Priscilla Presley fended off a challenge Monday that sought to disqualify her longtime lawyer, Marty Singer, as her attorney in her financial elder abuse lawsuit against memorabilia auctioneer Brigitte Kruse.
At a morning hearing in Santa Monica, Calif., a judge said Kruse failed to convince him that Singer gave her legal advice in 2022 and 2023 related to her business dealings with Presley, thereby creating a conflict. The judge called Kruse’s evidence “very thin” when it came to her claims Singer counseled her over the phone twice. In her motion, Kruse claimed she consulted with Singer when Elvis Presley Enterprises (EPE) sent her a letter in August 2022 threatening litigation over an auction of Elvis-related memorabilia that Priscilla authenticated. She claimed they spoke again in February 2023, when EPE sent a cease-and-desist letter claiming Presley’s deal to market a beauty serum violated the name, image and likeness rights she previously sold to EPE.
“I have doubts,” Judge Mark Epstein told Kruse’s lawyer about the alleged phone calls. “You’ve given me no evidence other than a statement by Ms. Kruse. I’ve got no retention agreement, no email, no phone record, no notes of a conversation, no reference to a conversation in a text to Ms. Presley. I got nothing.”
The judge noted that Singer claimed in a sworn declaration that he had “no recollection” of any calls with Kruse. And even if the conversations occurred, the judge said, they were not “substantially related” to the financial elder abuse case. In his ruling denying Kruse’s effort to disqualify Singer, the judge said he takes such motions seriously, but he also respects people’s right to choose their own lawyer. He said Presley had a long history with Singer that predated her dealings with Kruse, so this wasn’t a case where Presley hired Singer to gain an advantage.
“While Ms. Kruse and the other defendants continue to throw the kitchen sink at this case to distract from the real issues and delay facing the music, Ms. Presley is anxious to move this case forward and hold defendants accountable for their actions,” Singer said in a statement sent to Rolling Stone Monday afternoon.
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Kruse’s lead lawyer, Jordan Matthews, called the decision “irrelevant” late Monday. “The court’s ruling does not mean Elvis Presley’s ex-wife or Mr. Singer have been absolved, and we intend to hold them accountable for their actions, as we will not tolerate any sort of misconduct in this case,” Matthews tells Rolling Stone. “Priscilla Beaulieu continues to make claims without a shred of proof, seemingly relying on her celebrity status rather than evidence, even if it means bending the rules. Today’s hearing changes nothing. We are moving forward aggressively, and we are prepared to bring forward major evidence that will reveal the truth, which cannot be ignored.”
Presley, 80, and Kruse, 42, are locked in a bitter battle over the companies Presley formed with Kruse and investor Kevin Fialko to monetize Presley’s name, image, and likeness. In her July 2024 financial elder abuse complaint, Presley claimed Kruse and Fialko “manipulated” her into signing the contracts after they allegedly isolated her from her longtime business and legal advisors. She said the pair placed a “stranglehold” on her finances with contracts that gave Kruse a controlling 51 percent interest in Priscilla’s intellectual property in perpetuity. She said another related venture gave her only a 20 percent share and that altogether, she was duped out of more than $1 million. She and her lawyers called the contracts so “egregious” and “unconscionable,” they’re unenforceable.
For their part, Kruse and Fialko claim they were always truthful and invested heavily in the joint ventures to pull Presley back from the brink of insolvency. (Video obtained by Rolling Stone shows Presley appearing fully cognizant and signing many of the documents at issue at Kruse’s Florida home in January 2023.) According to Kruse and Fialko, Presley allegedly made an about-face and shunned them, in violation of their contracts, once her fortunes changed after the 2023 death of Lisa Marie Presley, her only child with Elvis.
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As Rolling Stone previously reported, a few weeks after Lisa Marie’s death, Priscilla challenged a 2016 amendment to her daughter’s Promenade Trust that removed Priscilla as a trustee and replaced her with Lisa Marie’s eldest daughter, Riley Keough. The disputed change meant Priscilla would have lost influence over her daughter’s assets, including Graceland mansion, its archives, and Lisa Marie’s 15 percent interest in EPE, which owns and manages Elvis’ name, image, and likeness. Priscilla wanted the court to declare the amendment “invalid.”
With a potential legal war looming, Keough reached a generous settlement with her grandmother in a matter of months. Under the deal, Priscilla received a $1 million lump-sum payment off the top of Lisa Marie’s $25 million life insurance policy. Keough also agreed to pay Priscilla $50,000 to resign as co-trustee of the irrevocable trust whose sole asset was the life insurance policy. Priscilla was also awarded an annual salary of $100,000 for 10 years for her new role as a “special adviser” to the Promenade Trust.
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After she settled with Keough, Presley sent a cease-and-desist to Kruse and Fialko in August 2023. Two months later, she was hit with the first breach-of-contract lawsuit over the partnership. Nine months after that, she filed her bombshell claims of financial elder abuse.
Last summer, a judge put Kruse’s Florida-based lawsuit on hold, saying Presley’s elder abuse lawsuit should proceed first. The Orlando-based judge said it didn’t make sense to “enforce rights under agreements” when the “validity” of the agreements remained “squarely in dispute in the California case.” That ruling set the stage for Kruse and Fialko to file their breach-of-contract claims as a standalone, $50 million lawsuit filed in Beverly Hills in August, then as a cross-complaint in the Santa Monica elder abuse case in October.
