What, Frighted With False Fire?

As city officials stumble upon even more impressive ways to waste money (a $114,762 electricity bill for a building not even open, for example*), one of the better Leona Helmsley anecdotes is resurrected:

In 235 counts in state and federal indictments, the Helmsleys were accused of using money from their hotel and real estate empires to buy a $1 million marble dance floor above a swimming pool, a $210,000 mahogany card table and $500,000 worth of jade objets d’art. Mrs. Helmsley was also charged with defrauding Helmsley stockholders by receiving $83,333 a month in secret consulting fees.

Mr. Helmsley, then 80 and suffering deficiencies in reasoning and memory, was found mentally unfit to stand trial. As Mrs. Helmsley was tried, a series of prosecution witnesses described a spiteful, extravagant, foul-mouthed woman who terrified her underlings. In the most celebrated line of testimony, a former Helmsley housekeeper testified that Mrs. Helmsley had once told her, “Only the little people pay taxes.”

*They must not have gotten to the David Owens’ piece in last week’s New Yorker that refutes the argument for security lighting; maybe it’s still sitting next to the leaky toilet?