Astor Guardians Claim She Was Incompetent
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NEW YORK (AP) – Brooke Astor’s guardians say the Park Avenue socialite was not mentally competent when she signed several amendments to her will benefiting her son.
The guardians, including Annette de la Renta, wife of designer Oscar de la Renta, are now asking a judge to name them co-administrators of her will – which left about half the estate to her son when she originally signed it in 1997.
An attorney for the son, Anthony Marshall, told The Associated Press on Thursday that the 2002 document and its amendments should stand. “It’s absurd to go back to the 1997 will,” said attorney Kenneth Warner.
Astor died Monday at 105 at her Westchester County estate north of the city. Her funeral, planned for Friday at Manhattan’s St. Thomas Church, is being organized by Anthony Marshall.
On Tuesday, Astor’s guardians, Mrs. de la Renta and the JPMorgan Chase bank, filed papers in Westchester Surrogate’s Court asking a judge to appoint them as temporary administrators of her estate, said Mrs. de la Renta’s attorney, Paul C. Saunders.
Astor’s estate is valued at more than $130 million, in addition to a trust estimated at over $60 million.
Mrs. de la Renta argues that the philanthropist, her close friend, was not mentally competent or was unduly influenced when she signed her last will in 2002 and several amendments to it.
Under Astor’s 1997 will, half of the residuary estate – what is left after all the bequests have been paid – was to go to a special trust for her son and he was to receive 5 percent a year of the fair market value, a person familiar with the document told The New York Times.
By comparison, he was to get 7 percent a year of the fair market value of the entire residuary under the original terms of the 2002 will, the Times said. A 2004 amendment to that will gives him the residuary outright, the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the documents have not been made public, told the Times.
Last year, one of Astor’s grandsons, Philip Marshall, 54, filed a petition in state Supreme Court accusing his father, Anthony Marshall, of allowing his mother to live in squalor in her Park Avenue apartment while trying to enrich himself.
The case was settled when Marshall, a former diplomat and Broadway producer, stepped aside as an executor of his mother’s will. A judge appointed Mrs. de la Renta as Astor’s guardian and JPMorgan Chase bank as the guardian of her property.
