Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, February 24, 1995                   TAG: 9502240070
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MONETA                                 LENGTH: Medium

BUY A TICKET, GET A VOTE: IS ELVIS ALIVE OR DEAD?

The Presley Commission, which announced last summer that Elvis is alive and living under the federal witness protection program, will have its day in court Saturday - sort of.

The Monterey Law Review of the Monterey College of Law in California will hold a mock trial to deliver a verdict on the Presley Commission's investigation. The inquiry concluded Elvis faked his 1977 death and had to go into hiding because of his undercover activities as a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

Phil Aitcheson of Moneta, head of the commission that released its 300-page report in September at a Smith Mountain Lake camper resort, will be the witness. He will be cross-examined by San Francisco attorney Melvin Belli.

The verdict will be returned by a jury of spectators willing to shell out $10 to watch the trial.

Many will be lured, no doubt, by the advance billings: ``Important new revelations are expected to emerge. ... The results may shock you.''

Paul Sanford, editor of the law review of the small, private law school in Monterey, Calif., said the school hopes ``to raise a little bit of money and have a little fun. We are doing it in a fair-minded and professional way, but you also have to have a sense of humor.''

Sanford said law students scraped together enough frequent-flier miles to bring Aitcheson to the West Coast. For Belli, who gained fame as Jack Ruby's lawyer, the law review will spring for a limousine ride and hotel room.

Sanford said he was pursuing the idea with other Elvis-is-alive advocates last year when he heard of the Presley Commission and its report with meticulously documented evidence purporting to prove Elvis' survival.

Sanford's original choices for celebrity legal talent included Belli, F. Lee Bailey and Judge Joseph Wapner of "The People's Court." ``We got one, at least,'' he said.

Elvis as a legal controversy should be a sure draw, Sanford said.

``It seems like the whole Elvis thing is getting bigger and bigger,'' he said. ``You can't go 24 hours without running into him some way.''