A young New Zealand-born woman whose father and brother died trying to climb the world's deadliest mountain is battling one of the world's biggest banks over her inheritance.
Sequoia Di Angelo, 24, is suing Wells Fargo for an alleged misappropriation of her late father Martin Schmidt's funds after finding his account had been emptied and its contents paid to her stepmother, Giovannini Cantale.
That was after Texan-based Ms Di Angelo had been blocked from closing the account until she could provide a will and copy of Mr Schmidt's death certificate, her lawyer Andrew Bender said yesterday from Houston.
Mr Schmidt, a renowned New Zealand-American mountain climber and guide whose feats included scaling Aoraki/Mt Cook 19 times and Aconcagua in South America 32 times, died with Di Angelo's 25-year-old brother Denali Schmidt in an avalanche while the pair were trying to become the first father-and-son team to conquer K2 in Pakistan in July, 2013.
His will - for which he appointed New Zealand's Public Trust as executor - expressly identified his two children as his beneficiaries for funds in his United States bank accounts, Mr Bender told the Weekend Herald.
