Anthony Marshall is charged with looting his aged mother's fortune before her death, aged 105, two years ago. The prosecution is presenting evidence that his mother, Brooke Astor, of the legendary Astor family, owners of a property empire, had been suffering from mental decline and was behaving strangely.
Sadly for them, the evidence they presented didn't exactly show that...
On Monday, the jury heard an account of a lunch in 1999. Astor, a close friend of Charles, had brought the then Camilla Parker Bowles to the function as part of her introduction to New York society. Charles and Camilla had only recently started being seen in public together, following his divorce from Diana, his first wife, three years earlier.
According to Vartan Gregorian of the Carnegie Corporation, Astor said to Parker Bowles in the course of the meal: "Your grandmother would be proud of you."
She added: "You're keeping this mistress business in the family."
Ouch! Sheath those claws, Brooke...
The comments were understood by Gregorian to be a reference to Alice Keppel, one of Edward VII's many mistresses and a great-grandmother of the duchess.
Yeah, I have a bit of sympathy for the hapless lawyer who stood up in court to present
this as 'evidence' that the old girl was going doolally.
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