**The heir to one of America’s largest family fortunes has been convicted of grand larceny and fraud in New York.**Anthony Marshall, 85, was found to have given himself an unauthorised pay-rise of $1m for managing the finances of his mother, Brooke Astor, who died in 2007.
Prosecutors had argued that there was no way Mrs Astor could have consented to the payment because she had advanced Alzheimer’s disease at the time.
Mr Marshall now faces a mandatory jail sentence of between one and 25 years.
The jury also convicted one of the lawyers for Mrs Astor’s estate, Francis X Morrissey Jr, of forgery charges.
‘Stunned’
After a five-month trial, including more than 19 weeks of testimony and 12 days of deliberations, the jury at the State Supreme Court in Manhattan found Mr Marshall guilty of first-degree grand larceny and scheming to defraud, but acquitted him on 16 other counts.
“I’m stunned by the verdict,” said Mr Marshall’s lawyer, Frederick Hafetz. “We are greatly disappointed in it and we will definitely appeal.”
The two men will remain free on bail until they are sentenced on 8 December.
During the trial, prosecutors had portrayed Mr Marshall as greedy and said he had exploited his mother’s declining mental state to secure for himself millions of dollars of inheritance that were intended to go to charity.
They argued that Mrs Astor’s Alzheimer’s had advanced so far when she amended her will and made other financial decisions that benefited her son that there was no way she could have consented.
Mr Marshall’s lawyers had said his mother was lucid when she willingly bequeathed him the riches he inherited from her $180m (£112m) fortune.