The Nation - News from Aug. 25, 1989

Leona Helmsley’s lawyer, ending an impassioned 8 1/2-hour defense of his rich and famous client in Manhattan federal court, implored the jury “to end the long, terrible suffering of Mrs. Helmsley” by acquitting her of tax evasion, conspiracy and extortion charges. Gerald A. Feffer painted Helmsley, 69, as the victim of government witnesses with axes to grind--many of them former employees that the billionaire hotelier had fired. Feffer sought to rebut testimony presented on the extortion charge, the most serious leveled in the case, which carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence.