Helmsley'' was published by Bantam Books ().
]
In popular culture
The 1990 TV movie ''Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean'' starred Suzanne Pleshette as Leona and Lloyd Bridges
Lloyd Vernet Bridges Jr. (January 15, 1913 – March 10, 1998) was an American film, stage and television actor who starred in a number of television series and appeared in more than 150 feature films. He was the father of four children, includi ...
as Harry. Pleshette was nominated for an Emmy Award
The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
and a Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Awards are accolades bestowed by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association beginning in January 1944, recognizing excellence in both American and international film and television. Beginning in 2022, there are 105 members of t ...
for the portrayal.
References
Further reading
*
*
*
* Author Steve Peacock was former Helmsley Palace house detective
External links
''New York Times'' articles related to Leona Helmsley
{{DEFAULTSORT:Helmsley, Leona
1920 births
2007 deaths
20th-century American businesspeople
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Abraham Lincoln High School (Brooklyn) alumni
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American people convicted of fraud
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American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American real estate businesspeople
Businesspeople from New York City
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Burials at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery
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