By Serge F. Kovaleski and Colin Moynihan
The New York Times
January 4, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/04/nyregion/04morrissey.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Elisabeth von Knapitsch may not have known Brooke Astor, and Ms. von Knapitsch's fortune — $15 million — was certainly modest compared with Mrs. Astor's legendary wealth.
But these two doyennes of Park Avenue did have someone in common during their frail final years: Francis X. Morrissey Jr., a lawyer who has been accused of wrongfully meddling in their estate matters to enrich himself.
Mr. Morrissey, 65, has been charged in an 18-count indictment with helping Mrs. Astor's son, Anthony D. Marshall, exploit her during the last years of her life so that the two men could gain financially. Mr. Morrissey is also charged with forging Mrs. Astor's signature on a final amendment to her 2002 will. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
In some ways, Mr. Morrissey's role in the von Knapitsch estate foreshadows the accusations against him in the Astor case.
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| Francis X. Morrissey Jr., center, in November. He faces charges that he helped Brooke Astors son exploit her in her final years. Photo by John Marshall Mantel |
It also provides a striking illustration of how Mr. Morrissey and two other New York lawyers together became involved in estates, often of wealthy and prominent people whom Mr. Morrissey had known, sometimes for decades. They have been criticized for their involvement in a succession of such cases.
The three lawyers have collected sizable fees for serving as executors or trustees and for performing legal work on estate and trust matters, and Mr. Morrissey has been the beneficiary of a number of bequests. Some of those wills have been challenged in court and have resulted in settlements.
Another of the lawyers, Warren J. Forsythe, 78, is a specialist in trusts, estates and real estate who received his law degree from Yale and was admitted to the New York bar 50 years ago. His informal partnership with Mr. Morrissey dates to May 1977, when the two met through a secretary who had worked with them both.
The third lawyer is Peter J. Kelley, 67, who was ordained a Roman Catholic priest in 1967, according to his firm's Web site, and was a chaplain and teacher until 1973. Mr. Kelley, who has a master's degree in social work, graduated from the Rutgers School of Law in 1979 and met Mr. Morrissey about 1983.
Mr. Morrissey, a graduate of Hastings College of the Law at the University of California, has become involved in several dozen estates over three decades. His friends and acquaintances have included Mrs. Astor, a descendant of one of the founders of Nestlé, a president of the American Museum of Natural History, and a doctor and infectious disease specialist who had treated Mother Teresa. Mr. Morrissey has worked on two estates involving that doctor, and Mr. Kelley had a role in one of them.
Another acquaintance was the portrait painter William F. Draper, who died in 2003 at age 90. He made Mr. Morrissey co-executor of his estate and used Mr. Forsythe as the lawyer for the estate. Mr. Draper also made a portrait of Mr. Morrissey.
Mr. Morrissey's lawyer denied that his client had engaged in wrongdoing in any of the estates, and he said that Mr. Morrissey had been asked to play a role in a number of estates, and had received some bequests, because he is liked and trusted. Neither Mr. Kelley nor Mr. Forsythe were named in the Astor criminal case.
A Generous Benefactor
Ms. von Knapitsch was a widow when Mr. Forsythe drafted a new will for her that she signed on July 17, 1997. Under the will, Mr. Morrissey received most of Ms. von Knapitsch's $15 million estate, including her six-room apartment on Park Avenue. Mr. Forsythe, who had served as her lawyer, was co-executor of the estate.
Upon Ms. von Knapitsch's death at age 91 in 2000, some of her relatives and a probate official argued that the will was the result of fraud and "duress and undue influence" by Mr. Morrissey "and others."
The dispute was resolved in a settlement, with Mr. Morrissey, who had known Ms. von Knapitsch and her late husband since the 1970s, still receiving a significant portion of the bequests.
The same day that Ms. von Knapitsch signed her will, Dr. Alexandra Adler, an authority on schizophrenia and one of the first female neurologists to teach at Harvard Medical School, signed hers at the age of 95. The same three witnesses were used in both women's wills. Mr. Forsythe prepared the document and was named a co-executor of Dr. Adler's estate.
The will stipulated that Mr. Morrissey was to receive 40 percent of what was left of her estate after all other bequests had been made. Dr. Adler died in January 2001 at 99.
"A long-term pattern exists in which Mr. Forsythe has prepared wills" in which "Mr. Morrissey is designated as a beneficiary, and Mr. Morrissey or Mr. Forsythe is named as a fiduciary," a lawyer named Donald Novick wrote in an affidavit in 2003.
Mr. Novick was representing a relative of the economist Sam Schurr, who signed a new will and an amendment to a trust the day before he died in March 2002, when he was 83. Mr. Forsythe drafted the will and the amendment, which were signed under his supervision, according to the affidavit and other court documents. The documents designated Mr. Forsythe, Mr. Morrissey and Mr. Schurr's wife as co-trustees and co-executors of the estate. The amendment gave Mr. Schurr's Manhattan apartment and his art collection to Mr. Morrissey, the documents show.
The affidavit was intended to show that Mr. Schurr was unduly influenced by Mr. Morrissey. A settlement was eventually reached in the case.
Mr. Forsythe has a close professional relationship with Mr. Kelley. The Web site for Mr. Kelley's law firm, Peter J. Kelley & Associates, lists Mr. Forsythe as one of three lawyers who are "of-counsel" to the firm.
Mr. Kelley was also listed as a director and Mr. Morrissey as the primary contact and treasurer for a foundation of which Mr. Marshall's wife, Charlene Marshall, has been president. That group, the Shepherd Community Foundation, was incorporated in 2002 and was financed with $100,000 from Mrs. Astor.
Neither Mr. Kelley nor Mr. Forsythe returned calls seeking comment about their relationship with Mr. Morrissey, who declined to be interviewed for this article.
An Adviser to Many
Mr. Morrissey's lawyer, Michael S. Ross, said in an e-mail message that his client had been a lawyer, executor or co-executor in several dozen estate matters over three decades.
"Mr. Morrissey has been considered by his many friends and clients and their families as a good and decent person who could be trusted to protect the interests of their families and their estates after they passed on," Mr. Ross wrote.
He said Mr. Morrissey "would provide wisdom and compassion to the often contentious and emotional issues concerning how to distribute estate moneys to heirs and others who might otherwise squander and misuse those funds or who might otherwise due to disability be unable to make a financial decision."
Mr. Ross said that Mr. Morrissey's role in trust and estate matters has generally been as an adviser and that he did not draft documents. Mr. Morrissey has stated in the past that he is dyslexic.
"The drafting of will- and trust-related documents would be accomplished by the hiring of other capable trust and estate lawyers such as Warren Forsythe and his firm," Mr. Ross said. For preparing documents, "Mr. Morrissey recommended matters to another capable trust and estate attorney, Peter Kelley."
When Mr. Morrissey was seeking approval to resume practicing law in New York State in 1998 after a suspension that had lasted for more than two years, Mr. Kelley and Mr. Forsythe were among the more than a dozen character witnesses who vouched for his integrity and his deep sense of remorse before a state disciplinary panel. (Mr. Morrissey was suspended for having wrongfully taken almost a million dollars out of an escrow account belonging to a company he represented and for deceiving one of the firm's executives.) Mr. Morrissey also was given a reciprocal suspension in Massachusetts and resigned from the California bar, according to court documents.
Another character witness was Julio Mendez, a rancher from Argentina who had known Mr. Morrissey for more than 20 years. In a letter of support, he wrote, "I felt the bar was losing someone who truly cared about his clients' welfare."
Five years later, in February 2003, Mr. Kelley drafted a will for Richard T. York, an art gallery owner who had received a diagnosis of liver cancer. The signing of the will, which named Mr. Morrissey as executor of the estate, was supervised by Mr. Kelley.
Mr. York died that April, and according to his domestic partner, Kevin Scott, Mr. Morrissey was nowhere to be found for weeks after. "I could never reach him," Mr. Scott said in an interview. "He was in Paris a lot of the time. And then he finally told me to get another lawyer and charge the fees to the estate because he was too busy."
Mr. Scott was eventually able to get Mr. Morrissey to give up his designation as executor of the estate and paid him $40,000 as part of a settlement. Mr. Kelley was one of the lawyers who represented Mr. Morrissey in the matter.
In 1987, Mr. Kelley served as a witness to an amendment to the will of Jose Juarez Garza, a New York art dealer, that named Mr. Morrissey as both the joint executor and the lawyer for his estate. Mr. Garza died a month later at the age of 56. In a legal filing, Mr. Kelley identified himself as "attorney-draftsman" in attesting to the legitimacy of the amendment, commonly known as a codicil.
Reputation for Helping
Mr. Morrissey has earned a reputation for helping take care of elderly people, some of whom he had known for decades, without billing them for his work. And he has provided gifts like smoked hams and turkeys during the holidays, or cashmere robes. In return, a number of these people have left him bequests in their wills or chosen him as a fiduciary of their estates.
One acquaintance who appointed Mr. Morrissey to an administrative role in his estate was August Heckscher, who served as parks commissioner under Mayor John V. Lindsay and worked in the Kennedy administration as a special consultant on the arts. Mr. Heckscher had known Mr. Morrissey for about 20 years when he died in April 1997 at age 83.
Mr. Heckscher designated one of his sons, Stephen A. Heckscher, and Mr. Morrissey as co-executors and co-trustees of his estate. The will was drafted by Mr. Forsythe.
Stephen Heckscher said in a recent interview that he was not comfortable with the way that Mr. Morrissey would take care of some of his father's affairs, apparently without charging him.
"Francis was always very generous, and my father enjoyed his company and found him competent as a lawyer," Mr. Heckscher said. "I do remember my father saying that Francis would help here and there, but I was not aware of him ever billing. That did not make me comfortable."
Mr. Morrissey has also been effective at networking, as demonstrated by the roles that he and Mr. Forsythe had in the estates of Jay Lovestone, who briefly headed the Communist Party in the United States before becoming an ardent anti-Communist; one of his former associates, Louise Page Morris; and Mr. Schurr.
In an affidavit, Mr. Morrissey explained that he had known Mr. Lovestone for more than seven years before his death in March 1990 at the age of 91.
"I was introduced to Mr. Lovestone by Page Morris, who was a close friend of his for over 50 years, and a very close friend of my own family for many years," Mr. Morrissey wrote in the affidavit. "I became friends with Mr. Lovestone and with his niece, Beatrice Schurr, and her husband, Sam Schurr."
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