When You Wish Upon Astor

"When you wish upon Astor
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you"

Unless, that is, your heart desires the 50,000 dollars you were promised. Then it really does matter who you are. Because if you were a personal employee of the deceased Astor, then Anthony Marshall, Brooke Astor's son who was indicted in November on charges of fraud and grand larceny for allegedly stealing millions from his mother's estate, is doing everything he can to make sure your wish will not come to you:

Employees say Mrs. Astor, widow to the wealthy Vincent Astor, was a woman of her word who looked after her staff of about two dozen people. In a series of wills, she set aside cash for about a dozen employees she listed by name, a sum that reached $230,000 by 2001.

Well, can you blame Marshall? $230,000 is a lot of green. More green than was ever cut by Astor's gardeners... Oh wait, I forgot. Astor's will left a $132 million estate! Man, Marshall sure is a douche, and his own son agrees:

"Her secretaries, gardeners, drivers and maids are the unsung heroes in her life," says her grandson, Philip Marshall, Anthony Marshall's son. "She would be mortified to know that they were left out in the cold."

Unsung, eh? I can't blame her employees. After seeing how false Jiminy Cricket's lyrics turned out to be, I'd quit the choir too.

[Wall Street Journal]