Claim to Hughes cash again denied
A federal appeals court in Denver has rejected a second attempt by a delivery man to claim a piece of Howard Hughes’ fortune, a saga dramatized in the 1980 Academy Award-winning film “Melvin and Howard.”
The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a jury in 1978 had 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 that 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 claims Hughes left him $156 million in his will as a reward.
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