Mon. Aug. 20: In her earlier years, Leona Mindy Rosenthal was a soft-spoken girl whose only ambition was to convert her doll house into a series of condominium complexes rented out at exorbitant sub-prime mortgage rates. Neighbor children never thought to take her taunt “only the little people pay taxes!” very seriously…
Until one fateful night in August, 1972…
Leona, then married to multi-millionaire Harold Helmsley, agreed to repossess a chemical treatment plant from a struggling immigrant family. When husband and wife refused to vacate, Leona murdered them both on the spot, making their small son, Rudy, watch in horror. On the way out, however, she accidentally slipped into a vat of napalm and emerged a contorted, scarred parody of her former self. Within weeks, she had dubbed herself “The Queen of Mean” and became renowned for cackling at customers: “have you ever danced with Leona in the pale moonlight??“
In 1992, poetic justice was served. An up-and-coming U.S. attorney, Rudolph Giuliani, who had risen on the wave of anti-city-crime litigation, would prosecute Leona for tax evasion…(this part is true)
This post is dedicated to the little guy within all of us…
