Priscilla Presley Subpoenas Accounting Firm in Elder Financial Mistreatment Lawsuit
Priscilla Presley has taken legal steps to access bank statements she hopes will substantiate her claims of financial mistreatment as an elder, an exclusive report by Us Weekly reveals.
A court session regarding Presley’s legal action against her ex-colleague, Brigitte Kruse, and various other entities, took place on Wednesday, September 24.
The court granted Presley’s petition to serve a subpoena on Clevenger Accounting, a firm located in Missouri.
The star contends that Kruse and her associates utilized Clevenger Accounting’s services to “manage and run the financial accounts employed by the defendants to gather and retain substantial sums of money owed to [Presley].”
Attorneys representing Presley asserted that the accounting company possessed papers and data pertinent to the accusations in the ongoing legal dispute. She sought all correspondence involving her and any documentation concerning her holdings.
Within her legal filing, Presley, aged 80, indicated that the documentation would probably back her assertions of elder exploitation, contract violation, unauthorized appropriation, and other charges.
Counsel for Kruse, Jordan Matthews, informed Us, “Our clients had already supplied these documents before and have maintained complete openness. At no point did our clients retain funds owed to Presley. On the contrary, Presley had entry to the accounts, and finances were allocated among each business partner according to arrangements Presley deliberately agreed to with legal representation following extensive discussions.”
He further stated, “The court merely authorized an order, dispatching a directive for a subpoena beyond state lines, which Presley’s legal group required to acquire records from a third party outside the state. This constitutes a procedural action, nothing beyond that, and the court endorsed the order primarily because we did not object to this procedural action.”
As Us earlier disclosed, Presley initiated her legal complaint on July 1 in Los Angeles Superior Court. She requested the judiciary to grant her over $1 million in compensation from Kruse, whom she characterized as a “swindler and compulsive fabricator.”
Presley encountered Kruse in 2021; Kruse was then operating an auction establishment dealing in collectibles associated with Presley’s deceased spouse, Elvis Presley.
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According to judicial filings, Presley asserted that Kruse and her counterparts conspired to seize command of her financial resources, intending to “deplete her of every final cent.”
Her legal counsel alleged that the accused parties separated Presley from her established associates and appropriated 80 percent of her earnings from specific agreements. She blamed Kruse for damaging her connection with influential individuals such as filmmaker Sofia Coppola, who helmed the 2023 movie Priscilla, chronicling Presley’s romance with Elvis. Furthermore, Presley contended that Kruse and others seized $120,000 from the $500,000 she received for the movie.
Presley asserted that her collaborators moved more than $600,000 during the period spanning late 2022 to mid-2023.
As Us earlier communicated, Kruse refuted all accusations of misconduct within the legal action. She argued the lawsuit served as retribution for her own action against Presley in Florida concerning supposed unpaid funds.
“We are certain that the evidence will stand on its own merits and fairness will triumph,” Kruse stated. “It grieves all of us who devoted our efforts to assist a woman in need, and she is now trying to leverage her public profile to damage the reputations of benevolent, diligent individuals. We extend our gratitude to all our advocates who have supported us throughout this challenging period. We will persist in concentrating on our enterprise and anticipate our trial. The genuine facts will emerge through proof, not speculation. There will be no additional remarks at this moment as we honor the legal proceedings.”
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In a sworn statement, Presley affirmed, “Even now, I remain uninformed about all the actions the Defendants took against me, what funds they gathered from external parties, what personal costs they billed to the corporations they established, and/or what amounts they compensated themselves from these companies’ accounts.”
“[Kruse] testifies to her conviction regarding the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of dollars in income she projected the different organizations would generate moving forward, yet I am completely oblivious to the foundation for this conviction, considering that the sole significant income actually obtained stemmed from dealings that I and/or my previous consultants arranged (and not Kruse) prior to [Kruse] acquiring authority over my financial affairs and establishing the fraudulent corporations,” Presley further stated.
Priscilla, who labeled Kruse a “fraudster and compulsive fibber,” sought $1 million in compensation. Kruse disputed the accusations. Both legal proceedings are continuing.
