Priscilla Presley made moves in court to get her hands on bank records she believes could prove her financial elder abuse allegations, Us Weekly can exclusively report.
On Wednesday, September 24, a hearing was held in Presley’s lawsuit against her former associate, Brigitte Kruse, and several other third parties.
The judge approved Presley’s request to issue a subpoena to a Missouri-based company called Clevenger Accounting.
The actress believes Kruse and others used Clevenger Accounting’s service to “maintain and operate the bank accounts used by defendants to collect and withhold significant amounts of monies due to [Presley].”
Presley’s lawyers stated that the accounting firm had documents and records relevant to the claims in the pending lawsuit. She asked for all communications related to her and any records about her assets.
In her motion, Presley, 80, said the records will likely support her claims of elder abuse, breach of contract, conversion and various other claims.
Kruse’s lawyer, Jordan Matthews, tells Us, “Our clients already provided these records previously and have been very transparent. Under no circumstance did our clients withhold money due to Presley. Instead, Presley had access to the accounts and money was distributed between each business partner based on agreements Presley knowingly entered into with an attorney after months of negotiations.”
He added, “The court only signed an order, issuing a commission for an out-of-state subpoena, which Presley’s team needed in order to obtain records from an out-of-state third party. This is an administrative task, nothing more, and the court signed the order, substantially because we did not oppose this administrative task.”
As Us previously reported, Presley filed her lawsuit on July 1 in Los Angeles Superior Court. She asked the court to award her in excess of $1 million in damages against Kruse, who she labeled a “con artist and pathological liar.”
Presley met Kruse, who was running an auction house selling memorabilia related to Presley’s late husband, Elvis Presley, in 2021.
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In court documents, Presley claimed Kruse and others worked together to gain control of her finances in an attempt to “drain every last penny she had.”
Her lawyer claimed the defendants isolated Presley from her longtime team and took 80 percent of her income on certain deals. She accused Kruse of causing harm to her relationship with important people like director Sofia Coppola, who directed the 2023 Priscilla based on Presley’s relationship with Elvis. In addition, Presley claimed Kruse and others took $120,000 of the $500,000 she was paid for the film.
Presley claimed the associates transferred over $600,000 between late 2022 and mid-2023.
As Us previously reported, Kruse denied all allegations of wrongdoing in the lawsuit. She claimed the lawsuit was in retaliation she brought against Presley in Florida over alleged money owed.
“We are confident that the facts will speak for themselves and justice will prevail,” Kruse 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.”
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In a declaration, Presley said, “To this day, I am still in the dark about everything that Defendants did to me, what monies they collected from third parties, what personal expenses they charged to the companies they set up, and/or what monies they paid themselves from the accounts of these companies.”
“[Kruse] attests to her belief about the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars in revenue that she expected the various entities to recognize in the future, but I am entirely unaware of the basis for this belief, given that the only material revenue that was actually received was for transactions that I and/or my prior advisors negotiated (and not Kruse) before [Kruse] gained control over my finances and set up the sham entities,” Presley added.
Priscilla, who accused Kruse of being a “con artist and pathological liar,” demanded $1 million in damages. Kruse denied the claims. Both cases are ongoing.