Appeals court rejects Dummar suit

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver has rejected Melvin Dummar's latest attempt to claim a piece of Howard Hughes' fortune. The court ruled Friday that Dummar's case was sufficiently litigated during a 1978 jury trial.

Dummar claims to have saved Hughes' life in the Nevada desert in 1967 and then to have been named in Hughes' will as a one-sixteenth beneficiary of his empire, or $156 million. But the 1978 trial determined that the handwritten will was a fake.

In 2006, Dummar took another shot at the case after pilot Robert Deiro came forward with a story of repeatedly flying Hughes from Las Vegas to a rural brothel around the same time as Dummar allegedly picked up the billionaire near the brothel south of Goldfield. Deiro said that during his last flight with Hughes, the pilot fell asleep at the brothel while waiting for Hughes and when he woke up, Hughes was gone. The theory is that Hughes left the brothel for some reason during the night and was left for dead in the desert a few miles away, where Dummar picked him up and drove him back to Las Vegas.

Many people who worked closely with Hughes at the time insist that he never left the penthouse floor of the Desert Inn Hotel between 1966 and 1970, and they dismiss Dummar's and Deiro's stories as impossible.

In my Hughes book, I have a long chapter dissecting the Dummar story. I interviewed Dummar for several hours in a motel room in Tonopah, during which he recited the story he has told so many times over the years. After the book came out in February, I spent several hours with Deiro as well, during which he told me his story. I plan to post a summary of that latter conversation on this blog soon. I think I'll also call Deiro again and get his reaction to the appeals court ruling.