The wife of late San Diego Padres owner Peter Seidler, Sheel Seidler, sued brothers-in-law Matthew and Robert on Monday, attempting to prevent another brother, John, from taking control of the team rather than her.
The suit comes at a time when the Padres are among the teams recruiting Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki.
In a petition filed in Travis County Probate Court in Austin, Texas, Sheel Seidler sued Matthew, who became executor of Peter Seidler's estate last year, and Robert, the prior executor. She claimed fiduciary breaches of trust, fraud, conversion and egregious acts of self-dealing.
The petition accused Robert's wife Alecia of making "multiple racist, profane and hateful communications directed at Sheel — a woman of lndian descent."
"Defendants' actions to wrest control of the Padres were undertaken to force Sheel — a women, an interloper and an Indian-American woman not of O'Malley descent — from what Bob and Matt saw as their family business and ancestral right," the petition claimed.
Sheel asked that Matthew be enjoined from acting on behalf of the Seidler trusts and be removed as trustee. She asked the court to void any actions to appoint anyone other than Sheel as the Padres' control person.
"I made this decision as a very last resort, but I am confident it is the right one and the best way to protect the Padres franchise and ensure the vision that Peter and I shared for the team will continue," Sheel said in a statement.
The Peter Seidler Trust issued a statement calling the suit "entirely without merit."
"Peter had a clear estate plan," the statement said. "The plan specifically named three of his nine siblings, with whom he had worked closely for many decades, as successor trustees of his trust and Peter himself prohibited Sheel from ever serving as trustee."
Peter Seidler, a grandson of late Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley, was an investor in the group that took over the Padres in 2012. He replaced Ron Fowler as the team’s control person on Nov. 18, 2020, and died at age 63 on Nov. 14, 2023. Three days later, the team appointed Eric Kutsenda, a Peter Seidler business partner, as interim control person.
San Diego said on Dec. 21 that John will become the control person, a move that Major League Baseball owners have not yet approved.
"Matt has attempted to intimidate Sheel into silence, threatening her if she were to make public her opposition to John's unwarranted nomination as control person," the petition said.
San Diego, which has never won a World Series title, reduced major league player payroll from a team record $257 million in 2023 to $166 million at the start of the 2024 season.
"The emphasis in the press reports on the Padres cutting salary, lowering their expectations, and implicitly abandoning their all-out pursuit of a World Series championship would have been a gut-punch to Peter," the petition said.
The petition included a piece of paper purported to be in Peter Seidler's handwriting listing Sheel followed by their children as his preference for future control person. The petition quotes Matthew as telling Sheel in a letter last Oct. 15 that she lacks "the experience, skills and financial acumen necessary to fulfill the responsibilities of this important role."
"Rather than appoint Sheel as Padres control person — consistent with Peter's noted preference and as the person whose interests are best aligned with the Seidler trusts — defendants are attempting to force the appointment of their brother John as the Padres control person," the petition alleged.
"By doing so, they are placing control of the Padres and the Seidler trusts' substantial interests in the hands of a third party and enjoying the appearance and benefits of being principal owners. Meanwhile, defendants have frozen Sheel out of the Padres organization and deprived her of the benefits of being the largest beneficial owner of the baseball team, while themselves enjoying those benefits."
The trust statement said "the trustee is exclusively responsible for designating the San Diego Padres' next control person" and added "in 2020, in connection with Peter's appointment as control person, Sheel agreed in a sworn document that she had no right to be or to designate the control person and that she would not interfere with the designated control person."
She accused Matthew and Robert of attempting to sell the trusts' interests in Seidler Kutsenda Management Co. at below market value and then rescinding the sale when the attempt became known.
"Alecia made clear that Sheel was an outsider unworthy of being part of the Seidler family and that she was foolish to believe that the Seidler family would ever act in her best interests," the petition alleged.
The petition also said Robert and Matthew "made clear that Sheel and her children are not welcome in the owners’ box at the Padres' stadium, Petco Park."
MLB declined comment.
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