Topline
A Missouri woman was charged Friday for an alleged scheme to defraud Elvis Presley’s family and steal his Graceland estate, the Justice Department announced, following multiple legal disputes over the property’s ownership after the death of Presley’s daughter Lisa Marie last year.
The woman posed as three different people for a fake private lender, which claimed Graceland was … [+]
Key Facts
Lisa Jeanine Findley, 53, posed as multiple associates of a fake private lender named Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC, which falsely claimed ownership of the Graceland mansion after Lisa Marie, who Findley said pledged the property as collateral for a $3.8 million loan to the bogus lender, died last year, the DOJ said.
Riley Keough, Lisa Marie’s oldest child and Presley’s granddaughter, immediately contested Naussany Investments’ claim to Graceland when the firm attempted to put the estate up for auction in May, arguing in a lawsuit the company wasn’t real and produced falsified documents detailing Lisa Marie’s loan.
While attempting to foreclose on the Graceland estate, Findley filed a false creditor’s claim, created a fake deed and forged the signatures of Lisa Marie and a Florida-based notary, prosecutors claim, adding Findley sought $2.85 million from the Presley family as part of the alleged loan.
Findley, posing as Naussany Investments employees “Kurt Naussany,” “Greg Naussany” and “Carolyn Williams,” denied Keough’s claims that would have implicated her, by suggesting a Nigerian identity thief was behind the falsified documents and scheme, prosecutors said.
Findley is charged with mail fraud and aggravated identity theft and faces up to 22 years in prison if convicted on both counts, according to the DOJ.
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Big Number
Between $400 million and $500 million. That’s how much an executor overseeing Presley’s assets valued his estate at in 2020, according to Rolling Stone.
Key Background
Keough became the sole heir of Presley’s estate after a failed petition last year by Priscilla Presley, Presley’s ex-wife and Lisa Marie’s mother, who argued there were “issues” about an earlier amendment to Lisa Marie’s will naming Keough among the estate’s heirs. Naussany Investments filed a claim for Graceland in September, indicating Lisa Marie—who inherited the property in 1993—had pledged the estate as collateral for a loan in 2018. A Tennessee judge blocked Naussany Investments’ auction for Graceland in May, after Shelby County Chancellor Joe Dae Jenkins said the estate being sold outside the Presley family “would be considered irreparable harm.”
