Metro

Lawyer says Astor loved her son and was competent

Brooke Astor’s accused swindling son, Anthony Marshall, got weepy and blew his nose showily as his lawyer continued day two of closing arguments today by describing to jurors the mother and son’s deep, emotional bonds.

“Underlying this case is the love of Brooke Astor for her son, Tony Marshall,” defense lawyer Frederick Hafetz argued. “Make no mistake about it. Brooke Astor loved her only son Tony Marshall. Tony Marshall loved his mother.”

What’s love got to do with it? Marshall, 86, is trying to beat grand larceny and conspiracy charges carrying a maximum 25-year prison sentence by arguing Astor willingly — lovingly — changed her will to bequeath him more than $60 million she’d long promised to charity.

Prosecutors, whose own closing statements will begin Wednesday, counter that Astor never intended the money for Marshall, and that Marshall instead took advantage of her advanced age — 101 at the time — and her rampaging Alzheimer’s disease to strong-arm her out of the massive pile of money and property.

Certainly, the relationship between mother and son was a complicated one.

Throughout the now 18-week-old swindle trial, jurors have heard testimony testimony that Astor — pre-Alzheimer’s — repeatedly dissed her only child:

Once she griped to a friend that he’d “made something of himself.”

Another time, she said, “He was so unfortunate, I decided not to have any more.”

But yesterday, Marshall’s lawyer read to jurors from some of Astor’s autobiographical writings, in which the mother looks back with nostalgia on singing “Rock-a-bye Baby,” to her son, and recounts with pride his heroic service as a Marine officer at Iwo Jima during World War II.

Hafetz is spending much of his efforts recounting testimony that Astor repeatedly showed signs of competency in the weeks surrounding the disputed document signings. Astor was writing memos, quipping that the prices on Antiques Roadshow were “too much,” and at times “Reading her book and The Post thoroughly,” according to one nurse’s note.

And as to prosecution testimony that Astor, at that time, couldn’t even figure out how many quarters were in $1.75, never-mind sign away tens of millions, Hafetz had this humorous response: “She probably never dealt with quarters.”