Tony Hsieh’s family demands return of $625K from his financial manager

Lawyers for Tony Hsieh’s family filed court documents Monday demanding that Hsieh’s longtime friend and financial manager return more than $625,000.

The documents were filed in a lawsuit Tony Lee brought against his friend’s estate in April, in which Lee is seeking nearly $7 million from what the suit claimed was a breached contract. The suit alleged that Hsieh, the former executive of Zappos, agreed to pay him $1.5 million a year for five years for work related to Hsieh’s envisioned transformation of Park City, Utah.

In documents filed in September, attorney’s for Hsieh’s family wrote that Lee received $125,000 from Hsieh’s company for work during August 2020. But the amended documents filed Monday indicate that Lee received “compensation totaling $625,000,” plus an expenses reimbursement of $7,007.

Hsieh’s company is “entitled to the reasonable value of these benefits; in this case, the return of all monies paid out” to Lee, California attorneys Vivian Thoreen, Anjuli Woods and Jonathan Park, and Las Vegas attorney Dara Goldsmith wrote in Monday’s filing.

Lawyers for Hsieh’s family and Lee’s attorneys could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Tony Hsieh died Nov. 27 at age 46 from injuries suffered in a Connecticut house fire and did not leave a will. His father, Richard, and his brother, Andrew, are overseeing the estate of the former Zappos boss.

Earlier this month, Lee’s lawyers claimed Hsieh’s brother bought him nitrous oxide and “plied” him with alcohol in the months before his death.

Lee’s lawyers made the Oct. 11 court filing in response to documents filed in September that claimed Hsieh spent his final years malnourished, barely sleeping and hallucinating from ketamine and nitrous oxide use.

Those same allegations were made in documents filed in August in an ongoing lawsuit over contract disputes between Hsieh’s estate and his former longtime friend and assistant, Jennifer Pham.

Lee’s lawyers argued in the Oct. 11 filing that the prior allegations were “clearly filed at the direction of Andrew Hsieh” and were meant to “seek to inject salacious allegations into the litigation.”

Lawyers for the Hsieh family have not addressed the allegations against Andrew Hsieh in subsequent court filings.

Tony Hsieh’s family has claimed that Lee, Pham and Pham’s boyfriend, Roberto Grande, knew Tony Hsieh was unwell but continued to use him for their own financial gain in the months leading to his death, including investments in Park City, Utah.

Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.