LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A will that allegedly belongs to former Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh is fake, according to newly-released court documents.
New court records released on Monday state it is "virtually certain that the signatures were forged" on a will that was brought forward earlier this year.
JUNE 2025: Attorneys investigating newly-discovered Tony Hsieh will
According to the new filing, Larry Stewart, a forensic consultant for the United Nations and U.S. Department of State, was brought in to examine the original purported will and compare it to 20 verified samples of Hsieh's signature.
"Mr. Stewart found numerous unexplained differences between the two questioned signatures on pages 6 and 7 of the Purported 2015 Will when compared against the signatures known to have been written by Tony," the filing reads in part. "Mr. Stewart concluded that it is virtually certain that the same Anthony Hsieh who wrote the known signatures did not sign the "Anthony Hsieh" signatures found on pages 6 and 7 of the questioned Purported 2015 Will."
You can see an example from the 2015 will below:
There has been a lot of mystery surrounding the 2015 will.
Hsieh died in a house fire in Connecticut in November 2020. He was 46 years old. Hsieh's estate is worth an estimated $513 million, and several parties have filed claims seeking a portion of that money over the past couple of years.
In previous court filings, Hsieh's family has maintained that he died without a will, which attorneys argue is still the case.
"Tony was meticulous and prioritized efficiency. With his demanding work schedule, Tony kept detailed calendars, sought to maximize his productivity throughout the day, and would even account for travel time in his schedule, as he frequently conducted meetings while in transit to his next meeting," the new filing reads in part. "Key details in the Purported 2015 Will, including the execution date (March 13, 2015), location (Tony's Downtown Las Vegas Airstream trailer), and the names and contact information of the five attesting witnesses are typed into the Purported 2015 Will rather than handwritten. This strongly suggests [the details] were planned in advance. ... But the March 13, 2015, signing event does not appear in any of Tony's calendars."
This was Hsieh's calendar that day, per court records.
Attorneys for the Hsieh family also state there is no record of Hsieh knowing any of the people named in the 2015 will.
As of Monday, attorneys still haven't been able to contact any of the five witnesses who are listed in the will.
They also argue that a death certificate provided to the court does not prove the person who had the will in his possession even knew Hsieh.
"The Death Certificate is also useless. All identifying and corroborating information has been redacted. It therefore cannot be used to corroborate the origin story of the Purported 2015 Will or its legitimacy," attorneys wrote.
"Even if the Death Certificate were what Petitioners claim it to be, all that means is that someone named Pir Muhammad died. It does not prove that this deceased Pir Muhammad ever knew Tony, met Tony, witnessed the signing of the Purported 2015 Will, or is the Pir Muhammad referenced throughout the Purported 2015 Will."
As for the person who allegedly discovered the will, Kashif Singh, attorneys haven't been able to track him down, and when they checked a commercial address listed for him, attorneys state the location has "been implicated in fraudulent schemes conducted through shell companies."
When trying to verify if email addresses listed with the will were real, attorneys for the Hsieh family contacted forensic expert Daniel Regard II, who currently serves as Special Master for ESI Discovery in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The first email address "did not exist until April 16, 2025 when it was registered by Administrator's counsel as a protective measure."
The second email address was allegedly opened on March 13, 2015 as a TutaMail address.
"Based on open-source research, the domain "TutaMail.com" was first announced in Beta on March 24, 2015," attorneys stated. "Hence, the email address was not available or viable on March 13, 2015, despite being listed in the Purported 2015 Will."
The third and final email address was listed as a ProtonMail email address.
"Press releases contained on ProtonMail's website reflect that email accounts using the domain 'protonmail' were not publicly available until after the Purported 2015 Will was executed," attorneys stated.
Attorneys also state there are several instances in the 2015 will where Hsieh's name is misspelled.
The Hsieh estate also brought in a linguistics professor from Oxford University to study the will and compare it to Hsieh's writing style.
"Based on Tony's verified textual and audiovisual materials, Tony was a highly articulate native speaker and writer of the English language. His communications consistently exhibited a command of English grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, and stylistic nuance characteristic of a well-educated native speaker," the filing states. "[The professor] concluded with a high degree of confidence that the Purported 2015 Will was not authored or edited by Tony and that the individuals responsible for drafting the document were not trained legal professionals and were likely non-native speakers of English."
The executors named in the will argue that none of this matters because the will is "self-proving" — which essentially means it proves its own validity through a sworn statement.
"The will that has come forward is presumed valid if it meets all the statutory requirements. The will does meet all those requirements," attorney Jennifer Willis told the court in July. "It's not their duty to determine if the will is valid."
At the time, Judge Carolyn Ellsworth sided with attorneys for the Hsieh estate.
"Suddenly, a purported will pops up with some interesting and kind of unusual provisions, to say the least," Ellsworth said, adding that administrators of the estate wouldn't be doing their due diligence if they didn't investigate.
So, what happens next?
District court records show a hearing is scheduled for Thursday to discuss reimbursing attorney fees, payment of administrator's fees, and a petition confirming authorization for a named co-executor.
A status check is also scheduled for Jan. 5 where Judge Gloria Sturman could rule on the contested will.