Tony Hsieh’s next of kin are reportedly having trouble pinpointing the source of a mysterious will that was mailed to a Las Vegas courthouse earlier this year — triggering a legal battle over the $500 million fortune left by the late tech entrepreneur.
Hsieh (pronounced “SHAY”), who gained fame as the tech executive who resuscitated online shoe retailer Zappos before it was sold to Amazon for $1.2 billion in 2009, died from injuries sustained during a house fire in 2020.
Robert Armstrong, a Nevada-based estate planner who had never met Hsieh, was shocked to learn that he was named as an executor of the estate in the surprise will.
On Tuesday, a Las Vegas judge appointed Armstrong and another attorney, Mark Ferrario, as special administrators of the estate, according to the Wall Street Journal.
As special administrators, Armstrong and Ferrario are authorized to act as advocates for the will.
Prior to this year, Richard Hsieh, the father of Tony Hsieh, had been managing his son’s estate.
Since his death in 2020, it was believed that Tony Hsieh never left a will.
Richard Hsieh’s attorneys have been sifting through business records and estate planning documents seeking to trace the origins of the mystery will — with little success, according to the Journal.
The lawyers for the family said that they couldn’t find information about the witnesses who signed the document, other people named in the purported will or the two trusts that were named, the Journal reported.
The will was mailed by someone who identified himself as Kashif Singh, who claimed to have found the will in the possession of his late grandfather, Pir Muhammad.
According to the Journal, Hsieh’s next of kin have been unable to locate Singh.
Amstrong, who previously had no connection to Tony Hsieh, said he received a call from someone identifying himself as Singh shortly after learning that he was named in the purported will, the Journal reported.
In June, Armstrong said someone provided him with a copy of Singh’s death certificate, which appears to have originated in Pakistan. According to the document, Singh died in October 2022.
The attorneys learned that the will and a related letter were mailed to a Las Vegas courthouse from two separate locations — one from Greenwich, Conn., and the other from Fairless Hills, Pa.
The envelope from Greenwich, Conn. had a Las Vegas return address while the Fairless Hills, Pa. letter had a return address in Cheyenne, Wyo.
The purported will includes a no-content clause which stipulates that if any of Tony Hsieh’s remaining family members decides to oppose Hsieh’s wishes, all of them would receive nothing, according to the Journal.
The document transfers more than $50 million and several Las Vegas properties to a series of trusts whose beneficiaries remain unknown.
Judge Gloria Sturman said on Tuesday that she found the case to be “odd.”
“But it doesn’t mean [the will is] not valid. It’s just odd.”
Sturman said she wasn’t prepared to remove Richard Hsieh as the estate’s administrator, “just given this very odd circumstance we find ourselves in.”
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