Priscilla Presley won a round in court when a judge denied a motion by two of her former business associates to put on temporarily hold a fraud and elder abuse lawsuit she filed against them in which she alleges she was bilked out of more than $1 million.
On Thursday, Santa Monica Superior Court Judge Mark H. Epstein rejected the bid by investor Kevin Fialko and Florida-based memorabilia auctioneer Brigitte Kruse for a stay on the 79-year-old Presley’s case until many of the same issues they say are involved in a case in Florida are resolved. Presley is a defendant in the Florida case.
“This is yet another in what seems to be a never-ending series of motions by the defendant to move this case out of California and into Florida,” the judge wrote, noting that the defendants had previously tried to convince him without success that he did not have personal jurisdiction over the defendants.
Fialko and Kruse “almost ignore the elder abuse allegations, which are not part of the Florida action,” the judge further noted, adding that those claims are the “beating heart of the California case.”.
In their court papers in favor of the stay, the defense attorneys stated that Presley’s claims “relate to a business transaction centered on Florida and easily could be litigated in the active litigation already ongoing in the state where a Florida judge could apply Florida law and manage Florida witnesses regarding Florida businesses.”
Presley profited from her involvement in the companies, planned to move to Florida to work more closely with the firms and to continue using her name, image and likeness to her benefit, according to the defense attorneys’ pleadings.
But in her suit brought last July 18, the ex-wife of Elvis Presley alleges that Fialko and Kruse schemed to separate her from her long-time advisers in order to cheat her out of more than $1 million.
The alleged plan of action included forming various entities under Florida law even though Presley lives in California.