Woman Charged in Plan to Scam Presleys Out of Graceland

Scheme included aliases, fraudulent loan documents, prosecutors say
By Bob Cronin,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 16, 2024 5:00 PM CDT
Prosecutors Detail Attempt to Scam Presleys Out of Graceland
Graceland, Elvis Presley's home, is seen in January 2011 in Memphis, Tenn.   (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)

A 53-year-old Missouri woman faces federal charges in what the Justice Department described as a scheme to defraud Elvis Presley's family out of millions of dollars and ownership of his Memphis home, Graceland. Lisa Findley of Kimberling City appeared briefly Friday in court in Missouri and is now being held in a Springfield jail, ABC News reports. The court ordered her transferred to Tennessee to face mail fraud and aggravated identity theft charges. In a criminal complaint, prosecutors gave this account:

  • Posing variously as three people affiliated with a fake private lender, Findley claimed that Presley's only child, Lisa Marie, had borrowed $3.8 million in 2018 from the lender and used Graceland as collateral. Findley said Lisa Marie Presley, who died in January 2023, had not repaid the debt.
  • Findley then sent an email, signed with one of the aliases, to attorneys for Riley Keough, who is Lisa Marie Presley's daughter and Elvis' granddaughter. The email, sent in July 2023, threatened to foreclose on Graceland.
  • Next, Findley fabricated loan documents, with forged signatures, and used them to seek $2.85 million from the family. She filed a fake creditor's claim in court in Los Angeles and a fake deed of trust in Memphis.
  • Findley ran fraudulent foreclosure notices in the Memphis newspaper, the Commercial Appeal, announcing that her fake lender, Naussany Investments, would auction off Graceland. Keough went to court, and a judge blocked the auction.

A lawyer listed in court documents as representing the defendant did not respond to a request for comment, but Findley denied involvement in any such scheme in June, per NBC News. Conviction would bring a mandatory minimum of two years in prison for aggravated identity theft and 20 years in prison for mail fraud, the Department of Justice said. Graceland has been on the American National Register of Historic Places since 1991, per CBS News. Many of the Presleys are buried on the grounds. Elvis Presley died 47 years ago Friday. (More Graceland stories.)

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