Trial: Astor Called Son’s Wife a ‘Bitch’

It’s Week 2 of the Astor trial, and yet more scandalous details are leaking out. Anthony Marshall—son of Brooke Astor, the New York society doyenne who died in 2007 at age 105—is accused of swindling $60 million from her estate by persuading his senile mother to change her will. But it’s his wife, Charlene, whom Astor truly disliked, it seems. A witness at Marshall’s trial Monday told the court that Astor said she’d rather spend Christmas with her two dogs than “that bitch.” Ear doctor Kevin O’Flaherty said that when he treated Astor at her Park Avenue home in 2000, he asked about her Christmas plans. “She said she’d rather have Boysie and Girlsie, her dogs, there than her son and that B-I-T-C-H.” Prosecutors say Charlene was the reason Marshall allegedly took advantage of his mother.