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- <text id=89TT3361>
- <title>
- Dec. 25, 1989: American Notes:Justice
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Dec. 25, 1989 Cruise Control:Tom Cruise
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 35
- American Notes
- JUSTICE
- Judgment Day For Leona
- </hdr><body>
- <p> The sentence seemed to satisfy even the most vengeful
- spectators. Four years in a tiny cell shared with two or three
- other prisoners. A $7 million fine. A $1.6 million bill for
- unpaid federal and state taxes. And once the jail term is up,
- 750 hours of community service caring for infants born with drug
- addictions or AIDS.
- </p>
- <p> Tears failed to save hotelier Leona Helmsley, 69, the
- "Queen of Mean," who once sneered that only "little people pay
- taxes." Imploring Federal Judge John M. Walker Jr. not to
- imprison her for tax evasion, Helmsley wept, "I am more
- humiliated and ashamed than anybody could ever imagine." The
- judge was unmoved. Her attempt to charge off as business
- expenses items ranging from a $12.99 girdle to a $1.2 million
- pool enclosure for her mansion was the "product of naked greed,"
- he declared. Helmsley is appealing the verdict, but as she left
- the courtroom, one of the little people had the last word:
- "There goes Marie Antoinette."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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