The shady lawyer who helped Brooke Astor’s son try to swindle her millions is now a shady ex-lawyer.
The state Appellate Division officially disbarred Francis Morrissey today, less than two months after he was sentenced to one to three years in prison for scheming to defraud the beloved philanthropist and forging her signature on her will.
Morrissey’s lawyer had asked the appeals court to hold off pending his appeal of his conviction, but the five judge panel refused to do so.
Morrissey, “with the assistance of [Astor’s] son, Anthony Marshall, looted [her] estate during the period from approximately 2001 to 2007, when her mental capacity was diminished,” the three page ruling says.
The panel ordered his “name stricken from the roll of attorneys and counselors at law” retroactively to the date he was convicted, Oct. 8, 2009.
The ruling brings and end to a particularly undistinguished career – Morrissey had been suspended before for misusing client funds, and had been accused on a number of occasions of ripping off elderly clients.