Hotel queen Leona Helmsley, serving a four-year tax evasion sentence, was transferred Friday to a minimum-security camp after spending a month at a federal medical center in Kentucky.
Helmsley, 71, finished a series of medical tests at the Federal Medical Center for women in Lexington, Ky., and was transferred to the Federal Correction Institution, prison spokeswoman Lisa Austin said.The camp is on the fringe of a men's penitentiary. There are no bars, and prisoners have a view of rolling hills. She will share an 8-foot-by-6-foot cell with another inmate.
Austin called the Danbury prison appropriate for a tax evasion charge. It's also close to Helmsley's mansion in Greenwich, something authorities consider when assigning prisons, she said.
Helmsley, sentenced in March, will be assigned to a work detail after orientation at the prison, Austin said.
Helmsley, who has suffered from high blood pressure, reported to the Kentucky prison hospital on Tax Day, April 15, to begin her sentence. She must serve at least 16 months before becoming eligible for parole.
She was convicted in 1989 of evading $1.7 million in taxes by billing personal expenses such as renovations on her Greenwich home to her companies. Her 83-year-old husband Harry was indicted with her but was found mentally incompetent to stand trial.
Helmsley, once dubbed the "Queen of Mean" because of alleged abusive treatment of her employees, has paid about $8 million in fines and restitution.