The spouse of late San Diego Padres proprietor Peter Seidler, Sheel Seidler, sued brothers-in-law Matthew and Robert on Monday, trying to forestall one other brother, John, from taking management of the workforce fairly than her.
In a petition filed in Travis County Probate Court docket in Austin, Texas, Sheel Seidler sued Matthew, who turned executor of Peter Seidler’s property final 12 months, and Robert, the prior executor. She claimed fiduciary breaches of belief, fraud, conversion and egregious acts of self-dealing.
The petition accused Robert’s spouse Alecia of constructing “a number of racist, profane and hateful communications directed at Sheel — a girl of lndian descent.”
“Defendants’ actions to wrest management of the Padres had been undertaken to pressure Sheel — a girls, an intruder and an Indian-American lady not of O’Malley descent — from what Bob and Matt noticed as their household enterprise and ancestral proper,” the petition claimed.
Sheel requested that Matthew be enjoined from performing on behalf of the Seidler trusts and be eliminated as trustee. She requested the courtroom to void any actions to nominate anybody apart from Sheel because the Padres’ management particular person.
“I made this choice as a really final resort, however I’m assured it’s the proper one and one of the best ways to guard the Padres franchise and make sure the imaginative and prescient that Peter and I shared for the workforce will proceed,” Sheel mentioned in an announcement.
The Peter Seidler Belief issued an announcement calling the swimsuit “fully with out advantage.”
“Peter had a transparent property plan,” the assertion mentioned. “The plan particularly named three of his 9 siblings, with whom he had labored carefully for a lot of many years, as successor trustees of his belief and Peter himself prohibited Sheel from ever serving as trustee.”
Peter Seidler, a grandson of late Dodgers proprietor Walter O’Malley, was an investor within the group that took over the Padres in 2012. He replaced Ron Fowler because the workforce’s management particular person on Nov. 18, 2020, and died at age 63 on Nov. 14, 2023. Three days later, the workforce appointed Eric Kutsenda, a Peter Seidler enterprise accomplice, as interim management particular person.
San Diego mentioned on Dec. 21 that John will turn into the management particular person, a transfer that Main League Baseball house owners haven’t but authorized.
“Matt has tried to intimidate Sheel into silence, threatening her if she had been to make public her opposition to John’s unwarranted nomination as management particular person,” the petition mentioned.
San Diego, which has by no means received a World Collection title, lowered main league participant payroll from a workforce file $257 million in 2023 to $166 million firstly of the 2024 season.
“The emphasis within the press reviews on the Padres slicing wage, decreasing their expectations, and implicitly abandoning their all-out pursuit of a World Collection championship would have been a gut-punch to Peter,” the petition mentioned.
The petition included a bit of paper presupposed to be in Peter Seidler’s handwriting itemizing Sheel adopted by their kids as his choice for future management particular person. The petition quotes Matthew as telling Sheel in a letter final Oct. 15 that she lacks “the expertise, abilities and monetary acumen obligatory to satisfy the tasks of this necessary position.”
“Quite than appoint Sheel as Padres management particular person — per Peter’s famous choice and because the particular person whose pursuits are finest aligned with the Seidler trusts — defendants are trying to pressure the appointment of their brother John because the Padres management particular person,” the petition alleged.
“By doing so, they’re inserting management of the Padres and the Seidler trusts’ substantial pursuits within the fingers of a 3rd celebration and having fun with the looks and advantages of being principal house owners. In the meantime, defendants have frozen Sheel out of the Padres group and disadvantaged her of the advantages of being the most important useful proprietor of the baseball workforce, whereas themselves having fun with these advantages.”
The belief assertion mentioned “the trustee is completely accountable for designating the San Diego Padres’ subsequent management particular person” and added “in 2020, in reference to Peter’s appointment as management particular person, Sheel agreed in a sworn doc that she had no proper to be or to designate the management particular person and that she wouldn’t intervene with the designated management particular person.”
She accused Matthew and Robert of trying to promote the trusts’ pursuits in Seidler Kutsenda Administration Co. at beneath market worth after which rescinding the sale when the try turned recognized.
“Alecia made clear that Sheel was an outsider unworthy of being a part of the Seidler household and that she was silly to imagine that the Seidler household would ever act in her finest pursuits,” the petition alleged.
The petition additionally mentioned Robert and Matthew “made clear that Sheel and her kids aren’t welcome within the house owners’ field on the Padres’ stadium, Petco Park.”
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