Maid:  Document is Not the One Astor Signed
Says Socialite’s Signature Was Faint Scrawl
Laura Italiano
June 30, 2009
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06302009/news/regionalnews/manhattan/maid__document_is_not_the_one_astor_sign_176884.htm
When philanthropist Brooke Astor signed the final amendment to her will, the 101-year-old invalid rendered a signature so spindly and pale, a housemaid worried that in time it might disappear entirely.

Manhattan prosecutors say that’s exactly what happened — that Astor’s spidery signature was replaced by the bold penstrokes of a forgery on an entirely fabricated document — and today, the same housemaid all but handed the DA a forgery conviction on one of the heirloom silver platters she used to polish.

“Is that the piece of paper you saw Mrs. Astor sign that day?” prosecutor Elizabeth Loewey asked the maid, Lia Opris, who sat on the witness stand holding the allegedly forged document in her hands.

The maid — the 46th prosecution witness in the now two-and-a-half-month-long Astor swindle trial — looked at the papers, which, at the time in March, 2004, she’d been called into Astor’s Park Avenue sitting room to witness. The maid looked up from the strong blue ink signature reading “Brooke Russell Astor,” and answered, “No.”

“It’s not the same document?”

“No.”

“And you’re sure of that?” the prosecutor pressed.

“I’m positive,” the maid insisted, speaking in the accent of her native Romania.

“The size of the letters, they were bigger,” the maid said of the signature she’d witnessed Astor scratching out from her perch on a floral print couch. “They looked kind of pale — as if the pen was running out of ink.

“And I thought to myself, what if, in time, the letters might fade?”

The forgery charge is lodged against the estates lawyer who handed the document, Francis Morrissey. Prosecutors say Morrissey conspired with Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, to strong-arm the Alzheimer’s-afflicted doyenne out of more than $60 million in gifts and bequests.

Marshall himself isn’t charged with forgery, but since the son and his lawyer share a conspiracy charge, strong evidence against one defendant tends to also besmirch the other.

Marshall, 85, insists that his mother signed three disputed will amendments in 2003 and 2004 during “moments of lucidity” — supposed breaks in the clouds in a storm of delusions so strong, Astor couldn’t recognize even her oldest friends and was referring to Marshall as “my husband” rather than “my son.”

There was one silver lining for the defense. The maid told jurors that Astor seemed together during the signing of the first of the three disputed amendments — even making inquiries that included the words “percentage” and “trusts,” and warning her son that the charitable trust created under the amendment would be a lot of work to handle.

Astor-Trial Bottle Spin
Laura Italiano
June 30, 2009
New York Post
http://www.nypost.com/seven/06302009/news/regionalnews/astor_trial_bottle_spin_176854.htm
Blame the Scotch.

Defense lawyers in the Brooke Astor swindle trial tried to pin the beloved philanthropist’s addled state on everything but her Alzheimer’s yesterday — including her hearing problems, sciatica and the good slug of whisky she boasted of enjoying each day.

Astor’s longtime primary doctor yesterday was made to testify about trying — and failing — to get her to stop drinking her daily one-to-two ounces.

“Isn’t it true that alcoholic beverages could have a destructive effect upon her cognition?” defense lawyer Kenneth Warner asked the physician, Dr. Rees Pritchett. The judge allowed the doctor’s answer over prosecution objections — “Yes.”

Prosecutor Joel Seidemann showed jurors that a year later, a neurologist noted in a letter that Astor’s continued nipping would not account for her dementia.

Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, 85, is trying to beat swindle charges by insisting his mother was enjoying a “moment of lucidity” on the three occasions when she signed over a total $60 million in bequests and gifts.

The Brooke Astor diet: Socialite took more than two dozen medications daily, court papers show
Melissa Grace/Corky Siemaszko
June 30, 2009
New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/06/30/2009-06-30_the_brooke_astor_diet_socialite_.html
Pills for breakfast, pills for lunch, pills for supper.

For Brooke Astor, every day of her declining years was a trip to Club Meds.

A list compiled by her family doctors in April 2003 - and entered into evidence at her son’s fraud trial - reveal she took two dozen medicines, vitamins or potions every day.

And this was before she broke her hip and needed more meds after that.

“Drink a lot of water!” reads the doctors’ instructions. “Eat more!”

Given the sheer volume of pills the petite socialite was popping, it’s a wonder she had room for food.

* Morning:

Bextra (joint pain) 1 10 mg tablet

Tenormin (heart) 1/2 of a 25 mg tablet

Prevacid (voice & coughing) 1 30 mg tablet

Bayer aspirin (heart) 1 tablet

Vitamin E (skin) 3 tablets

Alphagan P (eyes) 1 drop, both eyes

Various vitamins & calcium pills

* After Lunch: Advil (pain/stiffness) 1 pill, if necessary

* Bedtime:

Sonata (sleep) 1 tablet

Neurontin (pain) 1/2 capsule

Zoloft (sleep, depression, memory) 2 tablets, 25 mg each

Tenormin (heart) 1/2 of a 25 mg tablet

Aricept (memory) 1 tablet, 5 mg.

Detrol (urinary tract) 1 tablet, 5 mg.

Rhinocort (nose) 1 squirt, each nostril

Iron (anemia) 1 tablet, 325 mg

Alphagan P (eyes) 1 drop, both eyes

Xalatan (eyes) 1 drop, both eyes

Advil (pain/stiffness) 1 pill, if necessary

Senokot (laxative) 2 tablespoons

Antivert (dizziness) 1 tablet, 12.5 mg, if needed

* On occasion, as needed:

Percocet (pain relief) 1 tablet, 5 mg, 3 times a day with food

Procrit (anemia) 10,000 unit by injection, once a week

Vitamin B-12 1,000 mg by injection, every two to four weeks

Dress/clean wound every day — at least once.

Brooke Astor’s former maid says document doesn’t have socialite’s real signature
Melissa Grace/Corky Siemaszko
June 30, 2009
New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/06/30/2009-06-30_brooke_astors_former_maid_says_document_doesnt_have_socialites_real_signature.html
That’s not Brooke Astor’s signature.

The late socialite’s former maid made that claim Tuesday after viewing a document Astor purportedly signed on March 3, 2004 - to benefit her son, Anthony Marshall.

“They looked kind of pale, the letters, as if the pen was running out of ink,” Lia Opris said of Astor’s scrawl at the fraud trial of Marshall, and his lawyer buddy, Francis Morrissey.

“I remember the signature,” Opris testified in her thick Romanian accent. “I thought at the time to myself the letters might fade. The letters, bigger than usual, looked funny.”

Opris also said that when she witnessed as Astor signed a document that day, the socialite put her John Hancock in the middle of the page - not at the bottom.

“It was much higher on the page,” she said.

Asked whether she recognized the document presented to her by a prosecutor which is signed Brooke Russell Astor in dark, bold letters, Opris said, “No.”

“Are you sure?” asked Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Loewy.

“I’m positive,” said Opris, who was hired by Marshall and worked for Astor from April 2003 to December 2004, when she hit by a car and badly hurt.

Opris, who flew in from her homeland to testify, was put on the stand specifically to buttress charges that Morrissey participated in forging Astor’s signature on a codicil that increased his and Marshall’s executor fees.

Prosecutors are also expected to put Astor’s former social secretary, Erica Meyer, on the stand. She was also in the room when Astor signed the third and final codicil to her wills, which effectively gave Marshall control over her $185 million fortune.

Marshall, 85, and Morrissey, 66, are accused of taking advantage of an Alzheimer’s addled Astor to steal her money. The socialite died two years ago at age 105.

Opris said she did not know Astor had been diagnosed with dementia in 2000. “If I had known she had such a diagnosis, I couldn’t have agreed to be a witness,” she said.

Morrissey was in charge of the meeting, the maid said.

“He used some legal terms from the very beginning I didn’t understand and I couldn’t follow,” she said.

Opris also said Morrissey didn’t make himself clear to Astor. “I don’t remember him asking her questions,” she said.

Astor wasn’t smiling and “didn’t sign right away,” the maid said.

“She was thinking. She looked like she was having an inner debate, it seemed to me … Then after a while she signed the document.”

Two years later, Astor’s court-appointed lawyer, Susan Robbins, noticed that Astor’s signature on the third codicil was bolder than previous signatures.

Robbins hired a handwriting expert who determined Astor “could not have written” the signature “due to the deterioration of her ability to write her name.”

That led to the criminal charges against Marshall and Morrissey.

Brooke Astor was lucid on day she updated her will, doctor testifies
Melissa Grace
June 30, 2009
New York Daily News
http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2009/06/30/2009-06-30_brooke_astor_was_lucid_on_day_she_updated_her_will_doctor_testifies.html
Brooke Astor could communicate well the day she signed a controversial update to her will that gave her son $60 million, her doctor testified Monday.

“She was responsive and communicated well with you?” Ken Warner, lawyer for Astor’s son, Anthony Marshall, asked Dr. R.A. Rees Pritchett.

“Yes, I think so,” Pritchett replied.

The testimony contradicted what Astor told Pritchett that day - Jan. 12, 2004 - that she was “gaga,” his office notes show.

The doctor wrote that Astor claimed to be loopy but, from what he saw, “when engaged in conversation, [she's] pretty alert.”

Prosecutors say Marshall and his lawyer pal Francis Morrissey looted Astor’s $185 million fortune by taking advantage of her mental decline.

The grande dame of New York was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in 2000. She died in August 2007 at age 105.

The defense does not deny the aging doyenne was demented, but has argued that she had good and bad days. They say she knew what she was doing the day she gave her son $60 million - money she’d previously promised to charity.

Prosecutors say she was “literally dragged” into the library of her Park Ave. pad at 4 p.m. to sign a codicil to her will.

Last week, Pritchett, who was on the stand for a third day of testimony, said the then-101-year-old Astor “was able to respond” to his questions during a noontime appointment at his office that day.

The defense also suggested that Astor’s drinking - the socialite liked a Scotch or a glass of wine - may have contributed to her mental difficulties.

Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann asked Pritchett if Astor ever showed up at his office with “liquor on her breath.”

“Never,” the doctor said.