In her own words, Priscilla Presley is sharing new details over what she claims was an “abhorrent” elder abuse scheme that allegedly conned her out of more than $1 million.
In a new sworn statement filed on Thursday in Los Angeles, the writer, actress, and ex-wife of Elvis Presley claims Florida-based memorabilia dealer Brigitte Kruse, investor Kevin Fialko, and Florida lawyer Lynn Walker Wright duped her into signing a stack of contracts in January 2023 that gave her only minority shares in several closely-held companies controlling her name, image, and likeness rights.
“I now know that Kruse and Fialko engaged in an extensive, far-reaching campaign to isolate me from, and cause me to distrust, my own long-time advisors, to the point where they were able to convince me to replace my advisors with ones hand-picked by them. This was an essential part of their campaign to control and direct my finances to their own benefit,” Presley, 79, says in the new declaration obtained by Rolling Stone.
Regarding the highly disputed Jan. 8, 2023, meeting in Florida, Presley claims she was secluded in a room at Kruse’s house with Wright handing her document after document to sign with a video camera rolling. She suggests the meeting was a surprise after Kruse and Fialko arranged for her to travel to Florida to attend an auction of Elvis Presley-related items held by Kruse’s company, GWS Auctions. Presley says it was during the trip that she was “informed” she would be meeting with Wright to sign the contracts. She says a review of her legal invoices did not support Wright’s claim that the contract paperwork had been sent to Presley’s San Diego-based lawyers ahead of time.
“I was completely isolated from my other advisors. I was told that I was not permitted to have anyone in the room with me other than Kruse,” Presley wrote in the statement signed Thursday. “Wright did not advise me as to the risks of having Kruse present at this meeting, despite the fact that Kruse and Fialko were materially adverse to me in connection with the agreements I was being asked to sign. For no legitimate reason, this meeting was videotaped by Wright, who I understand subsequently provided a copy of the video to Kruse and Fialko.”
Kruse, Fialko, and Wright did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s requests for comment. Wright “vehemently denied” conspiring with Kruse and Fialko in her own sworn statement filed in September.
Presley filed her elder abuse lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court in July after Kruse separately sued her for breach of contract in Florida last year. Kruse alleged in her dueling lawsuit that Presley illegally walked out on their various business agreements when her financial circumstances changed in the wake of Lisa Marie’s death. As Rolling Stone previously reported, Presley initially challenged a 2016 amendment to her daughter’s Promenade Trust that removed her as a co-trustee, but she quickly reached a generous settlement with granddaughter Riley Keough that granted her a $1 million lump-sum payment, $100,000 annual salary, and burial rights near Elvis at Graceland.
In her 45-page elder abuse complaint, Presley claimed Kruse “quickly immersed herself” in her life after meeting her in 2021, “often sending her multiple text messages a day, and telling her how much she loved her and admired her.” Presley’s lawsuit called Kruse a “con-artist and pathological liar” who misappropriated more than $1 million from Presley and “fraudulently induced” her into signing contracts that gave Kruse and Fialko between 51 percent and 80 percent control over their various business ventures.
“This action arises out of a meticulously planned and abhorrent scheme by the defendants in this action to prey on an older woman by gaining her trust, isolating her from the most important people in her life, and duping her into believing that they would take care of her — personally and financially — while their real goal was to drain her of every last penny she had,” the lawsuit filed by Presley’s lawyers Martin Singer and T. Wayne Harman read.
Presley said the defendants placed a “stranglehold” on her finances and “withheld” not only the $500,000 she made from Sofia Coppola’s film adaptation of her biography Elvis and Me, but also the $349,900 she received in connection with her “Cilla” cosmetics deal. Though Priscilla said she negotiated the deal for Coppola’s film, titled Priscilla, under a predecessor company before Kruse and Fialko “were even involved in her affairs,” the pair “never paid [her] a dime,” the lawsuit said. Priscilla further alleged Kruse and Fialko “attempted to obtain an invitation to the premiere of Priscilla at the Venice Film Festival” even though they “had absolutely nothing to do with the film.”
In a statement previously sent to Rolling Stone, a spokesperson for Kruse called Presley’s elder abuse lawsuit a “retaliatory” response to Kruse’s breach of contract case. “We are confident that the facts will speak for themselves and justice will prevail,” the statement said. “It saddens all of us who dropped our lives to provide aid to a woman who needed help and she is now attempting to use her celebrity status to ruin the lives of kind, hardworking people. Thank you to all of our supporters who have stood by us during this difficult time. We will continue to focus on our business and look forward to our day in court. The truth will come out by way of evidence and not rumors. There will be no further comment at this time as we respect the judicial process.”
The next hearing in Presley’s elder abuse lawsuit is set for Nov. 21.