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MEMPHIS — Celebrity psychic Uri Geller and two partners have lost a federal lawsuit claiming the former owners of Elvis Presley's pre-Graceland house breached an eBay contract to sell the Memphis home.
Geller, who gained fame in the 1970s for his alleged power to bend spoons and other objects with his mind, and his partners bid $905,100 for the ranch-style home in a 2006 auction by owners Cindy Hazen and Mike Freeman.
But the deal fell apart. Hazen said Geller's group altered terms of the real estate deal so that it was unacceptable. Geller said Hazen and Freeman reneged on the deal in order to sell it for more to Nashville record producer Mike Curb, who bought the house for $1 million.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Jon McCalla ruled that the eBay auction was more of an advertising vehicle than a binding sale.
Even if it was a contract, the judge said, Geller and his partners breached it when they altered the closing terms after the sale.
"I'm relieved that this is all over," Hazen told the Memphis newspaper The Commercial Appeal.
Presley bought the four-bedroom, 3,000-square-foot house in 1956 with his early song royalties. The singer, his parents and grandmother lived there for 13 months before throngs of fans forced them to move to more secluded Graceland in 1957.
Curb plans to let Rhodes College use the home as part of a new Mike Curb Music Institute.
