Legacy MattersBrooke Astor's son Anthony Marshall, 85, was found guilty on charges that he defrauded his mother and stole tens of millions of dollars from her as she suffered from Alzheimer's disease in the twilight of her life.
So just what happens to the $180 million estate? More litigation.
At the core of this issue is whether Mrs. Astor was mentally competent when she signed the 2002 will, which was amended in late 2003 and again in early 2004. Those revisions gave her son more control over her estate and, in the process, reduced the amount of money she left to the New York universities, libraries, parks and museums she spent so much of her life supporting.
The sweeping verdict against Mr. Marshall may provide a significant boost to their push to have the recent will thrown out as invalid, lawyers say. “It’s very unusual and directly relevant to the issues before the surrogate because both cases concern her mental capacity,” said Paul C. Saunders, a lawyer for Annette de la Renta, who was Mrs. Astor’s court-appointed guardian and is a party in the Surrogate’s Court case. “Clearly the jury believes she didn’t have the capacity to understand what she was doing.”
The maneuvering began almost immediately after Mrs. Astor’s death on Aug. 13, 2007, with a dispute over who should be named administrators of the estate (the court eventually named JPMorgan Chase & Company and a retired judge). The case began to move quickly toward a will battle, though no formal objection has yet been filed.
If the most recent will is upheld, many charities will lose millions of dollars, with the Met and the library — both of which declined to comment — losing out on an estimated $10 million each. The Surrogate’s Court case was postponed pending the resolution of the criminal case, and it remained unclear whether it would resume if Mr. Marshall appealed his conviction. The court is scheduled to discuss the civil case again on Nov. 4.
--
One complicating factor is that Mrs. Astor included a provision aimed at discouraging any challenge to her will. It states that anyone who contests the will and loses will receive nothing.