Former Helmsley Security Officers Support Fired Gay Employee's Story

WNBC Video Clip News Report on Anti-Gay Bias Lawsuit and Leona Helmsley Responds

NEW YORK -- Two of Leona Helmsley's former security officers testified Thursday that she fired the gay manager of the hotel where she lives soon after learning that the man who hired him, her supposed boyfriend, also is a homosexual.

Andrew Martinez, 40, of Middletown, N.J., said Helmsley zeroed in on Charles Bell, former general manager of her pricey Park Lane Hotel, after she fired Patrick Ward, her former chief operating officer and the man she thought was her boyfriend.

After learning in early 2001 that Ward is gay, Helmsley fired him, Martinez said.

"She called him a fag," Martinez said. "She said she once caught him trying on her underwear."

After Ward was fired, it seemed that Bell couldn't do anything right in Helmsley's view, Martinez said. He quoted Helmsley as saying, "I got rid of one fag. I want to get rid of another."

Martinez, a former New York City police officer, said he was told to "dig up anything I could," including telephone records, that could be used by Helmsley to justify firing Bell. He said Helmsley derided Bell, who used to work in Florida, as part of "the Miami faggot crowd."

Martinez said he warned Bell: "She's coming after you."

Martinez was testifying at the trial of Bell's $40 million lawsuit against Helmsley. Bell, 48, claims the hotel queen subjected him to a vicious anti-gay campaign of terror for several months after learning that he is homosexual and then fired him from his $110,000-a-year job on March 23, 2001.

Helmsley has denied that she fired Bell "for any improper reason." She also said she offered to rehire Bell in a comparable job with a raise -- before he sued her.

Bell says this is true but he refused to risk Helmsley's abuse again.

John Moore, 38, of the Bronx, testified that he worked as a security official for Helmsley for 14 years. He said he talked to her every day when he met her to take her blood pressure and give her medication in her penthouse atop the 48-floor, 600-room hotel overlooking Central Park.

Moore said Helmsley, who had already asked him about Ward and Bell's sexual preferences, once asked him whether he knew that Ward wore her underwear and her dresses. Moore said, "I told her I had no idea."

On occasion, Moore testified, Helmsley asked him to have lunch and watch television with her. While once watching "Star Trek: The Next Generation," Moore testified, she saw the shaved head of actor Patrick Stewart and said, "Look! Look! There's Fag Boy!"

Moore said he asked what she meant and she said she was talking about Bell, who has a shaved head and a slight resemblance to Stewart.

Ward, who also is suing Helmsley, is expected to testify in the trial.