Leona Helmsley, 87, 'queen of mean'

NEW YORK - Leona Helmsley, 87, who ran a $5 billion hotel and real estate empire with her husband but sealed her reputation as the "queen of mean" during her 1989 trial for tax evasion, died yesterday at her summer home in Greenwich, Conn.

Already experienced in real estate before her marriage, Mrs. Helmsley helped her husband run an enterprise that included managing the Empire State Building, as many as 27 hotels and thousands of apartments.

She became a household name in 1989 when she was tried for tax evasion. The sensational trial included testimony from disgruntled employees who said she terrorized the help and the executives at her hotels and homes.

That image of Mrs. Helmsley as the "queen of mean" was cemented when a former housekeeper testified that she had heard Mrs. Helmsley say: "We don't pay taxes. Only the little people pay taxes." Mrs. Helmsley denied having said it, but the words followed her for the rest of her life.

In the tax case, she and her husband, Harry, were accused in state and federal indictments of charging millions of dollars in personal expenses and home improvements to their businesses. She was convicted in 1989 on 33 federal tax-evasion counts and sentenced to four years in prison. She ended up serving a total of 21 months. Harry Helmsley had by that time been ruled incompetent to stand trial.

"Leona Helmsley was definitely one of a kind," said Donald Trump, whose rivalry with the Helmsleys made headlines in the 1990s. "Harry loved being with her and the excitement she brought, and that is all that really matters."

Mrs. Helmsley's financial excesses, including a nine-room penthouse with a swimming pool overlooking Central Park and a jet with a bedroom suite, overshadowed millions of dollars in contributions for medical research and other causes. In recent years, she contributed $25 million to New York Presbyterian Hospital, $5 million to Hurricane Katrina relief, and $5 million after Sept. 11 to help the families of firefighters.

In 2007, Forbes magazine ranked her the 369th-richest person in the world, with a net worth of $2.5 billion.

She was 51, with the looks of a former model, when she married Harry Helmsley in 1972. It was her third marriage, and she already was a successful seller of residential real estate in New York. He was 63 and one of the richest men in America. In 1980 he made her president of Helmsley Hotels, which operated more than two dozen hotels in 10 states.

On July 4, 1976, Harry Helmsley lit the Empire State Building in red, white and blue - a tribute not to the Bicentennial but to his wife's birthday, he said. It cost $100,000 - "less than a necklace," he said.

When her husband died in 1997 at age 87, Mrs. Helmsley said: "My fairy tale is over. I lived a magical life with Harry."