The dispute over the fortune of Zappos founder and former CEO Tony Hsieh has shifted into forensic territory, years after the shoe retail pioneer died from injuries suffered in a Connecticut house fire.
Hsieh, who was 46 when he died following the 2020 blaze, was long understood to have left no will behind.
That assumption was upended last year when an alleged seven-page will, dated March 2015, was mailed to a Las Vegas courthouse, introducing a new mystery into the ongoing fight over his estate, The Wall Street Journal reported.
In this Sept. 30, 2013, file image, Tony Hsieh addresses a Grand Rapids Economic Club luncheon in Grand Rapids, Mich. Hsieh, the former chief executive of online shoe retailer Zappos, died from injuries sustained in a Connecticut house fire. (Cory Morse/The Grand Rapids Press via AP, File)
The purported will contains a no-contest provision targeting Hsieh’s parents and two younger brothers. According to the document, if any one of those relatives disputes the will, all of them risk being disinherited.
Hsieh’s father, Richard Hsieh, has called for the matter to be heard by a jury.
Tony Hsieh, then chief executive officer of Zappos.com Inc., speaks at the Skybridge Alternatives, or SALT, conference in Las Vegas on Thursday, May 18, 2017. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The same document also surfaced at the office of Las Vegas trust attorney Robert Armstrong, who told the Journal he had never met Hsieh even though the alleged will names him as a co-executor.
A man who identified himself as Kashif Singh reportedly called Armstrong’s office and claimed he found the document among the belongings of his late grandfather. The office later received what appeared to be the grandfather’s death certificate from Balochistan, Pakistan, the Journal reported.
More than a year later, the origin of the document remains murky. The man who allegedly sent it has not appeared in court, the witnesses listed on the document have not come forward, and Hsieh’s family has called the alleged will a scam.
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Now, forensic experts are taking over.
A photo shows the home where Zappos founder Tony Hsieh was staying at the time of the fatal fire. (New London Fire Department)
A Las Vegas judge in May appointed forensic specialist Gerry LaPorte as a special master to oversee testing of the document. LaPorte’s team began examining the purported will in early June at the courthouse, after shipping about 150 pounds of forensic gear from his Virginia lab to Nevada, according to court filings cited by the Journal.
The testing is focused largely on ink analysis, including the ink used on the signatures. The process could help determine whether the document is consistent with its stated 2015 date or whether the signatures were added much later.
Additional tests could include handwriting analysis, fingerprint scans and DNA examination, the Journal reported.
The New London Fire Department sketch shows the approximate location of Tony Hsieh’s body at the time of the fire. (New London Fire Department)
Hsieh’s family has hired its own forensic expert, Larry Stewart, a former U.S. Secret Service lab director and chief forensic scientist. Stewart has worked on major cases including the Unabomber investigation and reinvestigations of the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and President John F. Kennedy.
LaPorte is expected to submit a written report by July 24, after which the family’s experts can respond. News Agency has reached out to Armstrong, Singh and the Hsieh family’s attorney, Dara Goldsmith, for comment.
