Law&Crime Sidebar - Big Shakeup in Bombshell Priscilla Presley Lawsuit Drama

Episode Date: October 10, 2025

Priscilla Presley is facing new tax fraud allegations as part of a bombshell lawsuit filed by two former collaborators. Their attorney, Jordan Matthews, joins Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber to discuss the latest developments, including claims about Elvis's estate, Lisa Marie Presley's trust, and alleged false IRS filings.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW:If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Has Priscilla Presley just been accused of tax fraud in connection with a brand new filing from the people suing her in this already bombshell legal battle? That's what we want to talk about. It's time to break down all of these details and allegations with the lawyer representing the two former business associates suing Elvis. his ex-wife. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Okay, we have another development in the Priscilla Presley legal saga that we need to talk about. And in a little bit, I'm going to be bringing back on the lawyer who's representing the people

suing her to get a better sense of what exactly is going on. Because there is this brand new filing with new details, new allegations that may change what this whole case is about. But first, I got to give you the backstory. A little complicated. Stay with me. I'll try to break. it down. You have Brigitte Cruz and Kevin Fialco. They are self-described entrepreneurs who are really big in the world of Elvis Presley memorabilia. They apparently started working with Priscilla Presley. This is Elvis's ex-wife years ago, helping her manage her brand and use her name, her image, her likeness to make money. That's what the lawyer says. But they also allege that Priscilla was making moves behind their backs to get more money for herself and

basically cut the two of them out of future deals. So they have suitor for fraud, breach of contract, intentional interference with a contract, misappropriation of name and likeness. By the way, this is in response to Priscilla's own claims against them, including elder abuse. We'll talk about that a little bit more. But this was their response. Now, in these filings, they make a lot of allegations, including regarding Elvis and Elvis and Priscilla's daughter, Lisa Marie. So Elvis died in 1997. And as Lisa Marie grew up, she and her mother, according to these filings, had a reportedly tumultuous relationship. Now, Elvis had apparently left his entire estate in a trust to Lisa Marie, which she inherited when she turned 25. The original filing says that Lisa Marie ended up

listing Priscilla and Barry Siegel, this is Priscilla's financial manager, as co-trustees. But when Lisa Marie found out that they were allegedly mismanaging her mom, money, she changed the trust to make herself trustee, enlisted her son, Ben, and her daughter, Riley Keough, as the ones who would inherit. Now, Riley being a famous actress, again, these are the allegations from the filing. By January of 2023, this is when things, according to the filing, became really bad between Priscilla and Lisa Marie. Quote, Priscilla was aware that Lisa was getting ready to remove her as the sole trustee of Lisa's irrevocable life insurance trust and was otherwise threatening to sue her. Cruz and Fialco, nevertheless, worked

keep the family together. Goes on to say, Lisa suffered cardiac arrest on Thursday, January 12th, and she was rushed to West Hills Hospital. Priscilla, who knew that Lisa was in the process of taking steps to remove her as the sole trustee of Lisa's Revival Life Insurance Trust, saw an opportunity to regain control. Priscilla rushed to West Hills Hospital, and despite Lisa's clear directive to prolong her life, Priscilla pulled the plug within hours of Lisa being admitted and before her granddaughter, Riley, was able to get to the hospital. demanding that Cruz issue a statement to the media so she could control the narrative. Priscilla demanded that a statement be released immediately, stating,

it is with a heavy heart that Emma shared the devastating news that my beautiful daughter, Lisa Marie, has left us. And then they claim that the following week, Priscilla said, I'm the queen, I'm in charge of Graceland. Quote, Cruz and Fialco were heartbroken by the unsettling behavior. Now, Cruz and Fialco also say that Priscilla not only defrauded El Elvis during their divorce, but maybe contributed or drove him to his death. Yeah, so in this amended filing, it says, Priscilla's first victim was Elvis, 1968.

After just over five years of marriage, Elvis and Priscilla divorced, entering into a property settlement agreement and marital termination agreement. Under the marital dissolution agreements, Priscilla unequivocally waived the right to inherit anything from Elvis's estate. Then in bold, Priscilla knew she was entitled to inherit nothing from Elvis. By the way, you know why we're able to bring you stories like this? It's not only because of the amazing support that we get from all of you out there, but also from our incredible sponsor, Morgan and Morgan,

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You can start a claim from your phone in just eight clicks. So if you're injured, you can easily start a claim at for the people.com slash elsie sidebar by clicking the link below or scanning the QR code on screen. According to the filing, it was agreed that Priscilla would be paid $100,000 that she would receive cars, child support, spousal support, medical insurance, education, but the allegation was that Priscilla wasn't happy, that she wanted more. Quote, out of pure greed, Priscilla claimed that what she received was not enough for her to live on. Priscilla claimed that Elvis defrauded her, asserting that Elvis promised to always take care of her. So the former couple apparently went back to the negotiating table, and the lawsuit claims that Elvis was, quote, forced into entering into a modified settlement and marital termination agreement on October 4th, 1973.

And from there, according to this suit, the payouts grew considerably. quote, Elvis was forced to pay, Priscilla, $725,000 within 10 days of court approval, so equal to about $5,274,995.50 presently. And then there was an additional $720,000. So that's equal to about $5,238,616 and $22 presently, broken down into installments of $6,000 per month. Elvis was also forced to pay Priscilla 50% of the proceeds of the sale of the residents at 144 MonoVale Drive in Los Angeles, California, and up to one year of spousal support in the amount of $4,200 per month. Again, in bolded letters, Priscilla's thirst for power and money was insatiable. Okay.

But the complaint claims that Priscilla didn't stop there. Despite enriching herself and extorting millions of dollars from Elvis, she then placed a lien on grace. on or around April 29th, 1977 in the amount of $494,024.49. So more than $2.2 million adding pressure to Elvis less than four months before he died on August 16th, 1977 from a heart attack and drug complications. Priscilla exerted undue pressure on Elvis, pushing him to his death. That's the allegation. That's what it says. And this is how it may lead to the claims of Cruz and Fialco, let's bring it back to them, that it's related to Priscilla's name and likeness and trying to grow her brand for money. Because according to them, it turns out she isn't even

supposed to be using the Presley name at all. According to their filing, since Priscilla divorced Elvis, she was entitled to nothing, as she was not mentioned in the will. And in fact, pursuant to her divorce agreement, she was supposed to stop using the surname Presley. After Elvis died in 1977, however, Priscilla continued to use the Presley name as she needed to exploit the name for her own financial gain despite Elvis's wishes otherwise. So in other words, so in other words, the allegation is that Presley told Cruz and Fialko she owned the rights to use her name and image, but actually she had already sold those rights to someone else and didn't say so. Her representations or alleged misrepresentations were made to get them to invest money, to help her financially, and because they believed her and spent a lot of money, helping her grow her brand. If they had known the truth, they wouldn't have done that. Now she owes them. They're out of pocket. Okay. So that brings us to what was just filed, this cross-complaint.

And for that, I want to bring on Jordan Matthews, who is representing Cruz and Fialco in this case. We've had them on before. Jordan, thanks so much for taking the time to come back here on sidebar. Appreciate it. Thanks very much for having me, Jesse. Appreciate it. Of course. So let's clear this up first. You filed this cross-complaint on your client's behalf. Let's start here. What is a cross complaint? What is that? How is it different from the original complaint that you filed? If I'm understanding correctly. Well, a few things. A cross complaint is basically a response to a complaint with claims. So it's my client's claims against Priscilla. There's with respect to your question about the difference in the other lawsuit, there's

certain substance of claims. I'm happy to go into the specifics in terms of the specific allegations, but essentially it is a responsive and offensive claim to the actual. So we will go through specifics of this new filing. I think just for our viewers so they understand, right? First, it was Priscilla who initiated litigation against your clients and then they filed a suit against her or am I misunderstanding? So it's a fairly accurate, but there's a, slight distinction. So actually, my clients actually initiated litigation against Priscilla in 2023. That was in Florida. Priscilla then filed what we believe is a retaliatory claim in 24. This is our offensive response to this claim in California. Okay. And what was she claiming

her retaliatory claim? Just real quickly summarize it. She had a variety of claims. There is a claim that she claims, which we believe is completely false, uh, that she claims elder of use and things of that nature. We've seen no evidence of that, but this is our offensive, uh, claim. And actually offensive claims, it's about 20 claims, 20 cause of action against that complaint. Got it. Okay. Now I want to talk about this new filing. And there are some specific paragraphs that I think are important to highlight. There's one paragraph, it's paragraph 30. It's a about Lisa allegedly demanding that Priscilla resign as the only trustee of her life insurance policy

because Lisa had apparently wanted to sell the policy off. Why is this significant? It's significant for a few specific reasons. What's very crucial here is we had previously alleged that when Lisa passed away on January 12th of 2023, that at that time she was threatening to sue Priscilla and demanding that she resigned, that Priscilla resigned, as the sole trustee of the irrevocable life insurance policy.

But what's new and what's crucial is that she was attempting, Lisa was attempting to withdraw the cash value of that policy. So the allegation is that when Lisa ultimately passed away and when Priscilla was with her in the hospital, which is something she writes about in her book and where she directed, according to what's in her book, the doctors do take her off of life support. The allegation is that she did that knowing that she was stopping Lisa from withdrawing the cash value of that policy.

Why that's crucial is that that meant that that $25 million policy was still active. And that's what allowed her to interject herself and create a dispute with Riley that ultimately resulted in a payout of $2.4 million to Priscilla. And to be clear, Lisa had wanted to sell this to pay off a tax lien. From the records that we've reviewed, which include actually there is a tax liability that she had actually one of the exhibits in the cross complaint. It's not to state anything negative with respect to Lisa, but it's to paint a very clear picture of the evidence that we have is that as of March of 2023. So shortly after her passing, there was a notice that she had a tax liability for one notice in particular of an excess of 900,000. dollars. So the withdrawing the cash value of the policy would have allowed her and was intended to allow her from what we know or what we've seen to resolve that tax liability because her

passport had been revoked. And so she was attempting to resolve that issue. Talking taxes, this is this is a big bombshell here. So you got to have a bunch of paragraphs here that are about how Cruz and Fialca were working to finalize a settlement between Priscilla and Riley and how Priscilla allegedly submitted paperwork to the IRS that was false, that this was about her jewelry? What is this allegation about if you can expand upon it? So this actually is actually even why the allegations that we just went into are actually crucial because it shows character.

Character and credibility is always at issue in the context of litigation. But the simple point is this. When my clients had started their relationship with Priscilla, it was known in prior filings, that Priscilla had a tax liability of around $700,000. So my clients came in to the relationship. They paid for her to retain a tax attorney so she could negotiate that. The allegation and what's supported by the documents, which we actually submitted the documents in this filing, is that in May of 2023, she submitted documents under penalty of perjury, stating, for example, the value of different property, the fair market value, for example, of jewelry.

She listed that the fair market value of her jewelry was $6,000. The evidence that we have is that she has jewelry worth in excess of $5 million, and she also has collectibles personal property that's currently in storage or at the time certainly was in storage at Graceland, such as her wedding dress or Mercedes jewelry, different items that are worth in excess of millions of dollars. So simply, that was a misrepresentation to the IRS that she made. That's the allegation when she was attempting to negotiate a resolution, a payment plan, a lower payment with the IRS. Essentially, and I want to put words and mouth, are you accusing Priscilla of committing a crime? And is this, have you issued a criminal referral in

some way? That's not for me to make a decision on. This is how it's relevant to our claims. It's very simple. In this cross-complaint, there are employment claims. And one of the employment claims is wrongful termination and violation of public policy. So when our clients were attempting to get her to comply with her legal requirements and saying, you need to actually submit the appraised value, the correct value of your assets to the IRS, so you are fulfilling your obligations, The allegation is that she then terminated them. And to support that, we have a letter that came from tax counsel that my client forwarded to Priscilla on August 23rd of 2023. And the very next day, they were terminated.

Now, aside from that letter, you say you have evidence to support this. And when you look at the paragraphs, it mentions a number of different exhibits. What are those exhibits? What is the evidence that you have to support this claim regarding the? the tax liability regarding the alleged tax misrepresentations? So it's the actual filing that she submitted to the IRS signed by her under penalty of perjury. It's an attachment that lists the value of the various assets, one of which a lot of it is redacted. We actually focused specifically on what was the specific issue, which was her jewelry

that she had value, the fair market value of $6,000. So that's the submission to the IRS. Additionally, there is correspondence with Graceland about attempting to obtain the property, such as her wedding dress and Mercedes that is there. There are various other items. And also the fact that there is that letter that is from August 23rd of 2023 from Tax Council, in addition to a text message from my client. to Priscilla that has the letter stating, you know, this is something that obviously needed to

be discussed. And we have other evidence to support that as well. By the way, has she or her counsel responded to that claim specifically ever? Not to my knowledge. This is a new allegation in the cross complaint. Obviously, it was just accepted by the court earlier this week. So they'll have to respond to that. There's another part of your filings that involves a Kia Morgan. First, let's start. Who is Kea Morgan, if I'm pronouncing the name correctly. Kea Morgan, from our understanding, that's the name that he ultimately goes by. He is known, or his history was known as someone who was involved with Stanley, the comic book

creator. There were allegations of elder abuse against him years ago. I'm not going to speak to those. I know he went through the, I believe, a criminal process with that. And I do believe that that was resolved where there was, it was ultimately resolved. I can't really speak to that. But what happened here is that shortly, actually, after my clients resolved the trust dispute between Priscilla and Riley in around May or June of 23, it was actually about

May or so of 2023, Kia Morgan introduced himself or interjected himself, that's the allegation, into Priscilla's life, and they had conversations or he had conversations with my clients. But ultimately, I've reviewed a lot of text correspondence between Kea Morgan and my client, and I've seen very clearly that he engaged in a way where the relationship, turned sour, and the timeline indicates that he was very much so involved in Tarnishing and creating a major wedge between my clients and Priscilla and therefore there's a claim against him two claims one for Torses interference with contract and also for tors his interference with prospective economic advantage and

Kee and Morgan's mentioned again in this cross-complaint when it comes to the IRS when it comes to valuing the assets at Graceland, right? No, so he's not actually, it's a good question, but he's not actually involved in the allegation of valuing the assets. That was going on at the same time. So the time lines up, correct.

Got it. Okay, glad you clarified that. Okay. Now, I don't think there's a substantive change when it comes to the circumstances surrounding Lisa's debt, but there is something that's called out. There's a little bit in the cross complaint about this, right?

Well, the distinction, just to be clear, is what I believe I'd referenced before, but just for clarity, is that we had mentioned before that when Lisa ultimately passed, the allegation is that Priscilla was with her, that she directed the doctors to take her off of life support, and that was counter to a health care, advanced healthcare directive where Lisa had stated previously in writing that she wanted anything and everything to be done to make sure that her life was prolonged. But the addition here, the new information is that when that happened, that Lisa was attempting to cash out the value of her life insurance policy. And so, again, when Priscilla made that decision, she did that knowing, that's the allegation, that she was stopping Lisa from cashing in the value of the policy, which meant that that $25 million policy that she ultimately made a claim against was still basically in play. It was something that she could still go after, and she ultimately did, because that resulted in a $2.4 million payout, which my call. clients negotiated pursuant to Priscilla's demands. So that's the distinction. Substantively, is there anything else in the cross complaint that is a significant difference from what we've seen before? So aside from the allegations that we've referenced with regards to the tax issue in particular, which is really the biggest focus substantively, we obviously also

have claims for various employment claims such as the wrongful termination and violation of public policy. That is also tied into a claim against Priscilla's company, G-L-D-E, Inc., and that is a new defendant in this cross-complaint. Outside of the cross-complaint, I wanted to ask you about something else. So Priscilla Presley's son, Navarone Garcia, he's been sued to. He's now part of this litigation. My understanding is the main allegation is that he benefited from the services of your clients and didn't pay them? In short, correct. To clarify that, is that when my clients were working for Priscilla, she demanded, again, these are allegations, and we have a lot of evidence to support that, that she work for Navarone,

her son. And specifically, they were also tasked with negotiating a very large, ultimately, multi-million dollar settlement for Navarone in the dispute between Priscilla and Riley. So they worked extensively hard to resolve that issue, but they also did things like working for his band. So they did all of these things. There are employment claims against him. There's also claims for the value of their services against him. And there's also claims for tortious interference with contract and torsious interference with prospective economic advantage because the allegation is that he also interfered with our client's agreements with Priscilla.

Have you heard anything from his side? Have you heard anything from Priscilla's side? And where is the case currently? What's the status of it? So what I can say is there's obviously very active and pretty aggressive litigation going on, specifically with our side and with Priscilla's side. Navarone's complaint is an active litigation as well. The short answer is that we're in discovery at this time. Got it. Well, listen, I really appreciate you taking the time to explain this because you can get a little complicated. There's a lot of different players. There's a lot of different events.

I wanted to get a little bit more clarity as to what was going on, what the current status of it is. But Jordan Matthews, thank you so much for taking the time, as always. Of course. Thanks, Jesse. Appreciate it. And that is all we have for you right now here on Sidebar.

Everybody, thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcast. You can follow me on X or Instagram. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll see you next time. You can binge all episodes of this long crime series ad free right now on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.