Astor was 105 and suffering from Alzheimer's disease when she died in 2007. Years earlier, she was awarded the nation's highest civilian honor " the Presidential Medal of Freedom " for giving away nearly $200 million to charities and institutions.
Prosecutors said Marshall took advantage of her failing mind to help himself to her money.
His methods were as simple as taking artwork off his mother's walls and as complex as getting her to change her will to give him millions of dollars that had been destined for charity, prosecutors said during a five-month trial that featured testimony from such Astor friends as Barbara Walters and Henry Kissinger.
Marshall's lawyers said he had the legal power to give himself the raise and other gifts with his mother's money, and he believed she wanted him to have them. The defense lawyers also argued that Astor was lucid and acting out of love when she altered her will to benefit her son.
Jurors found Marshall guilty of grand larceny and scheming to defraud.
Marshall didn't testify or call any witnesses in his defense. But after his conviction, he bared his personal life and enlisted such prominent supporters as Al Roker and Whoopi Goldberg in an effort to stay free.
Marshall unsuccessfully urged a judge to spare him a prison sentence. He described in court papers an often sad, if privileged, childhood. He painted his father " Astor's first husband, New Jersey state Sen. J. Dryden Kuser " as an alcoholic who pushed the pregnant Astor down a flight of stairs.
After they divorced, Astor married stockbroker Charles Marshall, who virtually banished her son to a series of boarding schools and summer camps, Anthony Marshall said. He took his stepfather's name nonetheless.
After Charles Marshall died, his widow married Vincent Astor, a scion of one of the country's first ultra-rich families.
Meanwhile, Anthony Marshall joined the Marines out of high school, during World War II. Wounded, he earned a Purple Heart.
After the war, Marshall served as ambassador in posts including Kenya, Madagascar and Trinidad and Tobago. He wrote books on topics ranging from African art to U.S. zoos, and co-produced Tony Award-winning runs of "Long Day's Journey Into Night" and "I Am My Own Wife."
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Reach Jennifer Peltz on Twitter @ jennpeltz.
