Sending the 89-year-old Parkinson’s afflicted son of Brooke Astor — who was convicted of bilking her estate out of millions — to jail on Thursday would be a death sentence, his attorney argued today.
“It would be cruel and unusual punishment for Mr. [Anthony] Marshall at this age in this condition to be sentenced to jail,” lawyer Kenneth Warner pleaded in Manhattan Supreme Court today in a last ditch effort to spare his client prison time.
“His physician, he feels that a jail sentence could have lethal consequences,” Warner said, adding that throwing Marshall in the clink would be a violation of the Eight Amendment, which prohibits excessive bail and torture. “Incarceration would likely precipitate Mr. Marshall’s imminent death.”
Despite the plea for mercy, Justice A. Kirke Bartley declined Warner’s request to toss the 1-to-3-year prison term, noting that a higher court had ruled in February that Marshall was unlikely to die while locked up.
“There is no one in this courtroom that’s more sympathetic to Mr. Marshall than I,” Justice Bartley declared, adding that he did not have the liberty of expressing his “personal sentiments.”
Bartley will decide Thursday at noon whether Marshall and his co-defendant, attorney Francis X. Morrissey, will get a hearing on a possible retrial.
The Post exclusively reported last week that Juror No. 8 had signed a sworn statement on June 8 recanting her guilty vote, claiming she was bullied into the decision by other jurors.
Morrissey was charged with forging the famous philanthropist’s signature on a change to her will that transferred the bulk of her wealth from favorite Big Apple charities like the Metropolitan Museum to her only son Anthony. Marshall was also convicted of giving himself a $2 million raise from mom’s deep pockets, buying a 55-foot yacht and paying for upkeep on his wife Charlene’s Maine estate.
Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Loewy, chief of the Elder Abuse Unit, opposed Warner’s motion to keep Marshall out of prison, arguing that there are plenty of elderly in prison.
“He is able to get around,” she countered. “He is able to go to lavish parties on the Hudson River, on a big ship,” she said citing a Post report about Marshall attending a black-tie celebration aboard a Titanic-like cruise ship in February.
“Medical personal at Rikers and then at a state prison will be able to care for Mr. Marshall,” she concluded.
Morrissey, 72, won three more days of freedom today, as the judge put off the execution of his sentencing until Thursday when Marshall is expected to turn himself in. The disgraced attorney, who suffers from sleep apnea, nodded off during the arguments about when he would have to go to jail.
“The whole thing is a travesty of justice,” Morrissey grumbled as he shuffled out of court.