Court hearing set in Las Vegas on Tony Hsieh’s will
A court hearing in Las Vegas next month is set to address Tony Hsieh’s will, after a filing showed it was found more than four years after the tech mogul’s death.
District Judge Gloria Sturman is scheduled to hold a status conference May 22 at the request of Robert Armstrong and Mark Ferrario, who were named executors in the recently discovered will.
They asked for the hearing “to address procedural matters” related to the will, the “potential service” of the co-executors, and administration of the estate, according to a court filing.
Hsieh, the former CEO of online shoe seller Zappos and face of downtown Las Vegas’ economic revival, died on Nov. 27, 2020, at age 46 from injuries suffered in a Connecticut house fire. He was unmarried and died as one of downtown’s biggest property owners, having amassed a portfolio of apartment complexes, office buildings, empty lots and other sites through a side venture originally called Downtown Project.
Hsieh’s father has been managing his son’s estate through a probate case in Clark County District Court, and his legal team has stated multiple times in court filings that the younger Hsieh died without a will.
But in a surprise twist to a protracted legal drama that has involved lawsuits, creditors’ claims and detailed accounts of Hsieh’s drug use and bizarre behavior in his final year alive, lawyers who aren’t working for Hsieh’s family filed court papers Thursday evening with Hsieh’s will and outlined how it was found.
Holland & Knight partner Vivian Thoreen, an attorney for Hsieh’s father in the probate case, said in a statement Friday that the estate “continues to take all alleged manifestations of Tony Hsieh’s intent seriously.”
The seven-page last will and testament was dated March 13, 2015, and signed by Hsieh and several witnesses, as seen in the filing last week by attorneys with law firms McDonald Carano and Greenberg Traurig, who represent named executors.
According to a letter enclosed in the filing, the will was found in late February in the personal belongings of the late Pir Muhammad, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and was not aware that Hsieh had died.
The will indicates that Hsieh gave Muhammad “exclusive possession” of the original to prevent anyone from potentially tampering with his wishes or destroying the will, and that Hsieh made a “recorded video” as an “additional precaution.”
Hsieh named Armstrong, of McDonald Carano, as co-executor with Muhammad and stated that if either of them failed to act, he appointed Ferrario, of Greenberg Traurig, as his contingent executor.
Muhammad signed the will, but neither Armstrong nor Ferrario did, the document shows.
His representatives were granted authority to settle his debts, control his assets and take other legal and financial actions, according to the will.
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.
