By JENNIFER PELTZ

Associated Press

NEW YORK — To senior citizens’ advocates, Brooke Astor is a Park Avenue poster child for an insidious kind of financial crime.

They kept close tabs as the late philanthropist’s son and a lawyer were tried on charges of exploiting her mental decline to raid her nearly $200 million fortune. An article on the AARP’s news Web site called it “the most infamous case of financial elder abuse in recent memory.”

Advocates and legal experts saw last week’s convictions as a high-wattage signal that such cases, often seen as difficult to prosecute, can succeed — even if few others spur a five-month-long big money trial with boldface names.

“To lose this kind of case would have sent a very discouraging signal” to prosecutors pursuing elder abuse cases, said Thomas L. Hafemeister, a University of Virginia law professor who specializes in financial exploitation of the elderly.

There have been plenty of prominent court fights over claims that elderly millionaires were manipulated into parting with money.

J. Seward Johnson Sr.’s children accused his third wife — and former chambermaid — of browbeating the dying drug company heir into leaving her nearly all his $500 million fortune; the 16-week trial in 1986 ended with a settlement giving the children and an oceanographic institute about $160 million. Former Playboy Playmate Anna Nicole Smith’s inheritance tussle with her oil-tycoon husband’s son reached all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court but continues years after both she and the son died.

But these and many other fortune feuds played out in civil courts — not in criminal cases carrying the prospect of prison time, which Astor’s 85-year-old son now faces.

Criminal cases in which ailing elderly people are conned by identity theft, real estate scams or light-fingered caregivers are fairly common, although few are as extensive as the Astor case — where prosecutors used thousands of pages of documents and called dozens of witnesses ranging from Henry Kissinger to household helpers.

Some prosecutors focus on scenarios involving physical harm. Others are reluctant to take on cases that can be blurred by family loyalties and disputes, said Catherine T. Wettlaufer, a Buffalo estates lawyer.

The cases also can be hard to prove. While there may be a financial paper trail, the victims often are unable to testify or unwilling to take the stand against a relative or needed caretaker.

Prosecutors then have to prove they know what the victim intended — a task often complicated by a victim’s failing mind, said Andrew Mayoras, a Michigan lawyer and co-author of “Trial & Heirs: Famous Fortune Fights!,” due out next month.

The question becomes: “How do you get into somebody’s head — someone with dementia?” he said.