Uri Geller's dream of turning the first home Elvis Presley owned into a museum dedicated to the paranormal has been dealt a setback nearly as bizarre as the spoon-bending trick that made the Israeli-born 'psychic' famous. Geller, who thought he had purchased the Memphis property in an eBay auction last month for $905,100, learned on Friday the sellers had turned around and sold the 3,000-square-foot (280-sq-metres) house to a foundation set up by Mike Curb, the longtime music producer.
The King of rock 'n' roll lived in the house at 1034 Audubon Dr. for 13 months before moving to Graceland, the now-famous Memphis estate where he died in 1977. It was not immediately clear what Curb, elected lieutenant governor of California in the late 1970s, paid for the four-bedroom, two-bath home Elvis bought in 1956 with royalties from 'Heartbreak Hotel'. What was clear late on Friday was that Geller was preparing for a protracted legal fight to get the house back. 'We are absolutely, mind-blown angry', Geller told Reuters by telephone from his home in London. "Of course we're going to sue."
Geller and his two partners, New York lawyer Pete Gleason and Lisbeth Silvandersson, a Swedish-born jewelry maker who lives in England, may not be able to pursue a breach of contract claim against the sellers.
That's because eBay maintains real estate auctions on its site are marketing events, and not actual sales.
'The platform we provide in real estate really serves to generate interest," EBay spokeswoman Catherine England told Reuters.' ... It isn't a legally binding contract."
And yet another odd twist may yet give Geller a chance. The sellers, a husband and wife, recently had their debts discharged in bankruptcy court, Doug Alrutz, Geller's Memphis lawyer, told Reuters. While the couple had included the home in their list of assets, the court did not appreciate its value. As a result, the bankruptcy trustee is now thinking about reopening the case, a move that could lead the court to reverse all the sellers' actions, Alrutz said.
July 26, 2009
Uri Geller's Elvis Museum Plan Dealt Setback
Bizarre run of evangelist Tony Alamo may be over
The Associated Press: Bizarre run of evangelist Tony Alamo may be overBizarre run of evangelist Tony Alamo may be overOf all the horrid accusations against evangelist Tony Alamo — and the list is long — it was the testimony of formerly loyal subjects, recounting "marriages" between their cult leader and girls as young as 8, that may end his 40-year rule and send him to prison for life.
Born Bernie Lazar Hoffman, the 74-year-old faces up to 175 years behind bars following his conviction Friday on 10 counts of transporting young girls across state lines for sexual purposes. Some jurors wept while women described being molested by and forced into sex with their decades-older pastor.
Among many who've watched Alamo's handiwork since the 1970s — which produced allegations including kidnapping, brainwashing, child abuse, tax evasion and threatening a federal judge — there was never any doubt the street-hustler-turned-pastor should be locked away for good. Their question is, what took so long?
"This man has been running around the country for decades getting away with doing awful things and hurtful things to people," said Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which lists Tony Alamo Christian Ministries as a hate group for its virulent anti-Catholicism and homophobic leaflets.
"Law enforcement is very reluctant to intervene in what looks like religion," Potok said "You've got to be very careful when you are attacking people's beliefs. There is a tendency to not want to violate people's constitutional rights."
To understand Alamo's twisted legacy and once-massive movement, it helps to know the beginning.
Bernie Hoffman of Joplin, Mo., a self-admitted petty criminal, arrived in Los Angeles in the 1960s, claiming he was a music promoter with clients including the Beatles. In a bar, he met a chain-smoking aspiring actress named Susan Lipowitz.
Both were married to others. Both soon divorced. They married in 1966 in Las Vegas and legally changed their names to Tony and Susan Alamo for reasons that remain unclear.
The Alamos built a congregation from runaways, drug addicts, and drifters that littered Hollywood Boulevard. They started businesses, including making rhinestone-studded denim jackets that fetched $500 or more.
They promised eternal salvation and free room and board. In exchange, they demanded total control of their followers' money, communication and sex lives. The congregation swelled to 700 or more and the Alamos grew rich.
When Susan died in 1982 from lung cancer, Alamo displayed her embalmed body in a glass coffee table, ordering the faithful to pray for her resurrection.
But defections started. Former members carried tales of corporal punishment, forced marriages and being refused food for days.
In 1987, brothers Carey Miller and Bob Miller fled the California compound, leaving three sons. When the men came back one night to take the boys, they found that 11-year-old Justin had been paddled. Authorities said he had been beaten for "misbehavior" including asking a science question in history class, punished with 140 blows from a 3-foot board while Alamo gave orders via speaker phone.
"Justin Miller was beaten and mistreated," said Pennsylvania attorney Peter Georgiades, who specializes in cult cases. Not as punishment, he said, but "because they were trying to control all the other parents who were thinking 'we should get out of here.'"
His bloodied backside prompted authorities to raid the compound, but Alamo was gone.
The Los Angeles District Attorney's office charged him with felony child abuse and the FBI launched a manhunt. Alamo was arrested in 1991 in Florida, where he'd been living under an assumed name and running local businesses. The IRS also charged him with tax evasion, and he was sentenced to six years for refusing to pay taxes totaling $7.9 million. While he was incarcerated, Los Angeles prosecutors dismissed their case against Alamo.
After Alamo left federal prison, he started another compound in the tiny town of Fouke, Ark., near the Texas border, with about 100 followers. He still preached that Armageddon was around the corner and young girls made the best wives.
Until last September, when more than 100 agents, including state police and the FBI, raided his Arkansas property. Alamo surrendered five days later and was denied bail. For the first time, his followers openly revolted.
Women were talking — on an Internet site and to state police, who alerted the FBI. They were tired of being abused, they said. They'd been given to Alamo as teenagers. They'd seen others handed over at ages 8, 9 and 10.
Neighbors, angry that Alamo posted armed guards on the public road leading to his property, said they'd had enough. The town council got complaints.
Carl Hassan, a mental health therapist who counsels cult defectors, said he'd heard the abuse complaints and offered help. "There was a lot of lobbying done behind the scenes on behalf of these victims by their families and others," he said. He declined to provide details, and neither the FBI nor Arkansas State Police would comment on the Arkansas case.
"Liars," Alamo called them on his Web site. "Bull----," he said aloud in court.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Uri Geller - Occupation: Paranormal
Uri GellerUri Geller
AKA Uri Geller Freud
Born: 20-Dec-1946
Birthplace: Tel Aviv, IsraelGender: Male
Religion: Jewish
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: ParanormalNationality: Israel
Executive summary: Thinks he has us snowedMilitary service: Israeli Army (Six Days War)
As a young man, Uri Geller worked as a male model for two years, before marketing his powers of telepathy and psychokinesis -- his mind's amazing alleged ability to manipulate the physical world. Geller started performing in small nightclubs, then in larger venues, and soon spoon-bending paid better than modeling.
His first paranormality, Geller says, occurred when he was a young boy playing in tall grass, and he suddenly heard a high-pitched sound and was struck by a ray of light like a laser beam. He ran home to tell his mother, who gave him a bowl of soup ... and then his spoon started bending. Or so Geller says.
Ever since, no cutlery has been safe from Geller. And not just tableware, even keys have been bent by his unfathomable psychic powers. When he scrunches his eyebrows just so, watches stop keeping time. Of course, any of Geller's famous stunts can be performed by a competent sleight-of-hand magician, but Geller denies using any form of trickery. So it must be magic.
Over his long career, Geller has bent more than 10,000 spoons, or possibly bent the same spoon ten thousand times. He claims that he has been hired as a "psychic geologist" to help oil companies find crude petroleum reserves (but these companies' identities must remain secret). Geller also says that he has worked with both the FBI and the CIA, using what he calls 'mindpower' to "erase KGB computer files and track serial killers, to attend nuclear disarmament negotiations to bombard and influence delegates with positive thought waves so that they would sign the Nuclear Arms Reduction Treaty." We can only say, thank you, Uri Geller, for helping the world avoid nuclear catastrophe.
In 1973, Geller was invited on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, to demonstrate his phenomenal powers by bending some spoons and identifying hidden objects. Geller accepted the challenge, but Carson also invited skeptic James Randi to ensure that no-one tampered with any of spoons, keys, or other trinkets subjected to Geller's mindpowers. The results were astounding: Geller was unable to perform any of his trademark stunts. He has also declined a long-standing offer of $1-million from Randi's organization, to subject Geller's amazing accomplishments to scientific scrutiny.
Geller has said that he probed Michael Jackson's mind and thus knows beyond doubt Jackson is not a child-molester, so he was happy to have Jackson as best man when Geller and his wife renewed their wedding vows in 2001. Geller and Jackson, though, later had a falling-out when anti-Semitic remarks were attributed to Jackson.
At Geller's website, he sells personally autographed quartz crystals, pendants, "mindpower kits," and other paranormal supplies and souvenirs. For only £12.50 (about $23, in US funds) you can purchase a key chain (shipping and handling not included) featuring a miniaturized mirror image of a laser-beam cast of Geller's own remarkable right hand.
Father: Tibor Geller (British Army sergeant major, d.)
Mother: Margaret Geller
Father: Ladisalas Gero (stepfather, married Geller's mother)
Wife: Hanna Shtrang (m. 1979)
Son: Daniel (b. 1980)
Daughter: Natalie (b. 1982)
Son: (born to a girlfriend)Austrian Ancestry
Hungarian Ancestry
Risk Factors: Bulimia, VegetarianFILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
Sanitarium (27-Dec-2001)
Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? (13-Nov-1999) Himself
Dying of Laughter (12-Mar-1999) HimselfOfficial Website:
http://www.uri-geller.com/Rotten Library Page:
Uri GellerIs the subject of books:
Author of books:
The Truth About Uri Geller, 1982, BY: James Randi
The Geller Effect (1986, with Guy Leon Playfair)
Unorthodox Encounters (2001)
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