Her real estate license was also suspended, so she focused on running Harry's growing hotel empire. They won, and she was forced not only to compensate the tenants but to give them three-year leases. The marriage may well have saved her career, as several of her tenants had sued her the year before for forcing them to buy condominiums. Harry divorced his wife of 33 years and married Roberts on April 8, 1972. At that time, she was already a millionaire in her own right. Two years later, she joined one of Harry's brokerage firms- Brown Harris Stevens-as a senior vice-president.
In 1968, while Roberts was working as a condominium broker, she met and began her involvement with the then-married real estate entrepreneur Harry Helmsley. She would later claim that she appeared in billboard ads for Chesterfield cigarettes, but her claim remains unsubstantiated. Roberts was a chain smoker, consuming several packs a day. After a brief period at a sewing factory, she joined a New York real estate firm, where she eventually became vice-president.
Leona was twice married to and divorced from her second husband, garment industry executive Joseph Lubin. Their only son was Jay (1940–1982), who had four children with his wife, Mimi. Roberts' first husband was attorney Leo Panzirer, whom she divorced in 1952. After dropping out of Abraham Lincoln High School to seek her fortune, she changed her name several times over a short period – from Lee Roberts, Mindy Roberts, and Leni Roberts – before finally going by Leona Mindy Roberts and having her surname legally changed to Roberts. Her family moved to Brooklyn while she was still a girl, and moved six more times before settling in Manhattan. Leona Helmsley was born Lena Mindy Rosenthal in Marbletown, New York, to Polish-Jewish immigrants, Ida (née Popkin), a homemaker, and Morris Rosenthal, a hatmaker. During the trial, a former housekeeper testified that she had heard Helmsley say: "We don't pay taxes only the little people pay taxes", a quote which was identified with her for the rest of her life. Although having initially received a sentence of sixteen years, she was required to serve only nineteen months in prison and two months under house arrest. After allegations of non-payment were made by contractors hired to improve Helmsley's Connecticut home, she was investigated and convicted of federal income tax evasion and other crimes in 1989. Her flamboyant personality and reputation for tyrannical behavior earned her the nickname Queen of Mean. Leona Roberts Helmsley (J– August 20, 2007) was an American businesswoman.
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