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Jun 28, 2008 9:17 am US/Eastern
$1-Million Dispute Over Dead Elvis Picture
Battles Continue Over The Rock N Roll Legend
WEST PALM BEACH (CBS4) ―
The King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley, is still dead but the million-dollar battle over Elvis' final picture has erupted into a courtroom dispute.
That's because it's a photo of Elvis lying dead in his casket at Graceland published in the National Enquirer in 1977, however, the famous photo may have been destroyed during the anthrax contamination of the gossip magazine's former headquarters in Boca Raton.
The man who bought the American Media Inc. building in Boca Raton in 2003 while it was still sealed and quarantined, David Rustine, has filed a federal lawsuit against the company he hired to decontaminate the building, New York-based Sabre Technical Services.
However, two weeks before their contract was up, Rustine's lawsuit claims, Sabre demanded more time to finish the job and threatened to 'lose the Elvis photo' if the contract wasn't extended.
Rustine refused and filed suit. Sabre's President countersued for defamation and claimed that AMI advised that all the Enquirer photos be destroyed as part of the anthrax cleansing process.
There's even a picture in the court file of a Sabre worker holding the Elvis photo during a shredding operation.
In his lawsuit, Rustine has demanded the return of the Elvis picture or be paid what he says the picture is worth, $1-million.
As for the October 2001 anthrax attack that killed Enquirer photo editor Bob Stevens, it has never been solved.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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