On this day, Dec. 12, 1989, Leona Helmsley, nicknamed the “Queen of Mean” by the press, received a four-year prison sentence, 750 hours of community service, and a $7.1 million tax fraud fine in New York. The cutthroat hotel mogul became known as a symbol of 1980s greed after she was accused by unpaid contractors of trying to have her company pay for more than $3 million in furnishings for Dunnellen Hall, the family’s 26-acre estate in Greenwich, Conn.
At trial, her fate was sealed when one employee had quoted her as snarling, “Only the little people pay taxes.”
Helmsley died at Dunnellen Hall in 2007 at age 87. In her will, she granted $12 million to her dog, her beloved white Maltese named Trouble, and ordered that the dog be buried alongside her in a mausoleum. –
Scott McCabe Scott McCabe
