Welcome Slind,
to the bowels of the Talk Graphics forum. The problem could be two things: It could be a mask, try Alt+ctrl+7. which would release the clipping mask. You can also do it through, Object, Clipping mask, release or your the shortcut given. It also could be bitmap in a file type like tiff which is not supported by Live Trace or other types of files but as you can take the fill out I think it must be in vector format.

If you still have problems with the object after trying the clipping mask how about posting the file here so we can have a quick look and help. If the file is very large that the forum will not upload it you can always write me a private message and we can exchange email addresses and do it that way.