Son of New York socialite jailed for looting her $200m fortune

Appeal: Anthony Marshall sat slumped in court
Ed Harris12 April 2012

The son of New York philanthropist Brooke Astor has been sentenced to up to three years in prison for exploiting his mother's mental state to plunder her millions.

But Anthony Marshall, 85, will remain free for at least the next month as his lawyers try to persuade a court to let him stay on bail indefinitely during the appeal process.

Marshall declined to speak at his sentencing yesterday at the Supreme Court in New York. Prosecutors described him as an unrepentant thief who deserved punishment. His lawyers tried to portray him as a dutiful son who believed his mother wanted him to have the money and items including works of art he was convicted of stealing. Before leaving court, Marshall, who was stooped and unsteady, sat for a minute on a bench in the public part of the courtroom as his tearful wife Charlene put an arm around his shoulders.

Marshall was found guilty of 14 counts, including scheming to defraud, for looting his mother's fortune by getting her to change her will. She was suffering from Alzheimer's disease when she died aged 105 in 2007.

In the final year of her life, a family feud over her care included claims that she was forced to sleep in a torn nightgown on a couch that smelled of urine while subsisting on a diet of pureed peas and oatmeal. Those allegations led to the criminal case over her finances.

Mrs Astor was seen as the queen of New York society. She used her fortune of nearly $200 million to support the grandest institutions - Carnegie Hall among them - and the humblest, paying for a new boiler for a youth centre.

Her efforts won her a presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honour, in 1998. "It is a paradox to me that such abundance has led to such incredible sadness," said Justice A Kirke Bartley. Marshall's co-defendant Francis X Morrissey Jr, 67, a property lawyer convicted of helping Marshall steal his mother's money, was sentenced to one to three years in prison. He is also planning to appeal.

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