The daughter-in-law of Brooke Astor openly complained about the philanthropist’s longevity — saying the socialite would outlive her husband and ensure that she get almost no money.
“[Astor] is killing him. She’s f—– killing him,” Charlene Marshall said in September 2001 of the possibility of her mother-in-law outliving her husband Anthony Marshall.
“If [Marshall] dies before I do, I get nothing.”
That was what Astor’s social secretary Birgit Darby told investigators — testimony that was barred from the courtroom today because Marshall’s defense lawyers successfully argued that it should not be part of the trial.
Prosecutor Joel Seidelman argued to the contrary, saying that the “statement was important because it describes her state of mind in trying to inherit tens of millions of dollars that would have otherwise gone to charity.”
In the end, Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Kirke Bartley ruled that the statement not be allowed to be part of Darby’s testimony before the jury.
“It’s simply not relevant,” he said.
Marshall and his lawyer Francis Morrissey are accused of taking advantage of Astor’s declining mental state in 2003 and 2004 to make changes to her will.
The changes allowed Marshall to inherit $60 million, which was originally meant for charity. The changes also allowed Charlene Marshall to inherit $30 million should Marshall die first.
Astor died at age 105 in 2007.
In Astor’s original will, Charlene would have gotten very little had Marshall died before her mother-in-law.
The DA has claimed that Charlene was the motivation behind Marshall’s zeal to make changes to the will.
“[The defense] can try to say there’s no elephant in the room, but there is an elephant in the room,” Siedelman said, referring to Charlene.
Throughout this morning’s proceedings, of which the jury was barred, Charlene, who was sitting in the second row behind her husband, threw her hands up several times and appeared annoyed.
At one point, a red-faced Charlene was seen mouthing the phrase, “It’s wrong!” when prosecutors read the damning statement out loud.
After the judge made the ruling, Charlene told her husband, “It doesn’t matter. It’s out.”