Brooke Astor & Vince Astor

brooke astor New Yorkers feasted on the story when the news broke in 2006: Brooke Astor, a worldly and megaphilanthropist with Alzheimer’s disease, had been swindled of millions of people and mistreated by his own son.

Anthony “Tony” Marshall, her only child, was charged with criminal offenses, including grand theft, possession of stolen property, forgery and conspiracy.

Jury selection for the trial, which also involves Marshall’s lawyer, Francis Morrissey Jr., who, including in response to accusations of forgery and scheming to defraud, is scheduled to begin Monday.

An attorney representing Marshall, Fred Hafetz, would say only that there was “no way” and he hoped that his client “is justified.”

The trial is likely to revive the tabloid frenzy, which has promoted titles such as “Bad heir day”, “Mrs. Astor disaster” and “DA kick at Astor.

This is not the way closest to those who want it to remember Astor. And information resulting from spills of the witness is not the type of Astor, who died in August 2007, at 105, would like to share in public.

“She was mortified,” said Vartan Gregorian, a longtime friend and president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. “She was very private.”

With her late husband Vincent Astor Foundation, Astor was credited to New York, where the Astors made their fortune, about $ 200 million. And even if she felt it was expected of him is clean and elegant, “said Gregorian, wealth does not define it.

Talk of money, property and others have unfortunately been out of bounds to his dinner, he said. “It is not ostentatious. … It was very funny, very spiritual and very caring.”

When a so-called robber accosted her, she foiled the attempted hold-this response: “Excuse me. My name is Mrs. Astor. I do not think we’ve been properly introduced, “Gregorian recalled with a laugh.

For 23 years, Linda Gillies led the Astor Foundation and saw his approach to doing good - not only for its “crown jewels”, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library, but also for lower profile programs.

Astor has often been quoted as saying: “Money is like manure, it’s not worth a thing if it is around.” But for her, yet it was not simply the money.

Betty Cooper Wallerstein, a community organizer who assisted Astor in 2500 to save low-income apartments in Manhattan, Upper East Side, Astor described as equally comfortable mingling with the tenants as it was in high society.

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