Copyright dailymail
Two years after Sam Haskell brutally murdered and dismembered his wife, Mei Li Haskell, a man claiming to be her business partner said he bankrolled her expenses and is entitled to hundreds of thousands of dollars from her estate. Businessman Alex Dorian is suing for breach of contract and claims he is owed nearly half a million dollars since he allegedly provided funds during his short-lived partnership with Mei Li, according to a complaint obtained by the Daily Mail. Dorian's claims are further complicated since there is an ongoing case to settle the Haskells' estates after Sam murdered Mei Li, her mother Yanxiang Wang, 64, and her stepfather Gaoshan Li, 71, on November 6, 2023. Haskell, 37, died by suicide at the Downtown Los Angeles Twin Towers jail on July 12, 2025. Dorian filed the claim against Mei Li's estate and the estate's representative, Jodi Montgomery, who famously served as Britney Spears' personal conservator. Now, Dorian claims in court documents that Mei Li's estate should pay up for the money he allegedly fronted her, including the down payment for the couple's $2.6 million Tarzana, California, home, where the grisly murders occurred. The sprawling six-bedroom, suburban Los Angeles house was sold in May. 'At Mei's oral request, Plaintiff agreed to lend money to Mei on several occasions for the purchase, remodeling/construction, and mortgage payments of her home located at 4115 Coldstream terrace, Tarzana, CA,' the complaint reads. 'Mei informed Plaintiff that she was to buy this property with the intention of "flipping it." 'As such, these oral loans/contracts were made with the promise that the full amount lent would be repaid with interest at the time that Mei sold her House. Mei's personal representative, Jodi Pais Montgomery, has now sold the house; thus the loans are now due and outstanding.' Not much was known about how Mei Li, 37, and her aspiring filmmaker husband made their living to afford their posh home where they also lived with their three young sons and Mei Li's parents. Neighbors told the Daily Mail that Haskell's father, Hollywood super-agent Samuel Haskell III, helped the couple financially. The elder Haskell is a respected former executive vice president and global head of the William Morris Agency, who mingled with A-list clients, including Dolly Parton, George Clooney, Whoopi Goldberg and Lily Tomlin. Allegedly, the younger Haskell was struggling to find his footing as a filmmaker and had a sick fascination with weapons, violent films and sex. Mei Li ran a business teaching foreign students how to navigate competitive Ivy League college admissions. Dorian's lawsuit alleges he not only provided Mei Li with the downpayment on their home, but that he also loaned her $100,000 to remodel it before selling. The businessman also claimed he and Mei Li entered into an agreement where she would run their sports card business that was worth at least $100,000, according to the suit. The lawsuit also claims the partnership collected $350,000 in stocks and cryptocurrency. 'Alex and Mei (herein "Partners") entered into a general partnership (hereinafter "Partnership") in 2017,' according to the complaint. 'Apart from being Partners, Alex and Mei became good friends and trusted each other.' Dorian claims the partnership was worth $902,000 in total, and that he is entitled to half. Montgomery has asked the court for an emergency order to grant her the authority to hire a civil attorney so they can address Dorian's claims. In a motion filed last week, the civil attorneys representing Montgomery and Mei Li's estate asked the court to compel Dorian to provide more documentation supporting his claims. Montgomery and Mei Li's estate allege that Dorian has a history of making false claims. 'Plaintiff's litigation history involving similar breach of contract, fraud, conversion, and breach of partnership claims is directly relevant to evaluating his credibility, pattern of business dealings, and modus operandi in bringing similar lawsuits,' Montgomery's response said. They also allege Dorian claimed to have 'lost' all evidence of texts, emails and social media posts he might've exchanged with Mei Li. They continued: 'Documents about these specific business operations are essential to verify whether the Partnership actually conducted these activities and accumulated the claimed assets. 'These would include sports card purchase receipts, inventory lists, sales records, client contracts for consulting services, invoices, payment records, and business correspondence. 'If Plaintiff was truly a 50 percent partner in businesses that accumulated $100,000 in sports cards and received consulting fees, he would possess some documentation of these operations. The complete absence of such records suggests these business operations never existed.' A separate probate case is also ongoing regarding Sam's estate. The Daily Mail has reached out to Dorian, Montgomery and their attorneys for comment, but has not heard back. According to court documents, Sam and Mei Li's three young sons have left California and are staying with family. While the division of the Haskells' estates play out in court, Los Angeles County prosecutors provided a possible motive for the grisly murders, saying Haskell was having an affair with a 27-year-old woman and planned to flee to Japan to hide with her. The day after Haskell is said to have murdered and dismembered his wife and her parents, he allegedly paid day laborers $500 to dispose of heavy black bags from his home, investigators said. When the laborers opened one of the bags, they discovered human body parts. The workers decided to return the bags to Haskell and then called the police. Mei Li's partial remains were discovered inside a trash bin in the nearby city of Encino by a transient, but the remains of her parents were never found. Investigators later obtained video footage of Haskell transferring more black trash bags from his Tesla to a rented SUV. The Tesla, which was registered to Mei Li, was spotted by police at an AirBnB in Tarzana where he had been staying with his sons after the murders, prosecutors said. LAPD investigators found a .357 loaded revolver inside a holster, 32 rounds of live ammunition, a blood-encrusted military-style knife, a headlamp and firearm sight in the rental car. DNA analysis of blood on the military knife matched to all three victims, while blood stains on the firearm matched the genetic profiles of Mei Li and Gaoshan Li, investigators said. Further forensic testing showed large amounts of blood evidence was cleaned up throughout the home, which included DNA matches to all three victims, prosecutors said. Haskell was facing life in prison without the possibility of parole if he was convicted. He initially told prosecutors he planned to change his plea from not guilty to guilty, but instead he was found unresponsive in his cell at the Twin Towers jail in Downtown LA on July 12. According to the autopsy report released by the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office last week, Haskell's cause of death was 'incised wounds to the bilateral upper extremities.' The Medical Examiner's report noted there were multiple lacerations found on Haskell's left and right arms just below his elbows - the 'antecubital fossa' - which cut through both basilic veins. The report concluded that he bled to death. A note was found in Haskell's left pocket, but there were no alcohol or drugs in his system, according to the autopsy report. TMZ reported Haskell's suicide note said he would miss his three best friends: his sons. In a statement obtained by the Daily Mail, Haskell's attorney, Joseph A Weimortz Jr, said his client was 'not afraid of prison, but he was afraid of an even larger media spectacle,' adding, 'He was not afraid for himself, he was afraid for his boys. 'He was afraid that every photo taken, every word written, would be a permanent scar his children would have to live with.' 'My client's acts were not acts of cowardice or lunacy. Ultimately, my client was even willing to take his own life, believing that it would end this terrible chaos.
