The octogenarian aristocrat who swindled his philanthropist mother, Brooke Astor, out of $185 million claims he is too sick to serve out his prison term — but Manhattan prosecutors aren’t buying it.
Anthony Marshall, 89, hasn’t provided medical documentation to back up his sob story and was even partying on the Intrepid right before he was sent away, prosecutors claim.
The Parkinson’s suffering fraudster — who has served fewer than two months of his 1- to 3-year sentence — will go before a parole board tomorrow to determine whether he’ll be released on medical grounds from Fishkill Correctional Facility.
Marshall’s medical claims can’t be substantiated as he hasn’t turned over sufficient medical records despite repeated requests, wrote Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Loewy in a seven-page letter sent to the Department of Correction on Aug. 14..
But his attendance at a party last February suggests he isn’t doing too badly, the prosecutor argues.
“Marshall was well enough to attend a black-tie gala at the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum in Manhattan,” she wrote. She even included a picture of the wheelchair-bound con smiling in a tux as his wife, Charlene, stands behind him. The lavish dinner party for 600 guests celebrated the construction of the ship Titanic II, the letter states.
“Mashall’s ability to socialize to this extent, at about the same time defense counsel and Dr. Franklin were describing his condition in such dire terms, is certainly relevant to the determination whether releasing him at the outset of his prison term would undermine the public’s respect for the law,” she wrote.
She adds that Marshall’s age shouldn’t be a factor in considering his release especially given that his own mother was 102 years old and in the throes of Alzheimer induced dementia when he robbed her blind.
“If the parole Board were to make an exception for an elderly inmate like Marshall, the message to healthy elders who are tempted to commit financial abuse against family members could well be that the benefits of the crime outweigh the risk of punishment.”