LEXINGTON, Ky. -- Millionaire hotel mogul Leona Helmsley entered a crowded federal women's prison before dawn Wednesday -- income tax deadline day -- to begin a four-year sentence for cheating on her taxes.
Helmsley, 71, dubbed the 'queen of mean' for the iron-fisted way she ran her New York hotels, dodged reporters, photographers and television cameras out to chronicle her fall from high society by arriving at the Federal Medical Center at 4:15 a.m. -- well before check- in time.
Helmsley flew to Lexington in a chartered jet. She had been told to arrive by 3 p.m. after losing her last attempt to stay out of prison when a federal appeals court in Manhattan Tuesday rejected an 11th-hour request to reduce her sentence.
Prison officials assigned her No. 15113-054 and issued a terse statement announcing her arrival.
One of Mrs. Helmsley's attorneys, Nathan Dershowitz, said her defense team has filed a notice of appeal for a new trial.
In the meantime, he said he believed that after she been given a medical evaluation and it was determined she did not need hospitalization, she would be transferred to a minimum security prison, probably the federal facility at Danbury, Conn.
'The Bureau of Prisons should be capable of reading medical records and come to the same conclusion as that of her physicians ... that she is a quite ill woman, but not in need of hospitalization,' he said.
Mrs. Helmsley will be eligible for parole Aug. 13, 1993. With statutory good time, her projected release date is May 13, 1995.
She had waged a persistent legal battle to stay out of prison and spoke of her fear of life behind bars. Her supporters have said the sentence will kill her.
In addition to her own health problems, Mrs. Helmsley has said she is afraid her husband, New York real estate magnate Harry Helmsley, will die while she is imprisoned.
Harry Helmsley, 83, originally faced income tax evasion charges with his wife but the charges were dropped because he was deemed mentally unable to help in his defense.
Dershowitz said doctors had recommended that the ailing Helmsley not be told his wife would be going to prison 'until it was crystal clear that she was in fact going. He has now been told.'
Mrs. Helmsley became an inmate about 14 hours after she lost an appeal before the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan.
In his appeal to the judges, Nathan Dershowitz' brother, attorney Alan Dershowitz, pointed futilely to the cruel symbolism of Mrs. Helmsley entering prison on April 15 -- the deadline for filing taxes.
'Instead of the message being one of compassion, of allowing her to spend her last Passover -- literally her last supper -- with her family over this Passover-Easter ... the government wants to send a message to you all on April 15 through Mr. and Mrs. Helmsley, and that is just not right,' he said to reporters before the appeals court issued its final ruling.
Dershowitz also told the judges that because of her age, Mrs. Helmsley's sentence was compounded by time.
'Four years at the time of sentencing would have been about one- third of her remaining life,' he said. 'Now it would be what's remaining of her life.
'She was in effect receiving a death sentence.'
Dershowitz told the judges that doctors said Helmsley suffers from severe cardiovascular disease and already has had several strokes, detected only recently.
The attorney also described an anti-Semitic letter he said was from the Aryan Brotherhood, a right-wing extremist group that promised to disfigure Mrs. Helmsley in prison.
Arguing against any reduction in sentence, Assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Hellerer told the court the government realized Mrs. Helmsley's health was not good, but he pointed out that she had been able to travel to Boston, Washington and Florida -- and to appear on three TV talk shows.
Dershowitz said Helmsley was willing to solve the city's homeless problems 'singlehandedly.'
'She'll turn over as many hotels as neccessary, the ones she owns outright,' he said.
In 1989, Leona Helmsley was convicted by a federal jury of defrauding the government of millions of dollars in taxes and submitting false billings for more than $3 million worth of house renovations at their Connecticut estate.
In addition to prison, she was fined $7.1 million.
