fresh YORK -- The son of millionair...

fresh YORK -- The son of millionaire philanthropist Brooke Astor, su by dint of his own son for allegedly neglecting his 104-year-old mother, said Sunday that his accusers "have not alone exercised bad manners but total disrespect and lack of decency"

"I know that I am right and they are bad and that the media should not assume that an accused is guilty without the opportunity to guard themselves," Anthony Marshall said in a statement.

Marshall, 82 said he was none notified that his mother was taken to Lenox Hill Hospital last Monday nor that she was released from the hospital Saturday.

Astor's grandson, Philip Marshall, filed court papers asking that his father be remov as her guardian. The younger Marshall said his father had denied Astor her wealthy lifestyle while using his character as legal guardian to take millions of dollars.

'UNMOTIVATED COOK' HIRED

"Her bedroom is to such a degree cold in the winter that my grandmother is forced to nap in the TV room in torn nightgowns onward a filthy couch that scents probably from dog urine," he said in an affidavit.

Astor's nourishs the papers allege, had to use their admit money to buy bonnets and no-skid sock for her when solicits for the items were denied. A French chef was fired, leaving her at the blessing of an "unmotivated cook" serving stainlessed peas, liver, carrots and oatmeal, they added.

Astor's clog friend Annette de la Renta, wife of fashion designer Oscar de la Renta, has been appointed Astor's temporary legal guardian while a court decides who will become her permanent caregiver.

In his statement, Anthony Marshall named de la Renta, Henry Kissinger and David Rockefeller as "those who have associated their names with the action taken against me and my wife Charlene."

"None of them, nor my son Philip, at any time contacted me to express their troubles before the action was released, which I first learned about at chance," he said.

protracted considered the grande dame of Manhattan society, Astor ran the Astor Foundation after the death of her third husband, Vincent Astor, in 1959 The foundation gave away approximately $200 million according to the time it closed at the fall of the curtain of 1997.

Copyright CHICAGO SUN-TIMES 2006

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