January 15, 2003
Gfn.com News
The hotelier known as the Queen of Mean was exactly that, a former hotel employee of Leona Helmsley testified Tuesday, saying she conducted a "vicious, antigay attack campaign" against him and fired him as the general manager of her Park Lane Hotel because he was gay.
On the first day of the trial in his $40 million sexual discrimination suit against Mrs. Helmsley and two of her companies, Charles Bell accused her of repeated verbal abuse and of slapping him twice in the four months he worked at Helmsley's hotel on Central Park South.
On the stand Bell said Helmsley ordered furniture and fabrics for Dunnellen Hall, her 28-room mansion in Greenwich, Conn., but paid for the items with checks from the Park Lane. She also had the hotel's chef prepare special meals for her Maltese dog, Trouble, and had the dog groomed and walked at the hotel's expense.
Bell, testifying in his civil suit in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, painted a picture of a homophobic woman who used derogatory terms to refer to gay men.
"You look like a fag, you dress like a fag, you are a fag," Bell, who worked at Helmsley's Park Lane Hotel for four months, testified that she yelled at him in February 2001.
"I was dumbfounded," said Mr. Bell. "I couldn't believe somebody would say that to another person. I was pretty humiliated."
In his opening, defense attorney Steve Eckhaus told the jury that Helmsley has many gay employees and gay friends and it was her decision to annually light the Empire State Building, which she co-owns, in lavender during Gay Pride Week.
He called Bell's accusations "opportunistic charges."
Associated Press Writer
Charles Bell, 48, wept while testifying that Helmsley verbally bludgeoned him in mid-February 2001 after learning that he is homosexual and about a month before firing him as general manager of Manhattan's pricey Park Lane Hotel.
"She started to yell at me," Bell testified tearfully at the trial of his $40 million gay bias lawsuit against Helmsley. "She said, `You look like a fag. You dress like a fag. You are a fag."'
Bell said he controlled himself and refused to collapse emotionally in front of her.
"I stood there, and I took it," he said. "I felt I was getting beat up with a baseball bat."
He went on: "She slapped my face twice, lightly. `You think you're so cute, don't you.' I said, 'No, ma'am, I'm just trying to do a good job for you.' I felt like I was going to have a nervous breakdown."
Helmsley, who shook her head during Bell's testimony, denied his charges when she left at the lunch break.
"I do not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, and I did not discriminate against Mr. Bell," she said. "I am confident that the evidence will prove that I did not discriminate against Mr. Bell and that I did not fire Mr. Bell for any improper reason."
Bell is suing Helmsley and two of her companies in Manhattan's state Supreme Court. He alleges that despite his hard work at the Park Lane and his restoration of the hotel to its five-star rank, she fired him in March 2001 because he is homosexual.
The self-styled hotel queen seemed most annoyed when Bell testified that the Park Lane was in a shocking state of deterioration when he arrived.
"The Helmsley hotels are beautiful," she said as she went to lunch. "They are the cleanest."
Bell said Helmsley, 82, once entered the 49-floor, 600-room Park Lane, where she has her own residence overlooking Central Park on the top three floors, and asked him, "Why are all these gay men in my hotel? It's disgusting. I want them out."
Bell said he was devastated emotionally after Helmsley began her anti-gay rampage and launched "attack after attack after attack." He said he "felt like dirt," and even though he had done a good job for Helmsley, in her view, "I could do no right."
Bell was the trial's first witness before Justice Walter Tolub. Another likely witness is Patrick Ward, Helmsley's former chief operating officer, the man she formerly thought was her boyfriend, and one of at least three gay men who have sued her.
Bell testified that a Helmsley employee once asked him about Ward's sexual orientation. He said he told the employee, "I don't know. I haven't slept with him. Just because I am gay, it doesn't mean that I know everyone who is."
Charles Bell is suing Leona Helmsley for $40 million, charging she hounded him with homophobic slurs before giving him a pink slip from the Park Lane Hotel because of his sexual orientation.
"It's been a harrowing experience for him," said Bell's lawyer, Geri Krauss. "It was a vicious anti-gay rampage that went on daily."
Helmsley's side said the sacking had nothing to do with Bell's sexuality - they charge he was a drug-using liar who was giving rooms and booze away to his buddies.
"She's not homophobic. He was fired because he earned it," said Helmsley's lawyer, Jeffrey Taub.
Both sides are expected to present their arguments before Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Walter Tolub and a three-man, three-woman jury this morning.
Bell, 48, was hired as general manager at the 600-room Central Park South hotel in November 2000. He contends that Helmsley, 82, was a "cruel and abusive" boss who would ridicule homosexuals and use the word "gay" as an insult.
The verbal abuse got even worse after she discovered that another employee she thought was her paramour, Patrick Ward, was gay, the suit says. She fired Ward days after the discovery in January 2001, and then turned up the heat on Bell before canning him in March, the suit says.
"She called me a ‘fag,' and told me to ‘keep faggots out of the hotel,'" Bell said.
Krauss said Helmsley had her employees investigate Bell to try to force him out, once even instructing people to break into his room "to see if he had any ‘gay toys.'"
Helmsley told The Post last week that "Bell was terminated for cause, and for no other reason."
She said he gave away rooms to his pals, while telling hotel brass they were prospective clients. Taub said Bell also admitted using illegal drugs while employed by Helmsley. While Bell contends the drug usage was off premises and during nonworking hours, Taub said being general manager of a hotel is a "24-hour a day, seven days a week job."
He also charged that Bell's "entire résumé was false. Except his name."
Krauss countered that what Helmsley is "portraying is absolutely not the truth," and that the facts would come out during the trial, which is expected to last three weeks. Bell is expected to be the first witness.
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