Brooke Astor’s Son Guilty in Scheme to Defraud Her

The son of Brooke Astor, the legendary New York society matriarch, was convicted on Thursday of stealing from her as she suffered from Alzheimer’s disease in the twilight of her life.

Barring an appeal, the jury’s verdict means that Mrs. Astor’s son, Anthony D. Marshall, an 85-year-old war veteran who fought at Iwo Jima, can be sentenced to anywhere from 1 to 25 years behind bars.

Mr. Marshall was found guilty of 14 of the 16 counts against him, including one of two first-degree grand larceny charges, the most serious he faced. Jurors convicted him of giving himself an unauthorized raise of about $1 million for managing his mother’s finances. Prosecutors contended that Mrs. Astor’s Alzheimer’s had advanced so far that there was no way she could have consented to this raise and other financial decisions that benefited Mr. Marshall.

A second defendant in the case, Francis X. Morrissey Jr., a lawyer who did estate planning for Mrs. Astor, was convicted of forgery charges.

Mr. Marshall was found not guilty on two counts: the other grand larceny charge, which stemmed from the sale his mother’s Childe Hassam painting, and falsifying business records.

Mrs. Astor, whose fortune was estimated at more than $180 million when she died two years ago at 105, may have been best known for channeling large sums toward New York charities and cultural institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Bronx Zoo.

The verdict drew the curtain on a trial that lasted longer than had been expected. The jury of eight women and four men sat through more than 19 weeks of testimony and arguments in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, hearing detailed accounts of Mrs. Astor’s luxurious life of summers on an estate in Maine and dinners with diplomats. They heard testimony from Henry Kissinger, Barbara Walters and Annette de la Renta, among others.

The prosecution had portrayed Mr. Marshall as greedy, saying that he was driven to squeeze his mother for money at the urging of his wife, Charlene. On Thursday, Charlene Marshall sat stoned faced as the verdict was read.

Mr. Marshall’s son Philip had initially raised questions about his grandmother’s well-being. He was not in court on Thursday, but reacted with disbelief at the sweeping verdict against his father. “Oh my God,” he said when reached on his cellphone. “Wow. Wow.” He said needed time to compose a statement: “There’s just too much going through my head right now.”

The prosecutor, Elizabeth Loewy, asked that bail be increased to $5 million from $100,000 but the judge, Justice A. Kirke Bartley Jr., refused. He set sentencing for Dec. 8.

Sam Peabody, a longtime friend who sat next to Mrs. Marshall for much of the trial, said he was planning to reach out to the couple. “Its hard to believe,” he said. “What an end. To be 85 and have this happen is dreadful. Its dreadful at any age.”

In his closing statement, Joel J. Seidemann, an assistant district attorney, read from the Book of Psalms: “Do not cast me away when I am old. Do not forsake me when my strength is gone.”

He added, “It has been said that a society is judged based upon how it treats its elderly,” and asked jurors to hold Mr. Marshall “accountable for stealing from and defrauding a great philanthropist, a great New Yorker and human being in the sunset of her life.”

The jury, which was in its 12th day of deliberations, had shown signs of strain this week. On Monday, the jury sent out a note that read, “Due to heated argument, a juror feels personally threatened by comments made by another juror.”

“With regards to her personal safety,” the note continued, “she wishes to be dismissed anonymously.”

Justice Bartley encouraged the jury to continue and “let the touchstone of your deliberations be respect and civility.”

After the verdict, he told the panel: “How does a judge thank jurors who have served since March? You have acted in the finest tradition of the American court of law.”

Until Thursday, it was unclear whether the jury had reached consensus on any of the 18 counts against Mr. Marshall and Mr. Morrissey, and whether the signs of strain foretold a mistrial.

The prosecution’s case rested heavily on its contention that her Alzheimer’s had advanced so far in her later years that she could not have understood complex changes to her will or other financial decisions that benefited her son.

Prosecutors spent weeks calling witnesses to testify to the signs of Mrs. Astor’s deterioration: forgetting the names of close friends, not knowing simple words like “faucet,” and harboring paranoid fears of men in suits coming to kill her at night.

The defense sought to undercut the prosecution’s case by showing that Mrs. Astor had lucid moments, despite her Alzheimer’s. Frederick P. Hafetz, one of Mr. Marshall’s lawyers, cited the time she said, “Rich people are no different from poor people, they always want more,” after making a change to her will in 2004 that gave her son greater control of her estate.

Although Mr. Marshall and Mrs. Astor may have had an awkward relationship, the defense contended that she realized late in her life how much she loved her son, and that the discovery was why she gave him so much.

“Make no mistake about it — Brooke Astor loved her only son, Tony Marshall,” Mr. Hafetz said in his closing statement. “Tony Marshall loved his mother.”

“She had given plenty to charity by that point,” he added later.

The trial was delayed on several occasions because of Mr. Marshall’s health, including one instance when he became dizzy and fell in a courthouse bathroom. As he waited for a stretcher, a chair was brought in for his wife, Charlene, whom prosecutors had accused of being a protagonist but who was not charged with a crime. Throughout the trial, she sat by his side or a few rows behind him.