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John Hollenhorst reportingMelvin Dummar, February 2005: "I just know that I got ripped off and nobody would believe me."
That was Utah resident Melvin Dummar last year, claiming he was cheated out of hundreds of millions of dollars from legendary billionaire Howard Hughes.
Now, a lawsuit is about to be filed that could rewrite the Dummar story. The lawsuit is expected to be filed Tuesday.
Dummar became world famous 30 years ago for a story most people did NOT believe. In the 1970's a jury rejected Melvin Dummar's story about finding the world's most famous billionaire lying in the desert. The people involved in the new lawsuit are tight-lipped but one said, "It's to get justice for Melvin."
For three decades Melvin Dummar has been telling a story so incredible most people didn't believe him or the will that named him to get rich.
Melvin Dummar, February 2005: "I wouldn't have had a chance, even if God himself had delivered the will."
His story was the basis for an Oscar-winning movie, "Melvin & Howard". In 1968 Dummar supposedly found the injured Howard Hughes in Western Nevada and gave him a ride to Las Vegas.
Years later, Hughes' handwritten will supposedly named Dummar to get one-sixteenth of his fortune. But a jury declared the will a hoax and Dummar lived under a cloud of suspicion ever since.
The Hughes empire eventually was inherited by Howard Hughes cousins and their descendants, who sold it all off ten years ago. It seemed as though Dummar would never see a nickle of it.
Then retired FBI agent Gary Magnesen decided to investigate Dummar's story.
Gary Magnesen, Retired FBI agent , November 2005: "I thought he was a little on the kooky side, because it's a fantastic story."
But Magnesen announced last year he'd found strong evidence Hughes did visit western Nevada for business reasons. That contradicts testimony by Hughes aides that he never left his hotel at all in the late 60's.
Magnesen also unveiled a sensational new witness, Hughes pilot Bob Deiro. He told us he flew the billionaire to a Nevada brothel in 1968 and lost track of him, possibly the same night, just seven miles from where Dummar supposedly found him.
Bob Deiro, Hughes' Pilot, November 2005: "For Dummar to have made this up, to create this, he'd have had to be a genius."
Since KSL broke that story last fall, out-of-state attorneys and PR people have been working on Dummar's behalf. They plan a news conference Tuesday. We've been told they'll name as one defendant William Lummis, the prominent Hughes cousin who ran the empire in the 1980's.
