Brooke Astor’s Son and Lawyer Face Criminal Charges (house, the best, legal)

[cottonwood2420]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/27/ny...hp&oref=slogin

Brooke Astor’s son and one of her former lawyers have been indicted on criminal charges stemming from the stewardship of her financial affairs and the handling of her will, according to people who have been briefed on the situation.

Her son, Anthony D. Marshall, 83, and the lawyer, Francis X. Morrissey Jr., have been told to surrender to authorities on Tuesday morning, according to those briefed.

A Manhattan grand jury has been hearing evidence from witnesses since early last month, following an investigation by the district attorney’s office into the management of Mrs. Astor’s fortune by Mr. Marshall and Mr. Morrissey’s role in the signing of the third amendment to her will.

The exact charges against the two men were not known late this afternoon.

But in Mr. Marshall’s case, they are probably related to millions of dollars in cash, property and stocks that he obtained over the years in his role as steward of his mother’s finances.

As for Mr. Morrissey, the charges are probably tied to the signature on an amendment to Mrs. Astor’s will that was made in March 2004. The possibility of forgery has been raised by a nationally known handwriting expert.

The indictment marks the first time criminal charges have been filed in the legal battle surrounding Mrs. Astor’s fortune and well-being.

In July 2006, Mr. Marshall’s son, Philip Marshall, filed a petition in State Supreme Court accusing his father of neglecting Mrs. Astor’s care while enriching himself with her fortune. Last December, based on a court evaluator’s report that has not been made public, a judge said that the claims of elder abuse were unsubstantiated.

Mrs. Astor, the philanthropist and social doyenne, died in August at age 105.

The Manhattan district attorney’s inquiry has lasted about a year, led by Elizabeth Loewy, a prosecutor who leads the Elder Abuse Unit, which is part of the Special Prosecutions Bureau of the district attorney’s office. According to interviews and records, several people attended the signing of the amended will in 2004 in addition to Mrs. Astor: two of her aides and Mr. Morrissey, a lawyer with whom Mr. Marshall had a close working relationship at the time.

For two years in the mid-1990s, Mr. Morrissey was suspended from practicing law in New York State for mishandling a client’s escrow account.

After the family battle erupted, Mrs. Astor’s former court-appointed lawyer, Susan I. Robbins, noticed that the signature on that 2004 amendment was much thicker and firmer than the ones on the two earlier amendments.

Ms. Robbins retained a handwriting expert who concluded that Mrs. Astor “could not have written the questioned ‘Brooke Russell Astor’ signature dated March 3, 2004, due to the deterioration of her ability to write her name.” Ms. Robbins brought these findings to the district attorney.

Mr. Morrissey’s lawyer, Michael S. Ross, said today that his client was out of the country and would surrender to authorities later in the week.

“Mr. Morrissey vigorously denies having acted improperly and looks forward to his day in court,” Mr. Ross said. “Although traveling, he will return to New York later in the week and will plead not guilty at his arraignment.”

The district attorney’s office declined to comment on the charges and the case this afternoon. One of Mr. Marshall’s lawyers, Kenneth E. Warner, declined to comment this afternoon.

Prosecutors had been exploring, among other issues, whether Mrs. Astor was subject to undue influence related to millions of dollars in money and property transfers in the last several years that benefited Mr. Marshall, who had his mother’s power of attorney. The prosecutors have also been examining whether those transactions were in the best interest of Mrs. Astor or if they were larcenous.

In a report last year, JPMorgan Chase & Company, the court-appointed guardian of Mrs. Astor’s assets, raised questions about her mental competency in 2003. That was the year she signed documents transferring $3.4 million of her securities and her estate in Maine, which was valued at $5.5 million, to Mr. Marshall.

In recent years, Mr. Marshall also collected a $2 million commission for selling one of his mother’s favorite paintings, directed hundreds of thousands of dollars of her money to his theater production company and used $100,000 of her fortune to finance a charitable organization established by his wife. Mr. Marshall has said that all of these transactions were made with the full approval of his mother.

[tvfields]

Although you are only 15, you can do something about such fraud. To begin with, you can learn what legal reforms have been proposed to protect individuals against such opportunists.

Some of the more significant information is readily accessible from the webpage Infirmed Seniors, Elder Abuse, Estate Fraud, and Legal Reform (Directory). Link descriptors there make it easy to identify much of this material, which is based upon insights of experts like a past president of the American Academy of Psychiatry and Law (Irwin Perr, MD, JD), recommendations of the American Medical Association (as reported by the Ohio State Medical Association), existing Ohio law (Ohio Revised Code 2107.081 - 2107.085), personal experience and common sense.

Inheritance fraud is a serious national problem. It is not getting the attention it should. In particular, evidence and proposed safeguards are being swept under the rug by individuals who are responsible for addressing them. This in turn has prompted me and others to advocate additional legal reforms, such as an amendment to the Older Americans Act (see Elder Abuse, Estate Fraud and Undue Influence (Older Americans Act)) and an enhancement of the court reporting system (see Proposed Court Reporting System Features). The latter proposal, which would make the court system more transparent, seems at first blush similar to a proposal which I recently watched Senator Bill Bradley describe for the purpose of making the federal budget transparent.

[tvfields]

[SIZE=3]Do you know any lawmakers who are passionate about protecting individuals against the opportunists who would take advantage of them while they are most susceptible to being taken advantage of as a result of conditions like Alzheimer's disease, stroke, and sedation under a Do Not Resuscitate order? [/SIZE]

[SIZE=3]Better safeguards are needed. See http://members.aol.com/tvfields/Directory.htm for some examples, including an excellent recommendation made by the American Medical Association and another which I shared in 2005 with delegates to the White House Conference on Aging.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=3]Lacking a public outcry, such recommendations have been ignored and will likely continue to be ignored without strong leadership.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=3]If these recommendations make sense to you, and if you know any lawmakers who can provide the needed leadership, please try to connect me with those lawmakers.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=3]Thank you.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=3]Tom Fields[/SIZE]
[SIZE=3]tvfields@oh.rr.com[/SIZE]