Questions still swirling over Tony Hsieh’s will after court hearing
The first court hearing in Tony Hsieh’s probate case since his will surfaced showed there are still plenty of questions about the surprising and bizarre turn of events.
At a hearing Thursday before District Judge Gloria Sturman, no one explained why the will was discovered more than four years after the Las Vegas tech mogul’s death, and no one shed any light on people named in connection with the document whose identities remain a mystery.
Instead, the roughly 25-minute hearing focused largely on procedural matters. Sturman said that there was nothing on file that she could act on and that she was not able to provide any guidance, which was sought by attorneys for named executors in the newly found will.
According to a court filing this week, these executors were surprised to learn they were named to that role, as they didn’t work on Hsieh’s estate-planning documents and had never even met him.
“I don’t know that anybody at this point knows how we’re going to be proceeding,” Sturman said in court. “We just have to see what the parties file.”
The next hearing in the case is scheduled for July 17.
Questions abound
Hsieh, the former CEO of online shoe seller Zappos and the face of downtown Las Vegas’ economic revival, died in 2020 at age 46 from injuries suffered in a Connecticut house fire. He was unmarried and died with a massive fortune.
His father is the court-appointed administrator of his estate, and the dad’s legal team has stated multiple times in court filings that the younger Hsieh died without a will.
However, law firms McDonald Carano and Greenberg Traurig, which represent named executors in the will, filed court papers in April with a copy of Hsieh’s seven-page last will and testament — dated March 13, 2015 — and a letter explaining how it was found.
It was discovered in February in the personal belongings of the late Pir Muhammad, according to the letter, which stated Muhammad suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and was not aware Hsieh had died.
The letter did not say when Muhammad died or where he lived, nor did it provide any details about his career or his association with Hsieh.
In the will, Hsieh named Robert Armstrong of McDonald Carano as co-executor with Muhammad and stated that if either of them failed to act, he appointed Mark Ferrario of Greenberg Traurig as his contingent executor.
He also gave Muhammad “exclusive possession” of the original, in part to prevent anyone from destroying the will, the document indicates.
But several people who knew Hsieh have said they never heard of Pir Muhammad, and the Las Vegas Review-Journal found nothing that linked the name to Southern Nevada or confirmed who he was.
A person named Kashif Singh wrote the letter describing the will’s discovery, though no contact information or details on Singh were provided in the April filing. The Review-Journal has been unable to locate or speak with him.
According to a court filing Wednesday by attorneys with McDonald Carano and Greenberg Traurig, Muhammad was Singh’s grandfather. But no one at the hearing Thursday shed any light on either of them.
‘Seeking to invalidate’
Law firms representing Hsieh’s father are investigating the will. Goldsmith &Guymon recently served subpoenas to landlords who owned Las Vegas apartment complexes where witnesses who signed the will apparently lived, and Holland &Knight served subpoenas to the firms that filed it in court, records show.
The two law firms each filed court papers seeking to quash the subpoena, arguing its sweeping demand for records is a “fishing expedition” that seems designed to “harass,” court records show.
The subpoena contains 71 separate requests, including for documents relating to the identity of whoever drafted the purported will; the location of the original letter describing the will’s discovery; the envelope the letter was in when the law firms received it; and the firms’ efforts to verify the will’s validity and locate the witnesses who signed it, court records show.
“We believe it’s important to locate and confirm the identity of the witnesses,” Goldsmith &Guymon co-founder Dara Goldsmith said in court Thursday.
Meanwhile, Sturman recently granted Goldsmith’s request for records — including video surveillance footage — from the court system itself on how the will was filed.
McDonald Carano and Greenberg Traurig want Armstrong and Ferrario to be named special administrators so they can submit the will to probate. The firms also claimed in Wednesday’s court filing that it appears Hsieh’s father and his legal counsel are “seeking to invalidate” the will and that the request for surveillance footage marked a “scorched earth approach.”
Goldsmith said in court that her team is “conducting due diligence” on “this latest manifestation of Tony’s intent,” and jumping to conclusions about their client’s intent is “wholly inappropriate.”
Contact Eli Segall at esegall@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0342.