Most of the time estate planning is boring and dull. But occasionally there is high drama. Take the case of Brooke Astor, matriarch of New York's high society and heir to the Astor name. Before she died at age 105 in 2007, Mrs. Astor changed her will to benefit her son, Anthony Marshall and her attorney, Francis X. Morrisey. Prosecutors in New York claim that Marshall and Morrisey exploited Mrs. Astor's Alzheimer's disease and induced her to sign amendments, known as codicils, to her will in the years before her death. They plan to paint a picture of a declining elderly women gradually losing touch with reality, through witnesses such as housekeepers and friends, among whom is expected to be Annette de la Renta, wife of fashion magnate Oscar de la Renta. The trial is expected to last two months.
However, the defendants claim that Mrs. Astor was not at all incompetent when she changed her will, and proving her incompetence may well be a difficult task. Alzheimer's patients often have moments of lucidity, and the prosecution will have to prove that Mrs. Astor was not in one of those moments at the exact instant that she signed her codicils.
Mrs. Astor's son, Anthony Marshall, is her only child. His father was Mrs. Astor's first husband. Her third husband, Vincent Astor, was the son of John Jacob Astor IV, who made his fortune in real estate and died in the sinking of the Titanic.
