OTHER NEWS - Sept. 20, 1991

Leona Helmsley Wants New Trial: The self-styled hotel queen, whose tax-evasion conviction was recently upheld on appeal, demanded a new trial on grounds that the IRS has not completed an audit of her tax returns. Often fighting back tears, Helmsley repeatedly contested her innocence at a news conference in her Park Lane Hotel. Her attorney, Alan Dershowitz, said it would be unfair for Helmsley, who remains free on $25-million bail, to begin serving a four-year prison sentence when an Internal Revenue Service audit might clear her of charges that she underpaid federal taxes in 1983, 1984 and 1985. Dershowitz distributed documents that showed that the IRS was auditing the income tax returns that Helmsley, 71, and her ailing husband, real estate mogul Harry B. Helmsley, 80, filed for the years 1981 through 1988. The audit would not be completed until the end of 1995, he said.