Helmsley Loses Bias Lawsuit

Leona Helmsley, the New York hotelier who once boasted that “only the little people pay taxes,” was ordered Tuesday to pay more than $11 million to a former hotel manager after a jury found that she fired him because he is gay.

Charles Bell, who managed the upscale Park Lane Hotel, one of several prized properties owned by Helmsley, had sought $40 million from her, claiming that he had endured a “hostile and abusive work environment.” Other witnesses testified that Helmsley regularly used anti-gay epithets in dealing with her staff.

“I am very pleased that the jury realized that Mrs. Helmsley discriminated against me,” Bell, 48, said after the verdict was announced in State Supreme Court. “I don’t believe that any gay person should ever have to go through this kind of treatment again, ever.”

“I feel I’ve been robbed,” Helmsley told reporters outside the Manhattan court. Her attorney, Jeffrey Taub, said an appeal would be filed within two weeks.

Jon Davidson, senior counsel in Los Angeles for Lambda Legal, a gay and lesbian civil rights group, said the $11.2-million judgment was the largest that he knew of in a wrongful-termination case involving sexual orientation. It exceeded a $6.2-million judgment in Northern California against Shell Oil Co. in 1991, which “I have always used in talking to employers” about the sizable verdicts that are possible against them if they allow such discrimination, Davidson said.

Bell’s troubles began after Helmsley learned that Patrick Ward, a company executive she thought was her boyfriend, was gay. Ward, who was dismissed from his post, had hired Bell.

Helmsley, 82, denied that she mistreated Bell, saying she fired him in March 2001 because he was unqualified and had submitted a “phony baloney” resume to her.

She also alleged that Bell had acted in a morally questionable manner at the ritzy hotel overlooking Central Park -- throwing late-night parties where guests danced half-naked in the halls -- and these accusations became fodder for the city’s tabloids during a trial that frequently veered into X-rated territory.

There was lurid testimony about alleged sexual misbehavior during the three-week proceeding before Supreme Court Justice Walter Tolub. The highlight, however, was Helmsley’s 20-minute appearance on the witness stand last week, when she denied any bias against Bell and insisted that she had many gay employees.

As Helmsley spoke, a group of her hotel employees, including cooks and seamstresses, sat in the back of the courtroom to offer support. Others held up signs outside the courthouse reading, “We Love You, Mama!”

Although Helmsley’s testimony was relatively brief, she couldn’t help revisiting her painful past: During the early 1980s, Helmsley and her late husband, Harry, a real estate mogul, were investigated for tax fraud, and she was sentenced to 18 months in jail. The woman critics dubbed the “Queen of Mean” said her husband was too sick to go to jail back then, so she went in his place.

Helmsley, who appeared overcome by emotion during her testimony last week, looked on impassively Tuesday as the jury delivered its verdict. As part of Tolub’s instructions, the panel was told to take into account Helmsley’s net worth, which has been estimated at $3.1 billion to $4 billion. The award consisted of $10 million in punitive damages and more than $1.17 million in compensatory damages.