Leona Helmsley’s Appeal Argued: The hotel queen’s...

Leona Helmsley’s Appeal Argued: The hotel queen’s lawyer appealed her income-tax evasion conviction in New York, arguing that prosecutors used her testimony before a state grand jury to convict her in federal court. Members of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals appeared to be receptive at least in part to arguments of her attorney, Harvard Law school professor Alan Dershowitz. Helmsley, 70, was convicted in U.S. District Court a year ago of 33 criminal charges when a jury found her guilty of evading $1.2 million in taxes between 1983 and 1985. She was sentenced to 4 years in prison and a $7.1-million fine. Helmsley is free on bail. Dershowitz also argued the case brought against Helmsley was tainted because it was based on her testimony before a state grand jury. He said information from the secret state panel was used to bring the federal indictment. Dershowitz called the tie between her state testimony and the federal indictment a “direct chain of causation.”