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Inside the Astor Verdict
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Brooke Astor’s son and his lawyer have been handed a guilty verdict, but Ralph Gardner Jr. still can’t crack the trial’s central mystery: What made them think they’d get away with defrauding a New York social icon?
What made the Brooke Astor trial, which ended Thursday with a guilty verdict for the socialite’s son and his lawyer, riveting to the very end was that it seemed to hit on almost all seven deadly sins—perhaps even coining an eighth: stupidity. How else to characterize such a profound lack of self-awareness?
A few days into jury deliberations, I found myself at the end of the day on the uptown Lexington Avenue local with Joel Seidemann, one of the prosecutors in the case. What I found remarkable about our conversation on the train is that after three years of preparation and almost six months of trial, Mr. Seidemann seemed just as intrigued and baffled by the central element of the case as I was. And it’s this: What demons, what egregious lack of common decency (not to mention common sense), possessed Anthony Marshall, his wife, Charlene, and his lawyer and co-defendant, Francis Morrissey, to believe they could get away with overturning Brooke Astor’s will, enriching themselves at the expense of the very institutions on which she’d built her reputation as a secular saint, a cultural icon, New York’s highest-profile philanthropist, the last of the grandes dames. Oh, yes—and she just happened to have Alzheimer’s disease.
The central mystery remains: What dark forces compelled the perpetrators to commit their crimes?
On Thursday the jury convicted Messrs. Marshall and Morrissey on almost all counts, with both Mr. Marshall, 85, and Mr. Morrissey, 66, facing jail time. Obviously, the perpetrators couldn’t have predicted their misdeeds would result in a marathon criminal trial and months, no years, of tabloid headlines when they dragged the demented Astor into her library in January 2004. There they compelled Astor to change her will, giving Tony and ultimately Charlene most of her fortune; three months later, Mr. Morrissey forged her signature on another codicil. They could not have known that in two years’ time, Philip Marshall would challenge his father’s guardianship of Astor, triggering the criminal charges and tabloid frenzy.
• Read Ralph Gardner Jr.’s full coverage of the Astor trial.
• Philip Bump: I Was an Astor Trial Juror
Nonetheless, couldn’t Tony and Charlene have lived on the $20 million Tony conservatively stood to inherit if he hadn’t touched his mother’s will? Didn’t it occur to Charlene—an avid churchgoer—that no good could come from making her own children the ultimate beneficiary of the Astor fortune at the expense of Brooke’s biological grandchildren, Philip and Alex Marshall? And what of Mr. Morrissey, who had gotten in trouble on previous occasions when he found himself the beneficiary of the estates of the demented elderly? Shouldn’t he have known that it was only a matter of time until some prosecutor somewhere caught up with him?
At some point during jury deliberations, I turned to Meryl Gordon, who was covering the case for Vanity Fair magazine and marveled at my emotional investment in the case, an investment she shared. Meryl observed that it was totally logical considering how much time we’d spent in court. But it was more than that. It was because the suspects’ sins seemed so dastardly I wanted to see justice done. I wanted to see Tony punished for trying to close Holly Hill, the Westchester home his mother loved so much she repeatedly professed a desire to die there, and for being so cheap he wouldn’t even buy a security gate to prevent Brooke from tumbling down the stairs of her Park Avenue duplex; I wanted to see Charlene, whom Brooke hated, prevented from inheriting her fortune; and I wanted Mr. Morrissey’s shady career to catch up with him.
All that has happened with the jury’s verdict. But the central mystery remains: What dark forces compelled the perpetrators to commit their crimes? Perhaps they couldn’t answer that question themselves. Perhaps if they could, they wouldn’t have committed them.
Ralph Gardner, Jr. is freelance writer whose work has appeared in New York magazine, The New York Observer, The New Yorker and other publications.
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John Talks Joe
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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Ralph Gardner, Jr. is freelance writer whose work has appeared in New York magazine, the New York Observer, the New Yorker and other publications.
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Ralph Gardner, Jr. is freelance writer whose work has appeared in New York magazine, the New York Observer, the New Yorker and other publications.
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Ralph Gardner, Jr. is freelance writer whose work has appeared in New York magazine, the New York Observer, the New Yorker and other publications.
Excellent story. The world amazes me. Greed is poisonous. Americans are tired of it. Now let's move on to Wall Street.
we are drawn to this compelling story because it hits home ,to all of us regardless of our fortunes or lack thereof.We will all age and if we have children we will be dependant on them on some way.This is the ultimate betrayal.My 90 year old mother lives with me and she is in no way mentally diminished but her level of helplessness physically scares me some times.It would be so easy to take advantage of her.The actions of these terrible people are at last rightfully punished.
The motors of this charade were Charlene and Morrissey, both in their mid sixties. Morrissey a congenital grifter, Charlene a grasping arriviste. Sonny Marshall was but a puppet in their hands.
Good for grandson Philip that ratted pops Anthony out.
Little did the Marshall - Morrissey combo know the NY High Society fusilade they would be up against. Just desserts.
You ask the question Why. The answer is the same as the answer to Why do dogs lick their balls. The answer is Because they can.
My father was dx with ALZ in 2005. Feb, 06, my sister took him to a lawyer's office and had herself named Power of Attorney. She then took dad into two banks and wiped out all my parents' accounts. Put the money in to new accounts with her name, with dad. Took him back to lawyer's office and had him make out a new will leaving her everything, disinheriting his wife of 67 years. Backed a U-Haul up to their house and stripped it. Brother and I have been in court for two years. Court takes the position that even an ALZ patient can have a moment of sanity and during that moment he can give someone a POA and make out a new will. So the answer to Why... Because she can.
What a shame D.D. isn't here to tell us all about it.
Sad that Charlene can't do the time for Tony. She, perhaps, deserves a sentence even more than her husband.
Ralph, what you consider to be the "central mystery" of the case applies to pretty much most of America's prison population.
They didn't think their scheme would be detected. Of course, had they solicited the advice of a neutral outsider, they might have learned that things were not nearly as fool-proof as they assumed.
But that applies to most criminals.
To me, the more interesting question -- and perhaps it was answered at the trial -- is why Marshall hooked up with Morrissey. Given the lawyer's shady past, his involvement makes Marshall's actions all but presumptively illegal.
Marshall had to have known that. Had he instead hired a non-scamming trusts/estates lawyer, hoodwinking him might have been harder and perhaps resulted in diverting smaller sums, but it would have left Marshall with a stronger presumption of innocence when the scheme was challenged.
Involving Morrissey is like demanding your actions be investigated.
He looks like he wants to kick someone's ass.
What mystery? When money is involved, all bets are off. They wanted the money, and they almost got it. Greed is bottomless.
Cannot help but think of the GREAT Dominick Dunne! He's up in heaven with Brooke having the last laugh!
They thought they could get away with it because they think they're better than everyone else. So much better, that it never occurred to them that it might even be wrong to screw over one's own mother. Too bad Charlene won't be wearing the striped pajamas now too. She should have been charged and convicted herself.
Evil raises its ugly face again.
"and we are not saved..."
Years before these revelations began, a friend told me that Charlene's child had purchased a big apartment in a desirable area. My friend wondered how this purchase had become afforable. Now we know.
I'd love to know the scoop about Marshall's relationship with the son who turned him in.
This was all Charlene's idea to begin with and it is a crime that she will not be sharing a cell with her hen-pecked husband. They deserve each other.
BEHIND THE MAN
Brooke Astor's son had a bad heir day
And everybody wishes him well
And hopes that Lady Macbeth Marshall
May be allowed to share his cell.
Brooke deserved better. Poor darling. Thank God towards the end her courageous grandson stood up to that monster and her trusted friends were able to comfort and rescue her. What depraved individuals. Wish I could believe this was a rare incident, but it's not.
Bravo to the grandson for having the character and integrity that his pathetic father and evil step-mother clearly could not possibly possess in their corrupt souls. Stupidity knows no socio-economic boundaries.
Thank you.
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