The Brooke Astor swindle trial ground to a halt today when the guest of honor — Astor’s defendant son, Anthony Marshall — called out sick so he could see a neurologist for an undisclosed health problem.
Marshall, 85, a pacemaker-wearing survivor of a heart attack and open heart surgery, has been increasingly wobbly as he traverses the hallways of Manhattan Criminal Court — leaning on his cane and his wife — as the now two-month-long trial has dragged on.
Jurors were released for the day with no clue of the reason why and strict instructions not to speculate.
In fact, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Kirke Bartley cleared the courtroom well of all lawyers, prosecutors and Marshall’s estate lawyer co-defendant Francis Morrisey so that the reason for the abrupt adjournment would not be discernible from Marshall’s absence.
“I was going to tease you and tell you the case had been settled,” the judge joked when the jurors filed into an empty courtroom, and their faces registered alarm.
“But one of you might have a stroke, so I won’t do that,” the judge deadpanned.
“We will not be taking testimony today and I ask most sincerely you not speculate as to why that is. There is some possibility that that might be the case tomorrow,” the judge said, adding that he does, however, plan on the trial returning to normal tomorrow.
The swindle trial has taken Fridays off since the beginning, but the judge asked jurors to talk among themselves for the “limited and distinct” purpose of deciding whether one or more Fridays could be agreed on as make-up days.
Marshall and his 20-years-younger wife, Charlene — who prosecutors say motivated Marshall’s big money grab — left court an hour early yesterday under circumstances that remain unclear.
Charlene was visibly upset and Marshall even more unsteady on his feet as the couple departed court. A family friend of the Marshalls, asking not to be identified, ascribed the sudden departure to news that one of Charlene’s two daughters had herself suffered a health emergency.
Lawyers for the Marshalls declined to elaborate on either Charlene’s or Marshall’s health emergencies.
Marshall’s neurologist — whoever he or she is — wound up trumping Astor’s own longtime primary physician, Dr. Rees Pritchett, who’d been scheduled to spend all of today testifying for the prosecution.
Pritchett is expected to tell jurors of a letter Marshall sent him way back in 1997, in which he noted his mother is “failing.”
This is a full three years before Astor’s official Alzheimer’s diagnosis, and six years before Marshall insists she was competent to sign over to him bequests and gifts for more than $60 million — money she’d long promised to charity.
The judge had earlier this week told jurors to expect the trial testimony to linger on into July. So far, prosecutors have called 41 witnesses to the stand, many of them friends and colleagues of Astor who gave anecdotes of how the beloved philanthropist was slipping in the years, months and days surrounding when Astor signed away her fortune.
Prosecutors have promised to call somewhere between 50 and 60 witnesses. The defense is being coy about the length of their witness list, with the exception of noting that a single handwriting expert will give extensive testimony concerning a single Astor signature on a will amendment for which co-defendant estates lawyer Francis Morrissey is charged with forgery.