Dummar Tries Again to Get Share of the Hughes Estate

Back in 1978, Melvin Dummar’s assertion that he was the beneficiary ($156 million) of Howard Hughes’s holographic will was rejected by a Las Vegas jury which determined that the alleged will was a fake.

Although it is now twenty-eight years later, Dummar has not yet given up his quest.

On June 12, 2006, Dummar filed suit in federal district court in Salt Lake City claiming to have new evidence including a witness.  This witness is supposedly the pilot who flew Howard Hughes to a brothel near where Dummar claims he met Hughes.  This witness can then substantiate Dummar’s claim that he found Hughes in a dazed and confused condition and then drove him to Las Vegas for which he received the bequest as a reward.

Note that Dummar is not asking the court to relitigate the validity of the holographic will.  Instead, Dummar claims that Hughes’s heirs prevented him from having a fair trial by concealing evidence of Hughes’s travels.

For more information, see Jonathan Karp, Mr. Dummar is Back, Taking Another Shot at the Hughes Estate, Wall Street J., June 13, 2006, at A1.

Special thanks to Prof. Joel C. Dobris of the University of California — Davis and his research assistant James Hazlehurst for bringing the development to my attention.