How Brooke Astor's son fleeced his dying mother of $200m

Anthony Marshall, only son of late New York millionairess Brooke Astor, was recently convicted of defrauding his ailing mother of millions of dollars.

The sad end of Brooke Astor was the "ultimate Upstairs, Downstairs story", says the New York Daily News. What did the butler hear? Could the peeved French maid and the combative former chauffeur be trusted? If only the pet dachshunds, Boysie and Girlsie, could talk... It would certainly have made life easier for the New York jury who heard five months of often contradictory testimony before deciding last week that Astor's son, Anthony Marshall, was guilty of fleecing her of millions. At 85, he now faces a possible 25 years in jail.

The once sparkling doyenne of the Upper East Side spent the last years before her death, aged 105 in 2007, in a pathetic state of neglect: the victim of Alzheimer's and a "rapacious" son. It was one of her twin grandsons, Philip Marshall, who blew the whistle. In a 2006 civil suit, he complained that his father had sacked the old lady's loyal staff and stinted on her medications, notes The Daily Telegraph.

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