A Missouri woman has been arrested on charges that she orchestrated a brazen scheme to defraud Elvis Presley’s family by trying to auction off his Graceland mansion and property before a judge halted the mysterious foreclosure sale, the US Department of Justice said on Friday.
Lisa Jeanine Findley, 53, of Kimberling City, falsely said that Presley’s daughter borrowed US$3.8 million from a bogus private lender and had pledged Graceland as collateral for the loan before her death last year, prosecutors said.
She then threatened to sell Graceland to the higher bidder if Presley’s family did not pay a US$2.85 million settlement, authorities said.
Photo: AFP
Experts were baffled by the attempt to sell off one of the most storied pieces of real estate in the country using names, e-mails and documents that were quickly suspected to be phony.
Graceland opened as a museum and tourist attraction in 1982, and draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. A large Presley-themed entertainment complex across the street from the museum is owned by Elvis Presley Enterprises.
The announcement of charges came on the 47th anniversary of Presley’s death at the age of 42.
“Ms. Findley allegedly took advantage of the very public and tragic occurrences in the Presley family as an opportunity to prey on the name and financial status of the heirs to the Graceland estate, attempting to steal what rightfully belongs to the Presley family for her personal gain,” said Eric Shen, inspector in charge of the US Postal Inspection Service Criminal Investigations Group.
An attorney for Findley, who used multiple aliases, was not listed in court documents.
A voicemail left with a phone number believed to be associated with Findley was not immediately returned, nor was an e-mail sent to an address prosecutors say she had used in the scheme.
She has been charged with mail fraud and aggravated identity theft. The mail fraud charge carries up to 20 years in prison.
She remained in custody after a brief federal court appearance in Missouri, court papers said.
In May, a public notice for a foreclosure sale of the five hectare estate said that Promenade Trust, which controls the Graceland museum, owed US$3.8 million after failing to repay a 2018 loan.
Riley Keough, Presley’s granddaughter and an actor, inherited the trust and ownership of the home after the death of her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, last year. An attorney for Keough did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on Friday.
Keough filed a lawsuit claiming fraud, and a judge halted the proposed auction with an injunction. Naussany Investments and Private Lending — the bogus lender authorities now say that Findley created — said Lisa Marie Presley had used Graceland as collateral for the loan, according to the foreclosure sale notice. Keough’s lawsuit alleged that Naussany presented fraudulent documents regarding the loan in September 2023 and that Lisa Maria Presley never borrowed money from Naussany.
Kimberly Philbrick, the notary whose name is listed on Naussany’s documents, indicated she never met Lisa Marie Presley nor notarized any documents for her, according to the estate’s lawsuit. The judge said the notary’s affidavit brings into question “the authenticity of the signature.”
The judge in May halted the foreclosure sale of the beloved Memphis tourist attraction, saying Elvis Presley’s estate could be successful in arguing that a company’s attempt to auction Graceland was fraudulent.
The Tennessee attorney general’s office had been investigating the Graceland controversy, then confirmed in June that it handed the probe over to federal authorities.
A statement emailed to The Associated Press (AP) after the judge stopped the sale said Naussany would not proceed because a key document in the case and the loan were recorded and obtained in a different state, meaning “legal action would have to be filed in multiple states.”
The statement, sent from an e-mail address listed in court documents, did not specify the other state.
After the scheme fell apart, Findley tried to make it look like the person responsible was a Nigerian identity thief, prosecutors said.
An e-mail sent May 25 to the AP from the same e-mail as the earlier statement said in Spanish that the foreclosure sale attempt was made by a Nigerian fraud ring that targets old and dead people in the US and uses the Internet to steal money.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS