[Seasmillets]

How the Rich get Richer (usually, anyway) ...

Major Error Is Reported in Tax Paid by Mrs. Astor
on Sale of Painting

NY TIMES
By SERGE F. KOVALESKI
September 24, 2006
Legal papers filed by J. P. Morgan Chase, the temporary guardian of Brooke Astor’s assets, state that her son recently told the bank that he now realizes he made an error in his mother’s 2002 tax return by overstating the original price of a Childe Hassam painting she had sold, resulting in a large underpayment of taxes three years ago.
As it turns out, the discrepancy was a matter not just of thousands of dollars, but of millions.
The so-called cost basis for the work of art, “Flags, Fifth Avenue,” was listed in Mrs. Astor’s federal income tax filing as $7.425 million, a copy of the document shows. But she paid $172,010 for the painting when she bought it in March 1970, according to the bill of sale.
Because of the inflated figure, Mrs. Astor apparently ended up paying far less in taxes than required on the capital gains she realized from the February 2002 sale of the painting by Hassam, a renowned American Impressionist. Mrs. Astor’s son, Anthony D. Marshall, 82, who managed her finances at the time, sold the painting to an art gallery for $10 million and collected a $2 million fee from his mother for handling the transaction.
“Up the Avenue From Thirty-Fourth Street, May 1917" aka “Flags, Fifth Avenue” by Childe Hassam

The tax issue concerning the painting, also known as “Up the Avenue From Thirty-Fourth Street, May 1917,” has arisen as a compelling side issue from the review of mounds of financial documents in the legal battle over the care and fortune of Mrs. Astor, the 104-year-old philanthropist and socialite.

In July, Mr. Marshall’s son, Philip Marshall, filed a court petition claiming that his father had been grossly neglecting Mrs. Astor’s well-being while enriching himself with her wealth.
Philip Marshall has asked the court to appoint permanent guardians for his grandmother; the bank is temporarily in control of her assets.
The case against Anthony Marshall has hinged on a string of changes to Mrs. Astor’s will that took place in late 2003 and early 2004, after she had experienced a marked decline in her health. The changes redirect millions of dollars to her son upon her death.
Mr. Marshall has vigorously denied accusations that he neglected his mother, insisting that he has been an honest and loving steward of her personal affairs for more than 25 years. His lawyers have cast him as an astute and attentive financial manager for Mrs. Astor, and they contend that her investments have flourished as a result of his keen involvement.
One of Anthony Marshall’s lawyers has asked J. P. Morgan Chase to file amended tax returns on behalf of Mrs. Astor that reflect the true capital gains stemming from the sale of the painting.
J. P. Morgan Chase says it is reviewing the documents as part of its fiduciary responsibilities. But in a court filing, the bank describes the request as “ironic,” noting that Mr. Marshall has also objected to its efforts to learn more about the deal.
“The ‘error’ evidently relates to a substantial overstatement of the cost basis of the Hassam painting (and a resultant significant underpayment of the tax),” Les Fagen, a lawyer for J. P. Morgan Chase, wrote. He added, “This is the same painting transaction which he contends in his opposition papers is not now worthy of further inquiry, as the bank has requested.”
Sanford J. Schlesinger, a tax lawyer and founding partner at Schlesinger Gannon & Lazetera in New York, who is not involved in the case, said that the $2 million commission would be deducted from the total gain on the sale of the painting, bringing the figure to just over $7.8 million, which was subject to a 28 percent federal tax rate in 2002, as well as additional state and city taxes. Mrs. Astor could also face sizable penalties and interest for underpaying the tax, he said.
As her return stands now, she would have been taxed only on capital gains of $2.575 million relating to the work of art.
“It looks like it is $5 million in unreported income. That’s a considerable difference in gain that was not taxed,” Mr. Schlesinger said. He noted that it was difficult to determine precisely what Mrs. Astor would owe because of variables like the alternative minimum tax and offsetting capital losses that could affect such calculations.
Mr. Marshall’s lawyers provided few details about how the capital gains from the sale of the Hassam painting came to be substantially under-reported in Mrs. Astor’s 2002 tax return. One of his lawyers, Kenneth E. Warner, would only briefly address the matter via e-mail.
Mr. Warner said that Mr. Marshall “does not know how the mistake got made.” Mr. Warner said that as part of the court case concerning Mrs. Astor, Mr. Marshall saw the document for the first time since it had been submitted to the Internal Revenue Service in 2003.
As soon as Mr. Marshall noticed it, “he immediately gave us instructions to notify Chase so that it could be corrected without delay.”
Mr. Warner would not say whether Mr. Marshall, who was granted power of attorney by his mother in November 1978 and held that authority in 2003, had signed the tax return.
Mr. Fagen, the lawyer for J. P. Morgan Chase, would say only that the bank was reviewing Mrs. Astor’s financial records and that “one goal is to assure that she is in compliance with her legal obligations.”
Alan M. Pollack, a lawyer for the Long Island accounting firm that prepared the return, Samuel Cohen & Company, which he noted had done work for Mrs. Astor for about 25 years, said the firm had not committed any errors when it filled out the schedule concerning the sale of the painting.
“Samuel Cohen & Company fulfilled its professional obligations to its client, did not make unilateral decisions about Mrs. Astor’s taxes and was provided the information about the painting by one of Mrs. Astor’s representatives,” Mr. Pollack said.
He added that he did not feel it was appropriate to identify that person because of the continuing court proceedings in the Astor case.
Robert Marvin, a spokesman for the I.R.S., said federal law prevented him from answering any specific questions about Mrs. Astor’s tax return. But asked about how the agency decides to pursue a case for prosecution, he said that as a general rule, a referral is made to the Department of Justice when the I.R.S. has evidence that an omission from a tax return was “willful.”
“A financial analysis or investigation often determines whether the omission is unintended or a willful attempt to evade payment of taxes,” Mr. Marvin said.
In court papers filed last week by Mr. Marshall’s lawyers, new details were provided about the sale of Mrs. Astor’s Hassam piece to the Gerald Peters Gallery. Mr. Marshall said that in the fall of 2001, he and his mother had the painting shown at the Adelson Galleries Inc. on the Upper East Side. During that time, Mr. Marshall and his mother talked about selling the painting if it generated any interest, according to the filing.
“Not long after the Adelson exhibition ended, a potential buyer approached me about purchasing the painting,” Mr. Marshall said in the filing. “When I told my mother how much was being offered, she decided to sell it, and to share some of the profit with me by paying me a ‘commission’ for arranging the purchase.”
Those who know Mrs. Astor have questioned whether she would have wanted to sell the Hassam painting.
Although her 1993 will stipulated that the work of art was to be sold after her death, two of her wills after that, in 1997 and 2001, stated that the painting was to be bequeathed to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, provided the museum displayed the piece as part of its permanent collection. Otherwise, the painting was to go to a New York City institution that would agree to permanently display it.
Mrs. Astor’s most recent will, dated Jan. 30, 2002, shortly before Mr. Marshall sold the painting, does not mention it by name.
But one of Mr. Marshall’s lawyers said the 2002 will says that any works of art that are not specifically bequeathed are to be sold.
Mike McIntire contributed reporting.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[bjacogaerllyo]

An interesting end to a very public family saga ...

Mrs. Astor’s Son to Give Up Control of Her Estate

nytimes.com
By SERGE F. KOVALESKI
October 14, 2006
The son of the socialite and philanthropist Brooke Astor will have to pay more than $1.3 million, return valuable artwork and jewelry, and give up his role as steward of his mother’s financial and health affairs as part of an agreement announced yesterday to settle a legal dispute involving one of New York’s most famous fortunes.
Anthony D. Marshall, 82, and his wife, Charlene, 61, will also be required to relinquish their positions as co-executors of Mrs. Astor’s estate and to post millions of dollars in collateral in the form of a Maine vacation property to cover any potential claims against Mr. Marshall’s handling of his mother’s wealth.
The 18-page settlement, approved yesterday by Justice John E. H. Stackhouse of State Supreme Court in Manhattan after an hourlong hearing, stipulates that J. P. Morgan Chase and Mrs. Astor’s longtime friend Annette de la Renta will serve as her permanent guardians. Mrs. Astor, 104, has been in fragile health for several years.
G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times
Annette de la Renta, a longtime friend of
Brooke Astor, outside State Supreme Court
in Manhattan with her attorney on Friday.

The agreement ends a public and strikingly bitter chapter for a family that for decades had been known for its generosity and circumspection. The spectacle of warring family members trading charges of misconduct and greed began in July, when Mr. Marshall’s son Philip filed court papers accusing his father of neglecting the care of his grandmother and enriching himself from her estate, valued in the tens of millions of dollars.
Anthony Marshall, in a written statement issued after yesterday’s hearing, said: “I am pleased that these proceedings, which have been so destructive to my family and my mother’s memory, are over. Under the terms of the settlement, there will be no litigation during my mother’s life. I am sure she would be pleased with that outcome.”
Philip Marshall, 53, who had enlisted the help and testimony of David Rockefeller, Henry A. Kissinger and others as he sought to wrest control of Mrs. Astor’s affairs from his father, had his own blunt remarks.
“I was hoping we would have had a settlement a couple days into the petition, but we are overjoyed with today’s outcome, which puts Friday the 13th in a new light,” he said in a telephone interview. “We got what we wanted: the opportunity to provide the care and dignity my grandmother deserves.”
In exchange for Mr. Marshall giving up his role in his mother’s affairs, the bank, which has overseen Mrs. Astor’s financial affairs since the first court filing in July, will not pursue litigation to recover millions of dollars in cash, property and stocks that it believes he may have improperly obtained while managing his mother’s holdings. According to the settlement, any future legal claims against Mr. Marshall would be dealt with in Surrogate’s Court upon Mrs. Astor’s death and left to the discretion of an executor of her estate, to be named by a judge.
Under terms of the agreement, the Marshalls admit no wrongdoing, and any questions about the legitimacy of Mrs. Astor’s will and three codicils that amended it in late 2003 and early 2004, redirecting millions of dollars to Mr. Marshall, could be brought before a court only when she dies.
The central issue in settlement talks between father and son over the last few weeks has been whether Mr. Marshall, a former ambassador who has ventured into theater production, would agree to cede the extensive role he has had in his mother’s life, using the power of attorney he had for more than 25 years and as her health care proxy.
It became clear over the last several months that Mr. Marshall in recent years had directed hundreds of thousands of dollars to his theater production company, transferred title of his mother’s Maine vacation property to his wife, and used $100,000 of his mother’s money to finance a charitable organization founded by his wife. He had also made a lawyer with a troubled career co-executor of Mrs. Astor’s estate, but changed his mind when the lawyer’s problems became public.
Philip Marshall and others had asserted that Mrs. Astor was in no condition to approve many of the actions taken by her son.
Finally, yesterday, Anthony Marshall acceded to the request that he give up control of his mother’s affairs. Mrs. de la Renta, who is the wife of the fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, will now make many of the decisions regarding Mrs. Astor’s personal life, while J. P. Morgan Chase will oversee her millions.
Mrs. Astor, who was hospitalized briefly at the end of July, has been living at her beloved Westchester estate for months.
At the outset of yesterday’s hearing, Mrs. de la Renta testified that, as Mrs. Astor’s temporary guardian, she had decided to move her friend to Holly Hill after her hospitalization because “that’s what I considered to be her home.”

Pool photo by Thomas Hinton
Annette de la Renta and J. P. Morgan Chase are
to share permanent guardianship of Brooke Astor.

As for Mr. Marshall and his wife, the settlement requires them to pay $1.35 million — $850,000 within the next 10 days and $500,000 by July 1 of next year — to Morgan Chase to cover late penalties and interest relating to Mrs. Astor’s tax returns.
In one instance, Mrs. Astor’s 2002 tax filing, Mr. Marshall underreported about $5 million in capital gains from the sale of a Childe Hassam painting she had owned since 1970. His lawyers have said that Mr. Marshall, who arranged for the artwork to be sold, noticed the error while reviewing the tax return as part of the guardianship case.
The settlement document states that Mr. Marshall’s yacht, General Russell, will serve as collateral on the $500,000 payment.
Charlene Marshall will also be required to transfer ownership of the Maine estate in Northeast Harbor back to her husband so that it might be used as collateral against any future legal claims against them, the agreement says.
A painting by Andrew Wyeth and a grandfather clock will also be part of the collateral.
“There is substantial collateral being posted here,” said one of Anthony Marshall’s lawyers, Kenneth E. Warner. “This is not an admission of wrongdoing, but a declaration of confidence by Mr. Marshall that if there is any litigation after his mother dies he will be completely vindicated.”
According to the agreement and individuals involved in the negotiations, a revocable trust worth about $8 million to which Mr. Marshall had access will be returned to Mrs. Astor.
Part of the settlement provides for Philip Marshall and his twin, Alexander, to each receive $400,000 from the estate for their children’s education.
According to the document, the payments were included in the agreement at the request of Mrs. Astor’s court-appointed lawyer.
Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

[ligeplodore]

Expert Says Astor’s Signature Was Forged


Brooke Astor’s signature as it appears on a codicil to her will from March 2004
nytimes.com
By SERGE F. KOVALESKI
October 20, 2006
One of the most divisive questions in the legal dispute over Brooke Astor’s care and fortune has been whether someone forged her signature on a set of changes to her will. On March 3, 2004, the last of three amendments to Mrs. Astor’s will was signed, with the cumulative effect being that millions of dollars would be redirected to her son, Anthony D. Marshall.
According to interviews and records, present at the signing of the amended will in addition to Mrs. Astor, who was less than a month shy of her 102nd birthday, were two of her aides and Francis X. Morrissey Jr., a lawyer with whom Mr. Marshall had a close working relationship at the time.
Mrs. Astor’s signature did wind up on the document, but in a report concluded this week, a nationally known handwriting expert has concluded that Mrs. Astor did not put it there herself.
The expert, Gus R. Lesnevich, a forensic handwriting examiner who was hired by Mrs. Astor’s court-appointed lawyer, said in his report 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.”
Mr. Lesnevich reviewed examples of Mrs. Astor’s signature going as far back as 1992. In his report, he asserts that “in this case, the questioned ‘Brooke Russell Astor’ signature and known signatures of Brooke Russell Astor contain elements of dissimilar letter formations” and dissimilar “execution.” He said the 2004 signature was different from signatures executed less than a month earlier and about six weeks before that.
Lawyers for Mr. Morrissey and Mr. Marshall have long insisted that any suggestion of forgery is nonsense, and that Mrs. Astor knew what she was doing when she signed the document, known as a codicil.
Mr. Lesnevich’s report is likely to inflame the fight over the wealth of one of New York’s legendary families. In July, Philip Marshall, one of Mr. Marshall’s twin sons, filed a court petition accusing his father of neglecting Mrs. Astor’s care while enriching himself from her assets. Last week, the various parties in the case reached a settlement under which Mr. Marshall will pay $1.35 million in late penalties and interest relating to his mother’s tax returns, give back valuable jewelry and artwork, and abdicate his stewardship of his mother’s financial and health affairs.
Mr. Marshall, 82, and his wife, Charlene, 61, are also required to relinquish their positions as executors of Mrs. Astor’s estate. As part of the settlement, any potential claims against Mr. Marshall concerning his handling of his mother’s wealth would be dealt with in Surrogate’s Court after Mrs. Astor’s death. Mrs. Astor, 104, has spent the last several months at her estate in Westchester County under the care of her longtime friend Annette de la Renta.
In light of Mr. Lesnevich’s report, the concerns about the signature — and about whether Mrs. Astor understood what was taking place — will almost certainly be explored further in Surrogate’s Court.
Susan I. Robbins, the lawyer who was appointed by the court last summer to safeguard Mrs. Astor’s interests, said that what initially raised suspicions about the signature on the final change to the will was that the signature was strikingly much thicker and firmer than the signatures on the other two, which were written in thin, shaky script.
Ms. Robbins said in a brief telephone interview yesterday, “I propose informing the appropriate authorities of this matter, as I believe Mrs. Astor would want me to.” Mr. Morrissey’s lawyer, Michael S. Ross, said that Mr. Lesnevich’s opinion on the signature matter was no more than speculation.
“It does not take into consideration such factors as the pen that was used, the surface that was used and the health of Mrs. Astor on the particular day she executed the third codicil,” Mr. Ross said. “Mr. Morrissey is absolutely firm in his position that she signed that codicil and was cognizant of what she was doing at the time.”
Mr. Morrisey was suspended from practicing law in the state for two years in the 1990’s for mishandling a client’s escrow account.
Mr. Lesnevich declined to comment on the report. According to his Web site, he has about 38 years of experience in the field of handwriting comparisons and document analysis and has served as an expert for the United States government in a number of high-profile cases, including those against Imelda Marcos, Leona Helmsley, Giovanni Gambino, Oliver North and Michael Milken.
In a telephone interview about the report’s conclusion, Philip Marshall said, “I find it so sad that certain people my grandmother trusted were exploiting her when she was so vulnerable,” he said.
One of Mr. Marshall’s lawyers, Kenneth E. Warner, said by e-mail that he would not have any comment on the signature issue until his own expert had completed a report.
The third codicil instructs the executor to sell her real estate holdings as part of the estate. Previously, Mrs. Astor’s will gave all her real property, including her Park Avenue duplex, to Mr. Marshall. Liquidating the real estate ultimately increases the executor’s commissions, which are generally based on the value of the estate, according to experts.
The second codicil, dated Jan. 12, 2004, designated Mr. Marshall as executor of his mother’s estate. After becoming sole executor, Mr. Marshall then named his wife and Mr. Morrissey as co-executors. But in August, after Mr. Morrissey’s troubled legal career became public, Mr. Marshall removed him as an executor, according to court papers.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
***
Astor Lawyer Seeks Inquiry Into Signature

nytimes.com
By SERGE F. KOVALESKI
October 21, 2006

Brooke Astor’s court-appointed lawyer is asking the Manhattan district attorney’s office to investigate whether a crime was committed during the signing of a final set of changes to Mrs. Astor’s will in 2004.
The request by the lawyer, Susan I. Robbins, stems from a report completed this week by a nationally known 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.”
Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau, said Mrs. Astor’s lawyer was seeking “to determine whether or not there are matters that rise to the level of criminality.” She added, “We will take a look at the materials.”
Ms. Robbins had retained the handwriting expert, Gus R. Lesnevich, to analyze Mrs. Astor’s signature on the last of three amendments to her will that cumulatively would redirect millions of dollars to her son, Anthony D. Marshall. Mrs. Astor, 104, has been in fragile health for several years.
According to interviews and records, several people attended the signing of the amended will, in addition to Mrs. Astor: two of her aides and Francis X. Morrissey Jr., a lawyer with whom Mr. Marshall had a close working relationship at the time. For two years in the mid-1990’s Mr. Morrissey was suspended from practicing law in the state for mishandling a client’s escrow account.
Mr. Morrissey’s lawyer, Michael S. Ross, said yesterday, “I am confident that the district attorney’s office will find that Mr. Morrissey is absolutely innocent of any misconduct.”
One of Mr. Marshall’s lawyers, Kenneth E. Warner, said that Mr. Marshall would be shocked if the signature on the third codicil, or amendment to the will, was a forgery.
He added: “Mr. Marshall did not receive any additional inheritance from the third codicil. It was primarily a tax-planning device to save estate taxes.”
Ms. Robbins has said she became suspicious about the signature because it was much thicker and firmer than the ones on the two earlier amendments.
Those two signatures were written in thin, shaky script.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[HawksBurnDown]

The price of being rich ...

In Aftermath of the Astor Case,
How the Final Fees Piled Up

nytimes.com
By SERGE F. KOVALESKI
December 5, 2006
The legal drama over the health care and finances of Brooke Astor, New York’s legendary socialite and philanthropist, played out for nearly three months amid allegations and recriminations of financial duplicity, greed and outright forgery.
The case against her son, Anthony D. Marshall, came to a halt on Oct. 13 when the parties in the feud reached a settlement, averting what could have been an expensive and sensational trial scheduled to begin less than a week later.
But everything comes with a price. In the seven weeks since the agreement, those involved in the case have filed bills with Justice John E. H. Stackhouse of State Supreme Court in Manhattan for fees totaling about $3 million for the services of 56 lawyers, 65 legal assistants, 6 accountants, 5 bankers, 6 doctors, 2 public relations firms and a law school professor. Under state law, such payments would come out of Mrs. Astor’s assets, valued at over $120 million.
But yesterday, Justice Stackhouse issued an order that approved a smaller amount, $2.22 million, calling the original figure “staggering” and saying that some charges were for work that was not in the best interest of Mrs. Astor, who is 104. The justice denied payments for the public relations firms, the time lawyers spent talking with reporters and the hours logged preparing the fee applications themselves.
The largest fee of nearly $1.08 million went to J. P. Morgan Chase, which was named permanent guardian of Mrs. Astor’s assets as part of the settlement, less than the $1.24 million that the bank requested. The other guardian in the case, Annette de la Renta, the wife of the designer Oscar de la Renta, requested no compensation for herself or the law firm that represented her.
“She felt that the right thing to do was to pay all her own attorneys’ fees and that it was not fair to charge that to her friend’s estate since she volunteered to step up as guardian,” said Fraser P. Seitel, a spokesman for Ms. de la Renta. Mr. Seitel’s business was one of the public relations firms denied payment by the justice.
The case began on July 20, when one of Mr. Marshall’s sons, Philip Marshall, filed a legal petition that accused his father of neglecting the care of Mrs. Astor while trying to enrich himself with her fortune. Under the October settlement, Anthony Marshall, 82, gave up his role as steward of his mother’s finances and was required, along with his wife, Charlene, to relinquish his position as co-executor of Mrs. Astor’s estate. As part of the agreement, Mr. Marshall admitted no wrongdoing.
Justice Stackhouse said he felt Mr. Marshall should be awarded half of his legal fees. “I make this ruling based on the conclusion of the court evaluator that the allegations in the petition regarding Mrs. Astor’s medical and dental care, and other allegations of intentional elder abuse by the Marshalls, were not substantiated,” he wrote in his ruling.
Ira Salzman, whose firm represented Philip Marshall and was awarded $356,512 of the $365,572 in fees it requested, said in a statement that payments to Mr. Seitel, who did work for his client, would be honored through other means.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company

[alexosnasos2]

Will of Mrs. Astor, Now 105, Gives Millions
to Family and to Charity

NY TIMES
By SERGE F. KOVALESKI
June 24, 2007

Her son, Anthony, gets the bulk of her vast and storied fortune, from artwork by the Italian painter Giovanni Battista Tiepolo to the cash from the eventual sale of her Park Avenue duplex and her 65-acre Westchester estate.
Her daughter-in-law Charlene receives two fur coats — a mink and a chinchilla — and a necklace adorned with 367 round diamonds, while her twin grandsons are to be given $1 million each.
Then there are the New York City public school teachers — who have yet to be selected — who will benefit from a $2 million endowment allowing them to make trips abroad. Even an azalea garden on the Maine coast is down for $100,000.
These are some of the particulars of the last will and testament of Brooke Astor, New York’s doyenne of philanthropy and high society who turned 105 in March. For much of last year, the document — whose details have been unknown until now to all but a few — was at the dark center of a legal battle among family members over Mrs. Astor’s care and finances.
A close review of the will and three amendments to it reveals who is designated to get what from Mrs. Astor’s personal fortune, valued at about $130 million, and a trust estimated to be worth more than $60 million that was left for her by her late husband, Vincent Astor. The specifics of the will have taken on added significance in recent weeks, according to Mrs. Astor’s family and friends, because her frail condition has started what could be a final decline. And the will is compelling for another reason: In many ways it is a paper-and-ink personification of Mrs. Astor, even though questions persist about the will’s amendments, and Mrs. Astor’s mental competency going back many years.
The will, which Mrs. Astor signed on Jan. 30, 2002, reflects her love of New York City, her own particular brand of charity and even her devotion to people and her joie de vivre. It specifies, for example, that she be buried next to her late husband and that the words on her gravestone declare, “I had a wonderful life.”
Some New York institutions will receive millions of dollars, most notably the New York Public Library and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, organizations Mrs. Astor has been closely affiliated with for decades. But they stood to receive millions more before certain changes were made to her will in 2003.
Part of Mrs. Astor’s will reads like a who’s who of New York society. David Rockefeller receives her stone Buddha head sculpture. Annette de la Renta, wife of the designer Oscar de la Renta, who has been one of her court-appointed guardians for nearly a year, gets four of her dog paintings. Laurance S. Rockefeller, who died in 2004, was to get her head of Hypnos. Her son, Anthony D. Marshall, 83, will also receive whatever is left of the estate after all bequests have been paid.
But whether the current incarnation of Mrs. Astor’s will is executed in its entirety after her death remains to be seen. Her court-appointed lawyer and others have questioned whether Mrs. Astor was mentally competent to understand the amendments, which were made in late 2003 and early 2004 and cumulatively redirected millions of dollars to Anthony Marshall, and put millions more to a charitable trust under his control.
A handwriting expert concluded that her signature had been forged on the third amendment. With so many questions swirling about, the charities whose share of the will was reduced as a result of the first amendment could pose legal challenges.
The will and the amendments, known as codicils, are under seal at the Westchester County Surrogate’s Court. Copies were provided to The New York Times by a party who has been involved in the Astor case. Given the state of Mrs. Astor’s health, no further changes could be made to her will, according to parties involved in her case.
In the way Mrs. Astor’s will is written, it is clear that she never envisioned her family being torn apart by disputes over her wealth and well-being. She expresses hope that after her death, one of her grandsons in particular, Philip Marshall, “will keep visiting his father,” Anthony, at the estate in Maine that she ended up giving to her son in 2003 and that Anthony “will leave him an interest” in the property upon his death.
But it was Philip Marshall, 54, who accused his father of neglecting the care of Mrs. Astor while enriching himself in his role as steward of her finances. A judge found claims of elder abuse unsubstantiated, but his decision came two months after Anthony and Charlene Marshall, under a settlement, ceded their positions as co-executors of Mrs. Astor’s estate. Under that agreement, any future legal action relating to Mr. Marshall’s handling of his mother’s finances are to be dealt with in Surrogate’s Court upon Mrs. Astor’s death and left to the discretion of an executor.
In her will, Mrs. Astor also distributes the trust left to her by her late husband. She leaves $2 million of it to New York University to establish an endowment fund for an Astor Fellows program to provide foreign travel for “outstanding” New York City public school teachers.
Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, said, “It is an amazing testament to Brooke Astor and New York City teachers that she would be this thoughtful in recognizing the teaching profession and great educators.”
Mrs. Astor gives out roughly 50 percent of the trust to various nonprofit organizations, including the library and the Metropolitan Museum. The public library gets, among other things, 8 percent of the trust to create and maintain a special room to house some of her books.
“Mrs. Astor has been among the most important benefactors in the history of the New York Public Library, both in terms of financial support and personal commitment,” said the library’s president, Paul LeClerc. “She made it clear that her generosity would continue through her estate.” But, he added, “We have no direct knowledge about the contents of her will and it would be inappropriate for us to comment on it at this time.”
Under the unamended 2002 will, organizations like the library, the Metropolitan Museum and the New York Zoological Society each received significantly larger percentages of the trust. But the first codicil to Mrs. Astor’s will directed that about 49 percent of the trust be transferred instead to a charitable trust, the Anthony Marshall Fund, used just for her son’s philanthropic giving.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[inilbowly]

"Annette de la Renta, wife of the designer Oscar de la Renta, who has been one of her court-appointed guardians for nearly a year, gets four of her dog paintings."

OMG The originals! They must be worth a fortune! :

http://www.decodog.com/inven/dogs1/dg30064.jpg

[Hofonom]

LOL ^^^ but I oughta kick ya ...

Betcha yer sorry ya missed this (wrapped up last March):

Dog Portraits

CHRISTINE MERRILL

The William Secord Gallery is pleased to present the work of Christine Merrill, an internationally acclaimed artist, whose portraits of beloved pets have enriched the lives of collectors around the world. To coincide with Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, this exhibition marks her fifteen-year anniversary with the gallery, and includes portraits of Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Basset Hounds, and West Highland White Terriers, among others. Over thirty oils are included, each painted for this exhibition.

Since 1975, Christine Merrill has specialized in the depiction of dogs, completing commissions for clients across America as well as in Europe and Japan. Her work has been represented by the William Secord Gallery since 1990, where she has had eight successful solo exhibitions. She also exhibited at The Isetan Gallery of Fine Arts in Tokyo and the Artis Group in Palm Beach, Florida.

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Christine developed a passion for painting animals at a very young age. When she was two, her mother put a pencil in her hand and she immediately started drawing animals. With dogs and horses as her first loves, she painted her first portrait of a dog at the age of five ... Merrill's work hangs in many private and public collections, including the American Kennel Club Museum of The Dog in Saint Louis, and Friends of Art and Preservation in Embassies.

Her work is in the private collections of Brooke Astor, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Bunny du Pont, Bob Shieffer, Jack Lemon and Oprah Winfrey, as well as many others.

Christine Merrill is America's most extraordinary painter of dog portraits. She captures in oils the love and understanding of our canine companions, members of our family who rarely disapprove, never disappoint, and always offers unconditional love.

A commission brochure and price guide is available upon request ...


Faith




Charity




Hope



copyrighted © 1999-2005

[The portraits above are not necessarily the Dog Paintings mentioned previously]

[skupaemauto]

BROOKE ASTOR DIES



NY POST

By DAREH GREGORIAN

August 13, 2007 -- Brooke Astor, the First Lady of New York society who dedicated her time and her millions into making the city a better place to live, died today at age 105.

Astor passed away shortly after 2 pm at her Westchester estate, Holly Hill.

"She left the world peacefully in a dignified manner and in her own house. We couldn't have asked for more," said her close friend and guardian, Annette de la Renta.

Another close longtime friend, David Rockefeller, called her “a truly remarkable woman and an irreplaceable friend.” “There is solace in the fact that she was able to live her final days surrounded by people who cared for and about her, in a place that she loved,” he said in a statement.

While her life will be most remembered for her tireless philanthropy – she spent decades giving away over $200 million – her death will most likely be marred by fighting over the $100 million she had left. Astor’s grandson, Philip Marshall, filed court papers last year charging that his father – Astor’s only son – had been helping himself to millions of her money while letting her live in squalor.

The “elder abuse” allegations were later discounted by a judge, but Anthony Marshall was ordered to repay his mother $8 million in cash and other valuables in a settlement, and de la Renta was named Astor’s personal needs guardian and JPMorgan Chase Bank her financial guardian. The deal also called for a truce in the fight over her money until after her death. The Manhattan District Attorney’s is investigating possible criminal charges against Anthony Marshall.

Copyright 2007 NYP Holdings, Inc.

[Abanijo]

NOW the fight begins.

[DoctorAlexandro]

^


August 13, 2007

Brooke Astor, New York’s First Lady of Philanthropy, Dies at 105

By MARILYN BERGER

Brooke Astor, who by night reigned over New York society with a disdain for pretension and by day devoted her time and considerable resources to New York’s unfortunate, died this afternoon at her weekend estate, Holly Hill, in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. She was 105.

Her death was confirmed by Kenneth E. Warner, a lawyer for Mrs. Astor’s son, Anthony D. Marshall..

Mrs. Astor’s image as a benevolent society matron was overshadowed last year by that of a victimized dowager at the center of a very public family battle over her care and fortune.

Yet for decades she had been known as the city’s unofficial first lady, one who moved effortlessly from the sumptuous apartments of Fifth Avenue to the ragged barrios of East Harlem, deploying her inherited millions to help the poor help themselves.

Among the rich of New York, she was perhaps the last bridge to the Gilded Age, when “society” was a closed world of old-money families, the so-called Four Hundred, ruled over by a grandmother of Mrs. Astor’s by marriage, Mrs. William Backhouse Astor.

But it was a changing social order that Brooke Astor oversaw. Hers was a society defined more by balance sheets than bloodline. It opened its doors to entrepreneurs and Wall Street movers and shakers who had bought entree with so many millions that in the 1980s Mrs. Astor declared herself “nouveau pauvre.”

Although aristocratic in upbringing, style and social milieu, she never sought to be the arbiter of society that the Astor name might have entitled her to be. She never wanted to rule over a world that she was among the first to recognize was no more.

And in her advanced age, her own world seemed to collapse as well. In a startling episode that played out in court and on the front pages of the city’s newspapers last year, one of her grandsons, Philip Marshall, accused her only son of neglecting her care and exploiting her to enrich himself and his wife.
Although Anthony Marshall vigorously denied the accusations, the public was suddenly given a picture of Mrs. Astor as a mistreated centenarian. By the grandson’s account, she had been stripped of her dignity and some of her favorite art, denied medicine and the company of her two dogs, Boysie and Girlsie, and forced to sleep in chilly misery on a couch smelling of urine.

The dispute stretched over months, its every wrinkle making headlines. Then, on Oct. 13, the parties announced a settlement, avoiding what could have been a costly and sensational trial.

Her close friends said her declining physical condition left her unaware of the tumult, but it was a bitter and unlikely last chapter for a woman who had defined high society and made philanthropy her career for almost four decades.

She took up that vocation after her third husband, Vincent Astor, heir to the fur and real estate fortune of John Jacob Astor, died and left about $60 million to her personally and an equal amount for a foundation “for the alleviation of human suffering.” Her husband had told her, “You’ll have fun, Pookie.”

In fact, she said she had a great deal of fun giving money away. With a wink and a sly smile, she liked to quote the leading character in Thornton Wilder’s play “The Matchmaker,” saying, “Money is like manure; it’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread around.”

It was Mrs. Astor who decided that because most of the Astor fortune had been made in New York real estate, it should be spent in New York, for New Yorkers. Grants supported the city’s museums and libraries, its boys’ and girls’ clubs, homes for the elderly, churches, landmarks and other institutions and programs.

She made it her duty to evaluate for herself every organization or group that sought help from the Vincent Astor Foundation. In her chauffeur-driven Mercedes-Benz, she traveled all over New York to visit the tenements and churches and neighborhood programs she was considering for foundation grants. Many times a welcoming lunch awaited her on paper plates and plastic folding tables set up for the occasion. She would exclaim over what she called the “delicious sauces”: deli mustard and pickle relish.

Socialite With a Common Touch

At night — almost every night, even into her 90s — she could be found surrounded by crystal and caviar, done up in her designer dresses and magnificent jewels, seated to the right of the host. (She was always seated to the right of the host.)

If she nurtured a playful and sometimes wicked eye for the manners of high society (she once said that “unlike Queen Victoria, we are amused — we are always amused”), she made a point of showing her appreciation for people who worked to help the needy. She always “made an effort,” to use a phrase of the upper class.

For her forays around the city, she dressed as she did when she joined the ladies who lunch at East Side bistros: a finely tailored suit or a designer dress, a hat in any weather, a cashmere coat when it was cool and, in her last years, an elegant cane, her one apparent concession to age. She always wore a ring of precious stones, a bracelet, a brooch and earrings.

“If I go up to Harlem or down to Sixth Street, and I’m not dressed up or I’m not wearing my jewelry, then the people feel I’m talking down to them,” she said. “People expect to see Mrs. Astor, not some dowdy old lady, and I don’t intend to disappoint them.”

She could talk to anyone as she made her rounds, offering encouragement to a child working at a library computer, counseling a mother about the importance of reading. To a janitor pushing a broom at a branch library — and she tried to visit every branch — she might give a word of thanks “for keeping this place so clean.” She was thrilled when the Bronx Zoo named a baby elephant Astor in her honor, delighted when a baker at a market the foundation supported pressed two loaves of bread on her.

When the Astor Foundation closed its doors in December 1997, Mrs. Astor had overseen the disbursement of almost $195 million, almost all within New York City. Although the foundation was not large compared with powerhouses like Ford, Rockefeller and Carnegie, its contributions often served as seed money: others followed, knowing that if Mrs. Astor had given her seal of approval to a cause, it was worthy of support.

As she neared 99, she said she was glad she had not lived in the kind of indolence her fortune would have allowed. She had had fun helping the needy, she said. If she regretted anything, she said, it was that she had not visited friends in Europe often enough and that she had not been able to read, and write, all the books she would have wished.

She was slight of build, somewhat frail and very thin in her last years, but her hair remained honey-colored, and she liked to boast, although it was widely doubted, that she had never had a face-lift. She kept fit well into her advanced years by swimming 1,000 strokes each weekend day and nearly every day in summer, even in the chilly waters that surrounded her house in Northeast Harbor, Me. Every year she liked to march behind the fire engine in Northeast Harbor’s Memorial Day parade, waving a little American flag.

Even into her 90s, she loved to go out, especially to places where there would be dancing. “When that music starts,” she said, “it enters my blood like a fever.” When she stayed home, she would have people in. An invitation to one of her small luncheons or dinners — especially if it was for a first lady, like her friend Nancy Reagan — was a sign of having arrived at the highest level of society.

When Mrs. Astor slowed down, it was often at Holly Hill, her 68-acre weekend estate. “It’s like backing up to the Esso and getting refueled,” she once said. “I love people, but I couldn’t do it seven days a week.”

In her 98th year she was still writing articles for Vanity Fair magazine, noting with regret, for example, that gentlemen no longer wore hats and that women no longer flirted, something she said she herself never failed to do.
If she had any weakness, it was for her dogs. She always had several and called them her “lovey babes.” She loved Henry O. K. Astor, a dachshund, even after he bit off a piece of her middle finger.

Mrs. Astor spent a good deal of her time in the boardrooms of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Morgan Library & Museum, Rockefeller University and other prestigious cultural centers. A trustee of each, she worked with curators and other staff members. She finally devoted herself almost exclusively to the New York Public Library .

Vartan Gregorian, who was president of the library when Mrs. Astor took it as her main cause, observed then that Mrs. Astor stood apart from her class. “She is of them, but not part of them,” said Mr. Gregorian, who is now president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. “She’s not dominated by the same considerations many socialites are.

“Hers is not a socialite’s attitude,” he went on. “She is genuinely concerned. There’s a lot of effort and mental discipline. She’s one of the few who have read so much. She’s a teacher; she teaches by example, by analogy. If you spend an evening with Brooke Astor and come away empty, there’s something wrong with your antennae.”

The Early Years

Brooke Russell was born in Portsmouth, N.H., on March 30, 1902. She remembered a childhood that was secure and happy, if often solitary. She had no siblings and spent much of that time in foreign lands. One of her earliest memories was of standing on her bed saluting as a marine bugler outside played during a flag-raising at the American legation in Beijing, where her father, Maj. Gen. John H. Russell, was commander of the guard. (She remembered that the bugler’s name was Johnny Malone, and that she had loved him.)

Her father, who later became commandant of the Marine Corps, also took the family along when he was assigned to Hawaii and Panama. She remembered her mother, Mabel Howard, as beautiful and flirtatious and said that patriotism ran in the family on both sides.

Mrs. Astor kept the diaries, letters and drawings from her childhood travels squirreled away in Briarcliff Manor in a closet that she called her “archive room.” Some of her early drawings, poems and plays were reproduced in an illustrated edition of “Patchwork Child: Early Memories,” published in 1993.

“I’ve been scribbling all my life,” she said. Her writing came to include many magazine articles, two published volumes of autobiography — a 1962 edition of “Patchwork Child” and “Footprints” (1980) — and two novels, “The Bluebird Is at Home” (1965) and “The Last Blossom on the Plum Tree: A Period Piece” (1986).

What she remembered as an idyllic childhood ended abruptly, she said, when, at age 16, she was invited to the senior prom at Princeton to fill in for a girl who had fallen ill. There she met J. Dryden Kuser. Her mother, she said, was “dazzled” by Mr. Kuser’s substantial fortune. After a brief courtship, he asked Brooke to marry him, and though she felt unprepared for marriage, she said, she reluctantly agreed.

“Dryden promised me my own house, all the dogs I wanted, and a car as soon as I was old enough to have a driver’s license,” she said.

Married Life, Times Three

They married in 1919, and for 11 years they lived in great luxury and considerable misery. Her merry nature gradually darkened as the marriage headed for disaster in every respect except for the birth of her son, Anthony. She and Mr. Kuser divorced in 1930.

Her second marriage, two years later, to Charles Marshall, known to everyone as Buddie, brought her 20 years of happiness. Mr. Marshall, she said, was the love of her life. She wrote that her son admired him so much that he adopted his last name as his own.

Charles Marshall died suddenly in 1952, leaving Mrs. Astor without an inheritance. She took a job at House & Garden, a Condé Nast magazine, where she had previously worked.

Not long afterward, still in mourning, she met Vincent Astor at a dinner. A month later, he proposed. She described the scene in “Footprints”: “I couldn’t believe my ears. ‘But you hardly know me,’ I said. ‘We really don’t know each other at all.’

“ ‘I know a lot about you,’ Vincent answered. ‘And I can swear on the Bible that if you marry me I will do everything I possibly can to take care of you and make you happy — and earn your love.’ Well, such suddenness would have thrilled me and elated me at 20, but in my late 40s, I was frightened by it.”

Within months, however, she became his third wife, in 1953. She had, perhaps, been right to hesitate. Vincent Astor, she said, was a suspicious man who thought everyone wanted something from him. As a result, the couple were often alone. She said she lost contact with her friends. He even asked her not to chat on the telephone when he was at home. But she tried to make him cheerful, she said, playing the piano for him and amusing him.

The marriage was brief. In five and a half years, Mr. Astor was dead, leaving his millions for her and for the foundation. “After Vincent died, I recreated myself,” she said, referring to her decades of philanthropy at the Vincent Astor Foundation. “Now I feel I’ve become a public monument,” she said during one of many meetings and interviews since the 1980s.

A Living Landmark

She was, in fact, named a living landmark by the New York Landmarks Conservancy, which said in 1996 that “a list of the city monuments is incomplete without her name alongside.” At bicentennial celebrations in 1976, the Municipal Art Society of New York had a medal struck in bronze to proclaim her achievements. Mayor Abraham D. Beame said Mrs. Astor had done more for New York than any other person.

The Astor Foundation’s annual reports had become a Baedeker to the city, showing important contributions to what she called New York’s “crown jewels”: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Morgan Library and the New York Botanical Garden, as well as the Cornell University Medical College, Rockefeller University, the New York Zoological Society (now the Wildlife Conservation Society), the South Street Seaport and many others.

In 1977, when Mrs. Astor made the New York Public Library her primary cause, the Astor Foundation offered a $5 million matching grant if the library could raise $10 million. She then went out to help raise the $10 million. The main entrance of the research library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street was named Astor Hall in her honor. At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she took a particular interest in the construction of the Chinese courtyard and scholar’s room, which was named Astor Court.

But having her name on a wall was never much of a priority. Foundation money often went for necessities the public never knew anything about. There was no Astor name affixed to things like air-conditioning or a staff lunch room at one institution or another.

Astor money went to provide new windows for a nursing home on Riverside Drive, fire escapes for a homeless residence in the Bronx, a boiler for a youth center in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn and vest-pocket parks around the city. The foundation was among the first to support neighborhood and community-based development projects as well as jobs programs. Grants, to name a few, also went to institutions then known as the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the National Academy of Design and Columbia College as well as Carnegie Hall, Central Park, the Museum of Natural History, Ellis Island and the Animal Medical Center, to care for the pets of the elderly poor.

“Old people have old pets,” she said. “It’s a wonderful place. When I’m sick, that’s where I want them to take me.”

A Family Divided

Mrs. Astor remained at her Park Avenue duplex apartment as age and infirmity overtook her. Though she made occasional social appearances in her last years — David Rockefeller gave her a 100th birthday party at the Rockefeller family’s Hudson Valley estate in 2002 — she had become all but a recluse toward the end.

Then, in July, came the astonishing news that Philip Marshall had sued his father, Anthony Marshall, accusing him of stripping Mrs. Astor’s apartment of artwork to enrich himself and neglecting her in ways that threatened her health and safety.

Philip Marshall enlisted the help and affidavits of Annette de la Renta, Mrs. Astor’s friend of more than 45 years, as well as Mr. Rockefeller, Henry A. Kissinger and others as he sought to wrest control of Mrs. Astor’s affairs from his father.

Anthony Marshall, 83, a Broadway producer and former diplomat who once worked for the Central Intelligence Agency, said the accusations were “completely untrue.”

Under the settlement, he and his wife, Charlene, admitted no wrongdoing, but both were required to give up their roles as co-executors of Mrs. Astor’s estate, and Mr. Marshall agreed to cease being steward of his mother’s health care and financial affairs. They also were required to rescind the transfer of Mrs. Astor’s Maine estate to themselves.

The settlement stipulated that JPMorgan Chase & Company and Mrs. de la Renta would be her permanent guardians. Mrs. de la Renta quickly moved Mrs. Astor from New York to her beloved estate in Briarcliff Manor and was said to have visited her regularly. The bank, which had overseen Mrs. Astor’s finances since the court filing in July 2006, agreed not to pursue litigation to recover millions of dollars in cash, property and stocks that it believed Mr. Marshall might have improperly obtained while managing his mother’s holdings.
Any future legal claims against Mr. Marshall, the settlement said, were to be dealt with in Surrogate’s Court on Mrs. Astor’s death and left to the discretion of the executor of her estate, to be named by a judge.

Besides her son, Anthony, of New York, and her grandson Philip, of South Dartmouth, Mass., Mrs. Astor is survived by another grandson, Philip’s twin brother, Alec.

A widow for 48 years, Mrs. Astor had a number of suitors in that time but did not want to marry again. “I just don’t want anyone tugging at my sleeve at 10 o’clock telling me it’s time to go home,” she once told her friend Marietta Tree. “I want to go at my own speed, and it’s a lot faster than theirs.”

But she remained open to new friends. She used to say that each year she took on one new friend to replace an old one who had died. While Mrs. Astor lost track of some of those friends over the years, she regretted the misunderstandings that arose from time to time. When she was 98, she recalled with satisfaction that she had telephoned a man who had once made her so angry that she had stopped talking to him. The call was to compliment him on an article he had written. “I want to be at peace with all of my friends when I die,” she said.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[naturaherbal]

NOW the fight begins.

Astor’s Guardians Challenge Her Later Wills,
Citing Incompetency
NY TIMES
By SERGE F. KOVALESKI
August 16, 2007
The court-appointed guardians of Brooke Astor have filed legal papers saying that the will she signed in 1997 should be the valid one. They argue that she was not mentally competent or was unduly influenced when she signed her last will in 2002 and several amendments to it over the following two years, according to people who have been briefed on the situation.
The petitions for the first time raise questions about Mrs. Astor’s competency at least as far back as February 2001, about two months before her 99th birthday.
The guardians, JPMorgan Chase & Company and Mrs. Astor’s longtime friend Annette de la Renta filed the papers in Westchester County Surrogate’s Court on Tuesday, the day after Mrs. Astor died at 105. The documents, which were not made public yesterday, also challenge a will that Mrs. Astor signed on Feb. 2, 2001, and an amendment dated Nov. 7 of that year, two of the people briefed said.
Additionally, the bank and Mrs. de la Renta are asking the judge to appoint them as co-administrators of Mrs. Astor’s estate, valued at more than $130 million, in addition to a trust estimated to be worth over $60 million.
Mrs. Astor’s 2002 will was at the center of a legal battle among family members for much of last year. It was started by a petition filed by one of her grandsons, Philip Marshall, 54, in State Supreme Court. He accused his father, Anthony D. Marshall, 83, Mrs. Astor’s son, of neglecting her care while enriching himself with her wealth.
Under Mrs. Astor’s 1997 will, signed on Jan. 8 of that year and amended 16 days later, Anthony Marshall was a principal beneficiary of her fortune. But he was to receive significantly more of her residuary estate in the 2002 will, and even more under a later amendment that modified the will in early 2004, according to a person familiar with both wills.
Mrs. de la Renta’s lawyer, Paul C. Saunders, declined to comment yesterday on any specifics related to Mrs. Astor’s wills. But he said that the application to be named co-administrators — whose duties are similar to those of an executor — “makes sense because both my client and the bank had been appointed as guardians.”
He added, “Whoever the administrator is will have the fiduciary responsibility to marshal the assets and distribute them in accordance with the will, subject to court supervision.”
He said Mrs. de la Renta wanted to serve as an administrator “out of respect for Mrs. Astor. For the same reason that she agreed to become guardian.”
A spokeswoman for JPMorgan Chase, which had been the guardian of Mrs. Astor’s assets, declined to comment.
Anthony Marshall’s lawyer, Kenneth E. Warner, said yesterday: “We will vigorously oppose the application being made by Ms. de la Renta and JPMorgan Chase. It’s important that the Surrogate’s Court appoint someone who is independent, impartial and fair-minded, and Ms. de la Renta and JPMorgan Chase are unsuitable and unqualified.” He added, “The attempt by Ms. de la Renta and Chase to go back to 1997 for a will is absurd.”
The person familiar with the 1997 will said that in it, half of Mrs. Astor’s residuary estate — whatever is left after all bequests have been paid — was to go to a special trust for her son and that he was to receive 5 percent a year of the fair market value. By comparison, Mr. Marshall was to get 7 percent a year of the fair market value of the entire residuary under the original terms of the 2002 will. A 2004 amendment to that will stipulated that Mr. Marshall would get the residuary outright.
The documents filed in Westchester on Tuesday contend that Mrs. Astor “was not competent to execute” any of the wills and amendments from 2001 onward or that she was “under undue influence and duress” when she did so — or both. The petition does not specify who was supposedly pressuring Mrs. Astor.
As part of a settlement last October in the case brought by Philip Marshall, Anthony Marshall and his wife, Charlene, were required to relinquish their positions as co-executors of Mrs. Astor’s estate. In exchange for Mr. Marshall giving up his broader role in his mother’s affairs, JPMorgan Chase, as a guardian, agreed not to pursue litigation to recover millions of dollars that it believes he may have improperly obtained while managing his mother’s finances.
According to terms of the settlement, any future legal claims against Mr. Marshall would be dealt with in Surrogate’s Court upon Mrs. Astor’s death and left to the discretion of an administrator of her estate, to be named by a judge.
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[lookanddiscover]

Married into wealth and then spent her life spending other peoples money, why this is a bid story I have no clue.

[Irravepem]

She did not spend "other peoples money".

[ephennaCypota]

She tried to distribute the $$ she had to help the people in NYC.

The son got greedy and had the will changed a few times. Thnig is, who "suffered" from him getting more? We are not hearing everything in this.

Sad part about this? No matter who "wins" this case, a lot of that money will go to lawyers, people who do not deserve it in the slightest, just to make sure it (hopefully) goes where it was originally intended.

[onlineslotetes]

She did not spend "other peoples money".

Was she as Astor by birth? no. Did she work to build the fortune? no. She just spent it ( on good causes I must say) but did nothing to earn more to give more.

[67Irralphaisa]

Well, If you want to get technical: the money was earned in the early 1800s by her husband's great grandfather John Jacob Astor. Worth the equivalent of over 100 billion dollars at the time of his death.

Brooke Astor was in charge of the Astor Foundation, a philanthropic organization. In other words: she had a job.

And worked well into her 90s.

[kazinopartnerkae]

Just like Caroline Kennedy husband has a job, he says his job is being a "renaissance man"

This woman ran this charity like I run mine. She had a staff of over 50 ( i know since i brokered there latest lease deal) and was shall I say not a hands on lady.

[Guaranano]

"... and was shall I say not a hands on lady."

LOL. How old was she at the time? 90?

BTW: my mother never worked a day in her life... but when she went out shopping I never thought of her as spending other peoples money.

[Sarbrienna]

Well im not going back on fourth on this lady anymore. To defend a woman based on what you read and not know is just not logical and Ive got better things to do.

[BitStillrhile]

No, I must admit, unlike you I never knew her.

I hang out with a younger crowd.