Vicki Ueberroth Booth, daughter of former Major League Baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth, has gone to court in Southern California to gain control of her family’s trust, claiming millions of dollars have been wasted or misused over the last two years while Peter and his wife Virginia are in cognitive decline.
Peter Ueberroth, now 88, spearheaded the first privately run Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984, a commercialization effort that helped revitalize the Games. Later that year, he took the lead job at MLB, which he held until 1989.
But as Ueberoth and his wife, 86, have seen their health decline in recent years, their daughter says they’ve been exploited by a family friend, attorney Michael McKee, who took over as trustee of the family’s trust in April 2024. McKee, 80, is also the chairman of Tiger Woods’ charity, the TGR Foundation.
“Rather than acting as a neutral fiduciary, McKee repeatedly subordinated the interests of the trustors and beneficiaries to those of third parties, including himself, in direct violation of his statutory duties,” Ueberroth Booth, 63, contends in the filing in California Superior Court. “This disregard for fiduciary responsibility was compounded by McKee’s persistent concealment of material information.”
The Athletic has reached out to McKee and the TGR Foundation for comment and will update this story if they respond.
The petition asks for McKee to be ousted as trustee in favor of Ueberroth Booth, to turn over certain records and to pay back money for alleged breaches of trust.
From 2022 forward, “Peter and Virginia lost the ability to evaluate complex financial transactions or manage assets, especially in unsupervised or conflicted settings,” according to their daughter’s petition. In March 2024, Peter was diagnosed with “moderate dementia, with strong concern for Alzheimer’s disease.”
The next month, McKee, who had worked for Ueberroth’s private-equity firm Contrarian since at least 2018, became trustee and proceeded to conceal “the use of Peter’s signature after Peter had been deemed incapacitated,” the filing claims, adding the “authorizations were executed at a time when Peter lacked capacity and could not provide informed consent.”
In a statement to The Athletic, Ueberroth Booth’s attorney, Gabrielle Vidal, said: “It has been deeply distressing for Vicki and her family to watch Mr. McKee, someone her parents once trusted, betray that trust at a time when they are most vulnerable. Filing this petition — and bringing sensitive and private family matters into a public forum — was not a decision made lightly, but a necessary one to protect their parents, safeguard what they built, and ensure that their wishes are honored. Mr. McKee’s continued breaches of his fiduciary duties and his misuse of authority have left her no choice but to seek the court’s intervention.”
The petition also alleges that McKee should have intervened in efforts undertaken by two other associates who had longstanding professional relationships with the Ueberroths. The associates allegedly altered access to the Ueberroths’ bank account, including by changing the “designated email address to one created and controlled by them.”
In December 2023, before McKee was trustee, the associates also allegedly transferred $2 million to “a Los Angeles-based charity with no prior relationship to Peter or Virginia, falsely representing that Peter had authorized the transfer.”
Ueberroth Booth noticed that the transfer was “wholly inconsistent with Peter’s and Virginia’s long‑standing charitable practices,” the petition says, and she got the money redirected to a different charity.
The two associates “tried to isolate Peter, pressure him to dismiss caregivers, and disregard medical directives,” Ueberroth Booth alleged. “These concerns were escalated to McKee, who again failed to act.”
The Athletic has attempted to reach Contrarian and the two associates for comment, and will update this story if they respond.
Ueberroth Booth’s petition also questions McKee and the family trust’s continued operation of Contrarian, which she alleges is a vehicle for excessive compensation, overhead and personal spending.
“Over fifteen months, Contrarian cost the Trust nearly $1 million, including $205,062.73 in rent and overhead, $32,317.41 in meals, Starbucks, car washes, and chauffeur services,” according to the petition.
The petition also claims a former Orange County sheriff contacted Ueberroth Booth to tell her Peter appeared vulnerable and was being taken advantage of.
Peter “developed paranoid ideation and other manifestations of cognitive impairment,” the filing reads. “Despite repeated urging by family members, Peter consistently refused medical evaluation or intervention.”
The petition says the family received recommendations to provide both elderly Ueberroths with round-the-clock care.
In two years, the Summer Olympics are set to return to Los Angeles for the first time since the Games Peter headed up in 1984. Born in Illinois in 1937, Peter was an airline executive and travel entrepreneur who, by 1980, had built the nation’s second-largest travel company behind American Express.
Peter became baseball’s sixth commissioner in the fall of 1984. He pushed for player drug testing and, just as he had with the Olympics, focused on television revenues.
Peter’s tenure also includes baseball’s famous collusion grievances, filed from 1986-88, when players brought allegations that owners had tried to work together to suppress salaries and free agency. The grievance process continued after Ueberroth left office, and eventually, owners agreed to a $280 million settlement.
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