Astor’s Son Facing 25 Years for Selling Mom’s Pride and Joy

From The Village Voice:

Baird Ryan, the vice-president of Gerald Peters Gallery on East 78th Street, testified that [Astor’s son] Anthony Marshall sold him a painting Astor loved for a whopping $12 million.

In February 2002, as Astor neared the age of 100, Marshall told his mother — who was worth $100 million — that she needed to sell her painting, “Up the Avenue from Thirty-Fourth Street, May 1917” by Childe Hassam because she was short on cash.

Prosecutors have argued that Marshall and his lawyer — co-defendant Francis Morrissey — strong armed the senile doyenne when she was 101 to sign papers changing her will so that he could get another $60 million.

Marshall, 84, faces a maximum of 25 years behind bars if he is convicted of the top charge of grand larceny after the Manhattan DA claimed he sold the painting, then awarded himself a $2 million “commission.”