say he is a frail and sickly man who has faced extreme humiliation and would essentially be given a death sentence if a judge hands down the maximum sentence allowed . It will be up to Judge A. Kirke Bartley Jr. to decide how to reconcile the two portraits of Tony Marshall . He faces a minimum 1 to 3 years , or as much as 8 to 25 years in state prison . The drastically differing views have only further heightened interest in the case , which during the trial stage was a tabloid feeding frenzy , fostering headlines such as `` Bad heir day , '' `` Mrs. Astor 's disaster '' and `` DA 's kick in the Astor . '' The witness list was a virtual `` Who 's Who '' of New York 's social elite -- including Henry Kissinger , Graydon Carter , Barbara Walters , Vartan Gregorian and Annette de la Renta . During the case , prosecutors and witnesses portrayed Marshall as an only son preying on his physically and mentally ill 101-year-old mother . Assistant District Attorney Joel Seidemann called the case `` disturbing , '' and said the trial told
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- He was a cold , calculating , `` morally depraved '' man who spent the last years of his socialite and megaphilanthropist mother 's life bilking her fortune to line his pockets . That 's one way to see Anthony Marshall -- and it 's the only way , according to the prosecutors who secured a conviction against him for grand larceny and scheming to defraud his mother , Brooke Astor . Now as the 85-year-old son prepares to be sentenced Monday for his crimes , another portrait of him has emerged -- thanks to close friends and celebrity acquaintances -LRB- including Al Roker and Whoopi Goldberg -RRB- who sent letters to the court in hopes of saving him from a lengthy prison sentence . The man prosecutors described during the trial is apparently unrecognizable to many of Marshall 's friends and acquaintances . He was a loyal churchgoing man , a Purple Heart recipient wounded in Iwo Jima during World War II and a son who tried mightily but could never live up to the high ideals of his socialite mother , according to letters friends submitted to the court . And now , they