An In-Law’s Charity Has One Donor, Astor, and Few Details 

By Serge f. Kovaleski, New York Times

August 8, 2006

Cary Conover for The New York Times
Anthony Marshall, Brooke Astor’s son, and his wife, Charlene. Their Manhattan apartment is one of the addresses listed for the Shepherd Community Foundation. 

The letter of acknowledgment, dated Dec. 20, 2005, is 20 words long. It thanks Brooke Astor, then 103 years old, for a gift of $100,000 and is signed by her daughter-in-law, Charlene Marshall. The letterhead is Shepherd Community Foundation.

“With many heartfelt thanks,” the letter says.

There is little information in the public realm about the Shepherd Community Foundation, making it hard to fully ascertain what the organization has done over the years and how it has handled the $100,000 donated to it by Mrs. Astor, one of New York’s legendary philanthropists. The foundation was incorporated in January 2002 and was subsequently granted tax-exempt status by the Internal Revenue Service because it said it was going to do charitable work with an emphasis on religious faith.

But even though the foundation stated that it aimed to raise money publicly, it is not listed in the telephone book. It has made no public mailings soliciting contributions. And one of its addresses, listed on the letter to Mrs. Astor, is the East 79th Street Manhattan apartment of Charlene and Anthony D. Marshall, Mrs. Astor’s son. A lawyer for Mr. Marshall said about $35,000 of the money had already been donated. 

Records indicate that the primary contact for the organization is Francis X. Morrissey Jr., a lawyer whom Mr. Marshall has turned to in recent years for legal advice on Mrs. Astor’s estate planning. Mr. Morrissey, once suspended from practicing law in New York for two years for mishandling a client’s escrow account, is also an investor in Mr. Marshall’s theater production company.

Peter J. Kelley, a Manhattan lawyer who was listed as an initial director of the foundation when it was formed, said he has heard nothing about the organization over the years and has never met or known of Charlene Marshall. Mr. Kelley said in a telephone interview yesterday that last year he resigned from the post he held in name only.

Moreover, the New York State attorney general’s office, which oversees charities, said that Shepherd Community Foundation had not registered with its charities bureau, even though it would have been obligated to do so within six months of taking Mrs. Astor’s $100,000 late last year. The attorney general’s office said that it plans to send the foundation a letter notifying it that it had not registered and requesting an explanation.

The question of Mrs. Astor’s fortune and how it is being handled surfaced two weeks ago when her grandson Philip Marshall filed a lawsuit seeking to have his father, Anthony Marshall, 82, removed as her legal guardian and accusing him of neglecting her care while enriching himself.

A copy of the letter concerning the $100,000 was given to The New York Times by a person involved in the case and concerned about how Mrs. Astor’s finances have been managed by Anthony Marshall.

Kenneth E. Warner, a lawyer for Mr. Marshall, said the foundation received its first contribution in December of last year, from Mrs. Astor. He said Mrs. Astor was fully aware of the donation. But some of Mrs. Astor’s friends and relatives, who have been concerned for more than a year about her health, said they doubted that she would have been able to make such a decision. 

Mr. Warner said that about $35,000 of Mrs. Astor’s gift had been disbursed so far, including $12,500 to the Juilliard School, while other money had gone to recipients that included St. James’s Episcopal Church in Manhattan and Friends of Acadia, a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving Acadia National Park in Maine. 

As for Juilliard, Mrs. Marshall is a member of its council, a volunteer group whose primary role is to promote the school and its mission. And at St. James’s Episcopal Church, Mrs. Marshall, a lay Eucharistic minister, teaches Stephen Ministry, a pastoral care ministry.

“Giving to worthy causes that you believe in and are part of happens all the time,” Mr. Warner said. “All the gifts fit well within the foundation’s charitable purpose, which is spiritually based and very broad.”

It is hard to tell from the public record who serves on the foundation’s board of directors. Mr. Warner, asked yesterday, said that the foundation’s board is made up of Mrs. Marshall, one of her daughters, and Mr. Morrissey. He said that the three approved all the disbursements, and that none are compensated for their work. He said the gift of $100,000 from Mrs. Astor was the only money the foundation had raised.

In its incorporation filings, the foundation set forth an ambitious plan for raising money: “To solicit funds from the general public, public and private foundations through annual giving programs, deferred giving and capital fund drives.”
Mr. Warner said that establishing the foundation was Mrs. Marshall’s idea and that Mr. Marshall fully agreed with it. 

Mr. Kelley said he was hired by Mr. Morrissey to do the legal work on the incorporation documents and the I.R.S. application for the charity’s tax-exempt status.

Mr. Kelley added that he had never heard of Mrs. Marshall until the recent news reports related to the suit over Mrs. Astor’s care. He said that while he was preparing the foundation documents, he decided, in a pinch, to use his own name as a director because the foundation needed a third person.

“That was a convenience thing. They needed a name, and I stuck mine in,” Mr. Kelley said. “I resigned in 2005 because I was reviewing my files and realized that I was still stuck on this thing.” 

The other two original directors were Mr. Morrissey and the Rev. William Bigelow of Union Church in Northeast Harbor, Me., according to the incorporation documents. Mr. Morrissey did not return calls seeking comment, and Mr. Bigelow, who resigned from the board last year, declined to comment.

Mr. Warner said that Mr. Kelley would have no reason to interact with Mrs. Marshall since he was doing legal work for the foundation and that it was not unusual for names to be listed on corporate documents for filing purposes and then be replaced. 

As for the foundation not being listed in the phone book, Mr. Warner said: “At this point there is no need for a phone number because they have not been actively raising money from the public. But as activities continue, then obviously they’ll have a phone number as needed.”

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