Court tosses delivery man’s claim to Hughes cash
P. Solomon Banda, The Associated Press
September 13, 2008
Examiner.com Houston
http://www.examiner.com/a-1584449~Court_tosses_delivery_man_s_claim_to_Hughes_cash.html
DENVER - A federal appeals court has rejected another effort by a delivery man to claim a piece of Howard Hughes’ fortune, whose original plight was dramatized by the 1980’s Academy Award-winning “Melvin and Howard.”

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday that a jury in 1978 already determined that a hand-scrawled will offered by Melvin Dummar as evidence wasn’t authentic.

Dummar, of Brigham City, Utah, renewed his claim in 2006 after pilot Roberto Deiro came forward to say he dropped Hughes off at a Nevada brothel in December 1967, near where Dummar says he discovered Hughes face down and bloodied in the desert.

Dummar said the man claimed he was Hughes, but he didn’t believe it until someone he said was Hughes’ personal messenger delivered the handwritten will to the Brigham City gas station that Dummar owned.

Dummar claims Hughes left him $156 million in his will as a reward.

Dummar filed suit against Frank William Gay, a senior corporate officer for Hughes, and Hughes’ cousin William Lummis, a major beneficiary of the Hughes estate, who settled the estate with 21 distant cousins after years of litigation. Gay was included in the lawsuit because he was a senior executive for Hughes’ enterprises.

“Obviously, we and the family of Mr. Gay are very pleased by the decision, and this finally puts an end to a matter that was resolved 30 years ago,” said Peggy Tomsic, an attorney for Gay, who died in May.

Dummar’s lawsuit was filed by Stuart Stein, an estate-planning lawyer from Albuquerque, N.M., who had a radio show and was disbarred in December but was allowed to argue his case before the appellate court in May. His disbarment stemmed from his handling of a guardian and conservator case, according to the New Mexico Supreme Court’s disciplinary board.

Stein no longer keeps an office at an address listed for him, and a phone message and an e-mail were not returned. There was no home phone number listed for Stein. A message left at a number listed for Dummar in Utah was not immediately returned.

Stein argued that Hughes’ associates had met to discuss hiding information from Dummar. Stein said they knew about Deiro, the pilot, but didn’t disclose it at the original probate trial in 1977-78.

A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court said Friday it was too late for Dummar and his attorney to bring up claims of fraud and racketeering, saying the statute of limitations began in 1978 when a jury declared the handwritten will invalid.

Those testifying at the probate trial said Hughes never left his hotel in December 1967, which was contradicted when Deiro came forward four years ago, saying he routinely flew Hughes to brothels in rural Nevada and confirmed parts of Dummar’s improbable story.

Even without Deiro’s new statements, the appeals panel said, Dummar had enough information 30 years ago to push forward with his claim. The panel said it was apparent that by 1978, Dummar already suspected the man in the desert could be Hughes.

“Why believe the pilot but not the man in the desert?” the panel wrote. “If the man in the desert was not Hughes, then Mr. Dummar’s account of Hughes’ agent showing up at Mr. Dummar’s gas station several weeks after Hughes’ death with a handwritten will bequeathing him millions of dollars would make not the slightest sense.”

Court rejects man’s claim to Hughes fortune
Linda Thomson (lindat@desnews.com)
September 12, 2008
Deseret News
http://deseretnews.com/article/1,5143,700258410,00.html
An appeals court has rejected the claim of a man who insists that the late eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes left him money in a handwritten will as thanks for rescuing Hughes from being stranded on a highway on a cold night.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver on Friday rejected the claim that Melvin Dummar is a beneficiary of Hughes’ estate and should be awarded one-sixteenth of Hughes’ fortune, which Dummar said was outlined in a holographic will.

Dummar, who now lives near Brigham City, filed a federal lawsuit in 2006 alleging that a relative of Hughes and a now-dead executive in the holding company that handles Hughes’ money had engineered false testimony to guarantee that the holographic will would not be recognized by the courts. Both men denied any wrongdoing. However, Dummar said he had uncovered new information about what he termed misconduct in a trial regarding the will.

Dummar’s lawsuit was dismissed last year by U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins, and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld that decision.

Dummar, 62, to this day insists that in 1967 he was driving on U.S. Highway 95 in rural Nevada on a cold night, stopped to relieve himself and found a bloodied man lying in the road. Afraid the man might die, Dummar gave him a ride to Las Vegas, and the mysterious man, who identified himself as Hughes, said he would never forget Dummar’s kindness.

The holographic will that came to light in 1976 stated that Hughes wanted his fortune to go to to several organizations and people, along with one-sixteenth for Dummar (about $156 million) and another sixteenth to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Dummar’s story gained worldwide attention in various books and the 1980 Academy Award-winning film “Melvin and Howard,” which starred Jason Robards as Hughes and Paul Le Mat as Dummar.

Court backs dismissal of suit by alleged Howard Hughes’ beneficiary
Pamela Manson ( pmanson@sltrib)
September 12, 2008
The Salt Lake Tribune
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_10448761
For years, Melvin Dummar has unsuccessfully argued that he was named as a beneficiary in Howard Hughes’ will after saving the billionaire’s life and is owed one-sixteenth of the estate.

On Friday, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver handed the Utahn another defeat by upholding the dismissal of his latest lawsuit.

Dummar, a former gas station operator from Willard, in Box Elder County, has been labeled a scammer but has stuck to his story: While driving on U.S. Highway 95 on Dec. 29, 1967, he pulled onto a dirt road to relieve himself and saw a man lying face down.

Worried that the stranger would die from exposure, Dummar put him in his Chevy and, at the man’s request, drove him 160 miles to Las Vegas. He left him at the back door of the Dunes Hotel after giving him some pocket change.

Before departing, the man said he would be forever indebted, according to Dummar, who said he disbelieved him when he said he was Howard Hughes.

A handwritten will that surfaced after Hughes’ death in 1976 left assets to medical institutes, charities, the Boy Scouts of America, relatives, personal aides, scholarships and executives of Hughes’ companies - plus one-sixteenth of the estate each to Dummar and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The document became known as the Mormon Will.

Dummar, 62, has never collected a dime. A probate trial in Las Vegas ended with a jury returning a verdict in 1978 that said the document was bogus.

In 2006, Dummar filed suit in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City claiming that a Hughes relative and an executive in Summa Corp., the holding company that took control of the billionaire’s wealth after his death, coordinated false testimony to ensure that the handwritten will was rejected by the courts. Dummar alleged that recently discovered evidence revealed the conspiracy.

The defendants - William Rice Lummis, whose mother was Hughes’ aunt, and the now-deceased Frank William Gay, described as the “effective” chief operating officer of Summa, both of the Houston area - adamantly denied there was a conspiracy or false testimony.

Judge Bruce Jenkins threw out the suit in January 2007, ruling that the matter was “fully and fairly litigated” in the Las Vegas probate trial.

Dummar appealed that decision to the 10th Circuit, which sided with Jenkins.

Battle over Howard Hughes’ estate returns to Houston court
KHOU.com staff report
June 27, 2008
http://www.kvue.com/news/state/stories/062408kvuehughesestate-eh.3470f2fa.html#
HOUSTON—The long-running battle over Howard Hughes’ estate returned to court in Houston Monday.

The hearing was held at the Harris County Civil Courthouse.

Hughes, a billionaire aviator, financier and Houston native, was the richest man in America when he died in 1976.

The issue before the court Monday was how to administer the estate of Frank William Gay.

Gay worked for Hughes businesses, including Summa Corp.

An attorney representing the Gay family said he never received any money from the Hughes estate.

But Melvin Dummar, a truck driver who rescued Hughes from the Nevada desert in 1967, filed a claim against the Gay estate.

Dummar was named in a will signed by Hughes that awarded him one-sixteenth of the billionaire’s fortune. That will was ruled invalid in Nevada in 1978, but Dummar has since said he was unfairly deprived his share of $156 million.

Dummar filed a federal suit in Utah in 2006 against Frank William Gay and William Lummis, a Houston resident. That case is currently on appeal.

Dummar applied to open the Gay estate for probate in February of 2008. Gay’s heirs – his two sons—did not object.

Judge Rory R. Olsen is considering whether to issue an order on how the case should be adjudicated. If he does so, it could mean that Dummar will finally get a portion of the money he’s pursued for so long.

Court hears man’s claim to cut of Hughes’ estate
P. Solomon Banda, The Associated Press
May 14, 2008
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-05-14-3443214688_x.htm
DENVER — It’s the stuff movies are made of — literally: A delivery man says he rescued Howard Hughes after he found him face down and bloodied in the desert, so the reclusive billionaire left him $156 million in a hand-scrawled will as a reward.

A jury didn’t buy it 30 years ago, but Melvin Dummar’s attorney says the story dramatized in 1980’s Academy Award-winning “Melvin and Howard” has become a lot more believable.

The attorney, Stuart Stein, told a federal appeals court Wednesday that Dummar deserves another shot at the money because of pilot Robert Diero, who came forward in 2004 to say he flew Hughes to a brothel in Nevada around the time and the place that Dummar said he found Hughes.

Stein, an estate-planning lawyer from Albuquerque, N.M., with a radio show, argued that Hughes’ associates knew about Diero but didn’t disclose it at the original probate trial in 1977-78.

“The judgment was obtained by fraud,” Stein told a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

Dummar’s lawsuit seeks the money from two men who benefited from Hughes’ will, one of whom is deceased. Randy Dryer, an attorney for one of the estates, told the appeals judges that Stein’s allegations of fraud are based on “speculation and conjecture.”

And Dryer said that even if a jury heard from Diero and believed the story, “It doesn’t necessarily follow that the jury would have concluded that the (will) was valid.

“They could have easily concluded that Mr. Dummar saw a golden opportunity to reward himself for his good deeds,” Dryer said.

Dryer also argued the will already has been determined to be a forgery, saying that it doesn’t contain the authentic writing of Hughes.

Dummar is among the most famous of hundreds of people who came forward claiming to be heirs to Hughes’ estate after the eccentric billionaire’s death in 1976.

Now 63, Dummar delivers frozen food and lives in Brigham City, Utah. He says as a 22-year-old man he was driving across the Nevada desert in December 1967 when he came across a “bum” near Lida Junction and gave him a ride to the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas.

Dummar said the man claimed he was Hughes, but he didn’t believe it until someone he said was Hughes’ personal messenger delivered the handwritten will to the Brigham City gas station that Dummar owned.

It included instructions to turn the will over to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which also stood to gain $156 million. The church never pursued a claim.

Diero said it wasn’t until years later that his memories about the flight were jogged by a newspaper article mentioning Lida Junction, a tiny community about 150 miles north of Las Vegas and six miles from the place where Dummar claims he found Hughes.

Diero had been a director of aviation facilities for Hughes Tool Co. He broke a nondisclosure agreement with the company when he came forward with his account of flying Hughes from Las Vegas to the Cottontail Ranch brothel for a tryst with a diamond-toothed prostitute. After losing track of Hughes, Diero said he returned to Las Vegas without him.

Diero has said he routinely delivered Hughes on secret nighttime flights in a single-engine plane to rural Nevada brothels, a claim disputed by others familiar with Hughes.

After Diero came forward, Stein renewed Dummar’s claims in court, seeking money from Hughes’ cousin, William Lummis, and the estate of Frank Gay, who was chief operating officer of Summa Corp., which controlled Hughes’ major assets.

Lower courts dismissed the claims, so Dummar appealed to the 10th Circuit on the grounds that the alleged fraud meant the case had not been fairly and fully litigated.

Gay died in May 2007 at age 86. Lummis is retired and is living in Texas.

Peggy Tomsic, an attorney for Gay’s estate, asked the appeals court to uphold the ruling against Dummar in the original probate case.

The judges did not indicate when they would rule.

New evidence in wild Howard Hughes prostitution tale
KVCB/News 3 Las Vegas
July 24, 2007
http://www.kvbc.com/Global/story.asp?S=4174547
A Utah man traveling to California via Las Vegas finds a man lying on the side of a dirt road. The driver stops to help, and offers him a ride. The tale of that road trip has had Melvin Dummar called both a liar and a forger for almost 30 years.

The man on the roadside whom Melvin Dummar is believed to have picked up is the late billionaire Howard Hughes. After Hughes’ death, dozens of his wills popped up all around the country. Melvin Dummar was named in the so called “Mormon Will.” Although a jury found it to be falsified, new information says those jurors got it all wrong.

“I pulled off onto a dirt road and drove up the dirt road just a little ways and I spotted a man lying on the ground,” claims Dummar.

In the 1999 movie “Melvin and Howard”, Melvin Dummar describes his unlikely encounter with Howard Hughes on an isolated road just the other side of Lindy Junction near the Cottontail Ranch Brothel.

“I told him, well, I can’t leave you out here, so he asked me if I’d take him to Vegas,” explains Dummar. “On the way to Las Vegas, he told me who he was, but I didn’t believe him at the time. I thought he was a prospector or just an old wino or something.”

He dropped Hughes off behind the Sands Hotel and never saw him again. But Melvin’s tale of how he met the billionaire became famous after Hughes’ death. A handwritten will, said to be penned by Hughes himself, left Dummar, the Mormon Church and 14 others one-sixteenth of Hughes’ estate, an estimated 150 million dollars. Doubts about its authenticity led to a court battle wherein jurors declared it a hoax. But in a new book titled “The Investigation”, former FBI agent Gary Magnesen says they were wrong. The keys? Cottontail Ranch… and Hughes’ pilot, Las Vegan Bob Deiro, who says the recluse, who holed up in the Desert Inn Hotel, sneaked out several times to see his favorite girl, Sunny.

“They all remember her because she had a diamond in her upper left incisor, a small diamond, which was quite outrageous in those days,” explains Deiro. Deiro says the night Dummar found Hughes on the side of the road, he’d flown back to Vegas alone because he couldn’t find Hughes after the brothel closed and kicked everyone out. Gary Magnesen believes Hughes had been beaten up and robbed before Melvin Dummar found him. There’s validation from many sources, but for Dummar it’s too little, too late.

“I don’t feel vindicated at all because I think they just ripped not only myself, but all the other beneficiaries that were named in his will off,” explains Dummar. “I just wish they’d have come forward 30 years ago when we were going through the trial.”

The new information will most likely not change anything regarding Howard Hughes’ will. Being an only child with no children himself, the billionaire’s fortune was divided in the late 1970’s amongst his 22 first cousins.

Melvin Dummar still lives in Utah and works in the meat delivery business. He’d like to know if there’s anyone else here in Nevada who knows if the prostitute Sunny is still alive, and hopes others who might have seen Hughes outside of the Desert Inn Hotel will come forward and tell their stories.

Dummar loses a battle over Hughes’ will
Linda Thomson (lindat@desnews.com)
June 1, 2007
Deseret Morning News
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20070601/ai_n19204680
A federal judge on Thursday denied a motion in a fraud case brought by Melvin Dummar, but Dummar still insists that he really did give eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes a ride and later was named a beneficiary in a handwritten will often referred to as the “Mormon will.”

Dummar also plans to keep on fighting, and his attorney said it is likely that they will appeal the judge’s dismissal of the motion to the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

Dummar has sued two men who inherited money from Hughes’ estate, William Rice Lummis and Frank William Gay. The lawsuit contends the pair tried to cheat Dummar by conspiring to have witnesses claim that Hughes never left his suite at the Desert Inn Hotel in Nevada in 1967.

Dummar claims he came across what he thought was a homeless man who was stranded and gave him a ride, only to find out that the man was Hughes. Dummar claims Hughes repaid this kind act by naming him a beneficiary in the handwritten will.

Gay has since died, but his estate will be represented in the litigation. Dummar alleges that Lummis and Gay were guilty of fraud, unjust enrichment and racketeering.

U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins previously dismissed Dummar’s fraud case, but Dummar then filed a motion with the court asking that he be permitted to continue taking depositions while an appeal of the case’s dismissal was pending. However, the judge on Thursday turned down the motion, although Dummar’s lawyer, Stuart Stein, said it is likely the motion’s dismissal will be appealed.

Meanwhile, Dummar has filed a similar lawsuit in Nevada’s state court, which was moved to federal court there, to prevent the statute of limitations from kicking in. Among other things, he was encouraged by what was characterized as new evidence in a 2005 book, “The Investigation,” written by a retired FBI agent.

Stein argued on Thursday that it was important to get depositions soon from 18 possible witnesses because many are in their 70s or 80s, and two have serious illnesses.

But Randy Dryer, the attorney for Lummis, said the matter was resolved in 1978 when a Las Vegas jury ruled the handwritten will was a fraud.

“The jury heard eight months of testimony from scores of witnesses, and the jury found the will to be a fake,” Dryer said. “Unless the so-called ‘Mormon will’ is found to be valid, Mr. Dummar has no claim.”

Frank William Gay, 86; target of claim on Howard Hughes’ fortune
May 25, 2007
Los Angeles Times
http://articles.latimes.com/2007/may/25/local/me-gay25
Frank William Gay, a senior corporate officer for Howard Hughes and a recent target of a renewed claim on the billionaire’s fortune, died Monday in a hospital in Kingwood, Texas, according to the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Md. He was 86.

The medical institute confirmed Gay’s death in a brief announcement on its website but did not specify a cause. He was a trustee from 1984 to 2006.

Gay, who lived in the Houston suburb of Humble, ran Hughes’ holding company, Summa Corp., and was on the executive committee that ran his medical institute.

Gay also served as chairman of Hughes Air Corp., a holding company for Hughes Airwest Airlines, and was a senior vice president and board member for Hughes Tool Co.

Gay’s death came as he was being sued by Melvin Dummar, a Utah man who insists he rescued Hughes in the Nevada desert and was supposed to have been left $156 million in a handwritten will.

A Las Vegas jury in 1978 rejected the will as fake, but Dummar continues to press his case in other courts.

The death “doesn’t affect our lawsuit,” said Stuart Stein, attorney for Dummar, a frozen-meat deliveryman who has long maintained that he found Hughes sprawled face-down and bleeding on a desert road in 1967.

Hughes died in 1976 at age 70.

Dummar’s lawyers and a retired FBI agent allege that Hughes’ aides lied when they testified at the Nevada trial that their boss was holed up at a Las Vegas hotel and couldn’t have been in the desert. Gay is included in the lawsuit because he was a senior executive for Hughes’ enterprises.

Before his death, Gay was outraged over being named in the suit, declaring, “I don’t have anything to do with it,” according to his Salt Lake City attorney, Peggy Tomsic.

Tomsic said Dummar can’t specify any wrongdoing by Gay, who testified years ago that he wasn’t in a position to know whether Hughes occasionally left his Desert Inn penthouse but said it was possible.

Dummar is suing Gay and Hughes’ cousin William Lummis, a major beneficiary of the Hughes estate, who settled with 21 distant cousins after years of litigation.

Before he died, Hughes already had left his stock from Hughes Aircraft Co. to the medical institute.

Gay derived his wealth from running Hughes’ many business ventures, not from the Hughes estate, lawyers said.

A native of Salt Lake City, Gay worked for Hughes’ companies for most of his life, starting as a chauffer and errand boy before rising to become a senior executive at Summa Corp.

Gay is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter. His family plans a private service in Salt Lake City.

Dummar files new suit over Hughes estate
Ben Winslow (bwinslow@desnews.com)
April 12, 2007
Deseret Morning News
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4188/is_20070412/ai_n19019448
The three pages of scrawling handwriting doles out reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes’ estate all over the country.

“First: One forth of all my as-sets to go to Hughes Medical Institute of Miami. Second: One eight of assets to be devided among the University of Texas, Rice Institute of Technology of Houston — the University of Nevada and the University of Calif.”

Then, the alleged will gets really generous.

“Third: One sixteenth to Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints — David O. MaKay.”

The will donates another share to create a home for orphaned children, a scholarship fund for the “entire Country,” money for the Boy Scouts of America, money for his aides and key associates and a Utah man who is still trying to collect.

“Eighth: one sixteenth to go to Melvin DuMar of Gabbs, Nevada.”

Lawyers for Melvin Dummar are making another attempt to collect on Hughes’ estate, this time filing a lawsuit in a Las Vegas federal court. A similar lawsuit filed in Utah was rejected by a federal judge earlier this year.

Dummar claims he has a 1/16th share of Hughes’ fortune.

The latest lawsuit is filed against two men who did inherit some of Hughes’ estate, accusing them of defrauding a Nevada court during a dispute over the will in 1976. Dummar is suing William Frank Lummis and Frank William Gay, accusing them of fraud, perjury, tampering, concealing evidence and racketeering.

Related content

Hughes will

In the lawsuit, Dummar’s attorneys accuse the men of conspiring to have the so-called “Mormon will” or “holographic will” rejected from a Nevada probate court. It accuses the men of tampering with a jury, discrediting experts and covering up where Hughes really was at the time he was rescued by Dummar.

Dummar claims that in 1967, he was driving in rural Nevada when he stopped to help a man lying in the road. The man insisted he be taken to the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. Dummar said the man identified himself as Howard Hughes, the industrialist.

In 1976, Hughes died. Dummar was working at a gas station in Willard when a stranger appeared and left him an envelope. The lawsuit said the man was later identified as a “confidential agent of Howard Hughes.”

The handwritten will was attached as an exhibit to the new lawsuit. So was an envelope that reads: “Dear Mr. McKay, Please see that this will is delivered after my death to Clark County Court House Las Vegas Nevada. Howard R. Hughes.”

The lawsuit said that Dummar steamed the envelope open and found the will. He delivered it to the LDS Church and Dummar’s attorneys claim a handwriting expert verified it was Hughes’ writing.

During the 1976 probate trial, Dummar’s lawyers allege that Lummis and Gay conspired to have witnesses discredit the man and claimed Hughes never left his home at the Desert Inn Hotel.

Lummis and Gay were served with summons’ to answer the lawsuit on Monday. Their attorneys in the Utah lawsuit have called Dummar’s attempts “fanciful speculative claims” that are “too little, too late,” pointing out that it has been more than 30 years since the probate trial.

Federal Judge Tosses Lawsuit Over Howard Hughes Will
Associated Press
January 09, 2007
FOXNews.com
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,242593,00.html
SALT LAKE CITY  — A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by a Utah man who insists Howard Hughes left him millions in a handwritten will after he rescued the reclusive billionaire from a Nevada ditch.

U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins said the dispute over the will was “fully and fairly litigated” in Las Vegas in 1978. The jury said the document was bogus.

Melvin Dummar is “attempting to circumvent the Nevada court’s final judgment and to, either directly or indirectly, relitigate his entitlement to a portion of Hughes’ estate,” Jenkins said Monday without specifically ruling on the merit of the claims.

Dummar, a 61-year-old frozen-meat delivery man, insists he rescued a bloodied Hughes from a ditch in the Nevada desert in 1967 and was left with $156 million in the handwritten will.

Dummar tried to reopen the case based on new evidence and a new witness, a pilot who says he routinely flew Hughes to brothels in rural Nevada and confirmed parts of the improbable story.

Dummar wasn’t available for comment. His wife, Bonnie, said they planned to take the case to federal court in Las Vegas, where Jenkins suggested it belonged in the first place.

The judge told Dummar’s attorneys at a Nov. 2 hearing they should be “rapping at the door” of Nevada federal court with allegations of fraud from the 1978 trial.

“It’s not over,” Bonnie Dummar said. “We’ve only just begun. This time we know we’re right.”

Dummar’s attorney, Stuart Stein, asserted Hughes associates had orchestrated the “perfect fraud” by getting witnesses to testify Hughes never left the Desert Inn between 1966 and 1970.

Witnesses at the Las Vegas trial said Hughes couldn’t have been in the desert when Dummar claims he saved the tycoon’s life.

Dummar sued Hughes cousin William Lummis, a major beneficiary of the Hughes estate, and Frank Gay, who was chief operating officer of Summa Corp., which controlled Hughes’ major assets. Both are retired and living in Texas.

Jenkins dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning it can’t be brought in Utah again, but left the door open for Dummar to try again in Nevada.

“He’s giving me a fork in the road, and we’re going to take it,” Stein said.

Stein filed the case in Utah because Dummar lives in Brigham City, where the handwritten will mysteriously surfaced, delivered by a man who claimed to be Hughes’ personal messenger.

Dummar and his lawyers also assert that Hughes associates destroyed flight logs to conceal trips away from the Desert Inn, waived the casino debts of the jury foreman and bribed or coerced handwriting experts to not testify for Dummar.

“We are certain of the fraud. We know Melvin was telling the truth and the other side didn’t speak the truth and hid the truth from us,” Stein said.

Attorneys for Lummis and Gay didn’t immediately return calls from The Associated Press.