[ClearCase_guy]

the media feeding frenzy over her was beyond all rhyme and reason

Beat me to it. She may have been a mean person -- I wouldn't know. But her handling by the press was classic Reagan Era "Let's pile on the greedy rich people" coverage. Michael Milliken got the same.

Just because the media says she was bad doesn't tell me anything.

[Iwo Jima]

I agree. If she actually did something wrong, I didn’t hear it through the din of calumny heaped upon her.

[Artemis Webb]

"Michael Milliken got the same."

Michael Milken did indeed get the same treatment, though he was not the household word that Leona Helmsley was. Milken though has distinguished himself with extensive charitable work since he was falsely prosecuted by an overzealous prosecutor named Rudy Guiliani.

Helmsley was the same "tough bitch" (her own defense attorneys description of her) after her trial as she was before.

In keeping with FreeRepublics high standards at "celebrity" deaths I'm not going to spew hatred at her. I will say though that a bag of rotten garbage that has money in it is still a bag of rotten garbage.

[Joan Kerrey]

Just because the media says she was bad doesn’t tell me anything.

---

In her case the media was dead right. She was a bitch and a witch and enjoyed brutalizing her help. I knew a number of people who worked for her and none of them survived more than a year in management positions. She picked on managers more because it was too expensive to fight union bosses’ protection of the line staff but it didn’t stop her from being a tyrant to all. I was in the hotel business for 40 years (retired) and served her myself in another luxury hotel where she and Harry visited. She was rude and sadistic in her approach to service managers and line staff and was determined to find fault at all cost.

[gracesdad]

Here’s a nice example from the ABC story. This from a woman who was worth billions:

“After her son died, she sued the estate for money and property she said her son had borrowed, and an eviction notice was served on her son’s widow, Mimi.

Mimi Panzirer said afterward that the legal costs wiped her out and “to this day I don’t know why they did it.”