Comeuppances, and Not

Some notable things happened in the world of the rich and famous this week. Or at least, to be accurate, one involved the formerly rich and merely notorious.

O.J. Simpson, the former football great, who was acquitted in 1995 of the murders of his ex-wife and her boyfriend, was sentenced this week in Nevada to a minimum of 9 years and a maximum of 33 years in prison for armed robbery and kidnapping. Sunny von Buelow, whose husband Claus was tried for her attempted murder by insulin overdose in 1980 and after a conviction was eventually retried and acquitted, died at the age of 76, still in a coma after 28 years. And CBS Sunday Morning broadcast a story about the late Brooke Astor as promotion of a new book entitled Mrs. Astor Regrets, which tells the story of how, at more than 100 years of age, the wealthy socialite and philanthropist was allegedly swindled out of more than $60 million by her son and guardian, Tony Marshall.

In the case of O.J. Simpson, most people see his downward spiral in the years after his acquittal and his ultimate conviction and prison sentence for a Las Vegas hotel robbery as a final accounting for the murders that he committed and never paid for. The Simpson case was tawdry from start to finish, perhaps befitting a former ghetto kid who achieved fame and fortune for his football talent but never gave up his penchant for dubious friends and fast living. It is a sorry tale, but in the end the bad guy seems to have gotten his comeuppance.

As far as Claus von Buelow is concerned, the second husband of millionaire Martha (Sunny) Crawford, whose first marriage was to a prince, was convicted of attempted murder by giving his wife an overdose of insulin. Mrs. von Buelow was found comatose in the bathroom of their mansion in Newport, R.I. She never recovered. Von Buelow appealed and won a retrial, at which he was acquitted in 1985. One of his lawyers on the appeal, Alan Dershowitz, wrote a book about the case called Reversal of Fortune, which was later made into a film of the same name (1990) with Jeremy Irons playing Claus von Buelow. After much bitter family wrangling, von Buelow renounced any claim to his wife's $75-million estate in exchange for his daughter Cosima's, reinstatement in her grandmother's will. Today, Claus von Buelow is a society figure in London.

Tony Marshall is Brooke Astor's son by her first marriage, although he later took the surname of her second husband, Charles "Buddy" Marshall. He is the eldest of Brooke Astor's three children. Brooke Astor became immensely wealthy when she married her third husband, Vincent Astor, but did not blossom into the socialite and philanthropist she was known as until she was widowed. She administered the Astor Foundation and gave enormous amounts of money to many important New York City Institutions, such as the New York Public Library, the Bronx Zoo, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Mrs. Astor had the good fortune, and later the curse, of living an unusually long life. In her later years and suffering from Alzheimer's disease, her son Tony was appointed to be her guardian. Some of her prominent friends, including Annette de la Renta and David Rockefeller, were concerned that she was not being properly cared for, and they persuaded her grandson, Philip Marshall, to bring a lawsuit against his father, Tony Marshall. What emerged was a sorry tale of negelect, exploitation, and probable larceny and fraud. Marshall still faces trial on a number of criminal charges, the most serious of which, grand larceny, carries a maximum penalty of 25 years in prison. Marshall is accused of inducing his ailing and demented mother to sign an alteration of her will that bequeathed $60 million, originally earmarked for her favorite charities, to him.

The court named Mrs. de la Renta to be Mrs. Astor's new guardian, and Brooke Astor lived out the rest of her days in the mansion on her estate in Briarcliff Manor, NY. She was 105 years old when she died in 2007. At the present time, Tony Marshall is free and living in New York City with his wife. However, he is in severe financial difficulties because of the legal fees arising from the charges against him and is embroiled in litigation with the charitable institutions that stand to benefit if the allegedly forged will of Brooke Astor is set aside.

The 84-year-old Tony Marshall had heart bypass surgery in 2008. Whether he will be around to be convicted of grand larceny and eleven other felony counts is anyone's guess. Considering that his mother lived to be 105, maybe he will. And maybe the man who bilked his demented mother's estate to finance theatre productions will get his comeuppance one day, but I wouldn't bet the farm on it.