John Eligon for the New York Times: The son of Brooke Astor, the legendary New York society matriarch, was convicted on Thursday of stealing from her as she suffered from Alzheimer's disease in the twilight of her life.

Barring an appeal, the jury's verdict means that Mrs. Astor's son, Anthony D. Marshall, an 85-year-old war veteran who fought at Iwo Jima, can be sentenced to anywhere from 1 to 25 years behind bars.

Mr. Marshall was found guilty of 14 of the 16 counts against him, including one of two first-degree grand larceny charges, the most serious he faced. Jurors convicted him of giving himself an unauthorized raise of about $1 million for managing his mother's finances. Prosecutors contended that Mrs. Astor's Alzheimer's had advanced so far that there was no way she could have consented to this raise and other financial decisions that benefited Mr. Marshall.

A second defendant in the case, Francis X. Morrissey Jr., a lawyer who did estate planning for Mrs. Astor, was convicted of forgery charges.

Mr. Marshall was found not guilty on two counts: the other grand larceny charge, which stemmed from the sale of a painting by Childe Hassam that belonged to his mother, and falsifying business records.

A prosecutor, Elizabeth Loewy, asked that bail be increased to $5 million from $100,000, but the judge, Justice A. Kirke Bartley Jr., refused. He set sentencing for Dec. 8.

The verdict drew the curtain on a trial that lasted longer than had been expected. The jury of eight women and four men sat through more than 19 weeks of testimony and arguments in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, hearing detailed accounts of Mrs. Astor's luxurious life of summers on an estate in Maine and dinners with diplomats. They heard testimony from Henry Kissinger, Barbara Walters and Annette de la Renta, among others. Deliberations went on for 12 days, and appeared strained.

The prosecution had portrayed Mr. Marshall as driven to squeeze his mother for money at the urging of his wife, Charlene. On Thursday, Charlene Marshall sat stone-faced as the verdict was read. Moments later, while her husband went to meet with a probation officer, she left the courtroom, saying, "I love my husband." She and Mr. Marshall then held hands and ignored reporters' requests for comment before being whisked away in a black town car.

It was Mr. Marshall's son Philip who had initially raised questions about his father's care of his grandmother. He was not in court on Thursday, but reacted with disbelief at the sweeping verdict. "Oh my God," he said when reached on his cellphone. "Wow. Wow." He said he needed time to compose a statement: "There's just too much going through my head right now."

Sam Peabody, a longtime friend of the Marshalls who sat next to Mrs. Marshall for much of the trial, said: "It's hard to believe. What an end. To be 85 and have this happen is dreadful. It's dreadful at any age."

As he left the courthouse, Mr. Marshall's lead lawyer, Frederick P. Hafetz, faulted jurors, said the case was not even a criminal one, and promised an appeal. "I'm stunned by the verdict, greatly disappointed with what the jury did," he said.

"This case should have been left to probate court. He's 85 years old, these charges are not criminal charges. Cases of these kinds of issues are always resolved in the probate court," he continued. "I don't know of any other case in my experience, where there were essentially will issues that got decided in a criminal case."

He added: "Just like I said in my summation, he loved his mother and she loved him."

Mr. Morrissey and his lawyer also left without saying anything.

The apparent strain among jurors became public on Monday, when they sent out a note that read, "Due to heated argument, a juror feels personally threatened by comments made by another juror."

"With regards to her personal safety," the note continued, "she wishes to be dismissed anonymously."

Justice Bartley sent the jury back to continue, encouraging its members to "let the touchstone of your deliberations be respect and civility."

After the verdict, Justice Bartley told jurors: "How does a judge thank jurors who have served since March? You have acted in the finest tradition of the American court of law."

Jurors left without speaking to reporters. Until Thursday, it was unclear whether they had reached consensus on any of the 18 counts against Mr. Marshall and Mr. Morrissey, and whether the signs of strain foretold a mistrial.

Mrs. Astor, whose fortune was estimated at more than $180 million when she died two years ago at 105, may have been best known for channeling large sums toward New York charities and cultural institutions like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Bronx Zoo.

The prosecution's case rested heavily on its contention that Mrs. Astor's Alzheimer's had advanced so far in her later years that she could not have understood complex changes to her will or other financial decisions that benefited her son.

Prosecutors spent weeks calling witnesses to testify to the signs of her deterioration: forgetting the names of close friends, not knowing simple words like "faucet," and harboring paranoid fears of men in suits coming to kill her at night.

The defense sought to undercut the prosecution's case by showing that Mrs. Astor had lucid moments, despite her Alzheimer's. Mr. Hafetz cited the time she said, "Rich people are no different from poor people, they always want more," after making a change to her will in 2004 that gave her son greater control of her estate.

Although Mr. Marshall and Mrs. Astor may have had an awkward relationship, the defense contended that she realized late in her life how much she loved her son, and that the discovery was why she gave him so much.

"Make no mistake about it -- Brooke Astor loved her only son, Tony Marshall," Mr. Hafetz said in his closing statement. "Tony Marshall loved his mother."

"She had given plenty to charity by that point," he added later.

The trial was delayed on several occasions because of Mr. Marshall's health, including one instance when he became dizzy and fell in a courthouse bathroom. As he waited for a stretcher, a chair was brought in for his wife, whom prosecutors had accused of being a protagonist but who was not charged with a crime. Throughout the trial, she sat by his side or a few rows behind him.

Read more hot stories moms are talking about.