The so-called "Queen of Mean" gave a princely sum to charity after Sept. 11 - but she also gave exhausted Ground Zero rescue workers the royal boot from her posh hotels, it was charged yesterday.
Leona Helmsley said, "I want them out of the hotel. I want them all out now," former employee John Moore says in court papers, recalling an incident that occurred about a week after the attacks.
"That very night, those that came back from digging out people . . . were told [they were] no longer wanted at any of the Helmsley properties."
Moore made the statements in a deposition on behalf of an ex-Helmsley staffer, Charles Bell, who has filed a multimillion-dollar wrongful-termination suit against Leona.
Her lawyer, Steven Eckhaus, said she gave millions to a charity for cop and fire widows a week after 9/11.
"She gave all the rescue workers access to her [five] hotels for a week, and then a $5 million check," he said.
Eckhaus noted that Helmsley fired Moore late last year, and that he has a suit pending her.
The allegations came on what was to be the first day of trial in Bell's suit. Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Walter Tolub granted a defense motion to delay the case until Jan. 13.
Moore said at the deposition last March that he watched the attacks unfold while in Helmsley's Park Lane apartment. Moore, then her fire and safety director, said she told him, "I have to do something. What can I do?"
He told her the Fire Department had asked for rooms for rescue workers.
"Yes. Give them whatever they want," she said.
Moore said he doubled them up in "old" and "out of order rooms."
But after she sent in her check, she had a change of heart, Moore said.
"She told me that I had no right giving her hotel rooms away, that these people should be paying her now that they have enough money to stay in the hotel," he said.
" ' I want them out,' " he said she told him.
