Newly minted millionaire can't buy a friend

JODO · September 4, 2007

International Herald Tribune

Newly minted millionaire can't buy a friend

By: Manny Fernandez

Published: September 3, 2007

NEW YORK: She has a thing for cream cheese and long walks in the park. Like many New Yorkers, she is well-fed, well-groomed and well-medicated (for her thyroid and kidney troubles). At the age of 8, she has already been the star of a national advertising campaign and the subject of at least one messy lawsuit.

She has spent most of her days in pampered luxury, in a penthouse apartment at the top of the Park Lane Hotel, at the southern edge of Central Park. A hotel pianist once wrote a tune for her. A hotel chef cooked her meals, and a housekeeper served them, hand-feeding her steamed carrots and other vegetables with grilled chicken.

Life, in fact, got to be so good that some people had to watch what they said around her. They didn't want to offend her - or her owner and best friend, Leona Helmsley - by calling her, of all things, a dog.

"Nobody could say 'the dog,' " said Zamfira Sfara, 48, a former housekeeper for Helmsley, who Sfara said preferred a more regal term for her beloved pet.

Princess.

But she is a canine - the richest, most talked-about and most controversial dog in a city of dogs. Helmsley, the hotel magnate who died last month at the age of 87, showed her enduring love for her dog, whose actual name was Trouble, by leaving the dog $12 million in her will. Helmsley was not as generous to her chauffeur, who was awarded $100,000, or to two of her grandchildren, who received nothing, the 14-page will states, "for reasons which are known to them."

The $12 million gift has sparked outrage and fascination, and supplied the headline writers of the world with once-in-a-lifetime material. "Trouble in paradise, but heirs in disgrace," said The Australian. The New York Post and England's Sun were in agreement: "Rich ######."

With her owner gone, Trouble has become an easy stand-in for New Yorkers' less than generous feelings about Helmsley, whose reputation for mistreating workers earned her a seat in the tabloid nobility as the "Queen of Mean." The agitation over the dog's fortune has overshadowed the fact that Helmsley actually left the bulk of her billions to a charitable trust.

A cute-as-pie Maltese with white stringy hair and button eyes, Trouble is not easily embraced in a city of grinders, and her defenders are few. Much of what is publicly known about her comes from Sfara, who worked for Helmsley for three months and sued her after she said she was bitten by the dog.

Trouble's whereabouts remain unknown. Helmsley's longtime spokesman, Howard Rubenstein, declined to comment for this article.

The dog was just a puppy when she came into Helmsley's life. Sfara said Helmsley had told her that John Codey, a friend and adviser, went on a walk with Helmsley one day, and they ended up at a pet store.

Trouble began approaching Helmsley, and they made an immediate connection. Codey bought the dog for her as a present. Codey did not return a phone call seeking comment.

The dog was featured in ads for the Park Lane, and in one she wears pink bows over her ears and puts on a pout next to the words: "It's a sad day when you leave a Helmsley Hotel."

Sfara, who said Helmsley gave Trouble her name, recalled a day when Helmsley had an eye appointment at the NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital in Manhattan. Trouble was refused entry. "She was making so much fuss and arguing with people," Sfara said of Helmsley, "that they let us go upstairs." With Trouble.

Trouble, despite her size, seemed to earn the name.

Sfara said Trouble bit her dozens of times during the three months she worked for Helmsley in 2004. Once, when Helmsley was returning from a trip to her home in Greenwich, Connecticut, Trouble rested on Sfara's lap in the limousine. When she moved her right arm to get a tissue, Trouble lunged and bit her hand, drawing blood, she said. Sfara said Trouble had also bitten Helmsley's bodyguards, a dog groomer, a nurse and at least one hotel guest.

"Trouble didn't let people get close to her," Sfara said of Helmsley. "She says, 'She's my first bodyguard.' "

Sfara sued her former boss over one of the dog bites. In 2005, a judge dismissed the case, agreeing with Helmsley's lawyers that she was insulated from liability under the Workers' Compensation Law.

Sfara said she still suffers pain from the nerve damage from the bites and wears a brace on her right hand.

As with any New Yorker who has come into a ton of money, Trouble is going to need expert legal representation. Sfara's son, Remus Pop, 27, said they are talking to a law firm about taking up their case again and going after Trouble's inheritance. "That is the next step," Pop said. "That dog got money. That money is going to be taken away from that dog."

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/09/03/asia/trouble.php