Missouri Grandmother Arrested in Bizarre Plot to Steal Elvis Presley’s Graceland
Three months after Graceland almost died saved from auction blockOfficials said they arrested the woman behind the an alleged scam heirs to Elvis Presley’s estate. Federal prosecutors say a 53-year-old woman named Lisa Jeanine Findley behind a plot to steal the famous mansion from the Presley family, taking advantage of sudden death The music icon’s daughter undermines the family his real estate holdings in Tennessee.
Through a written statement, the Head of the Criminal Division of the Ministry of Justice Nicole M. Argentieri said that Findley, who allegedly used various names including Lisa Holden, Lisa Howell, Gregory Naussany, Kurt Naussany, Lisa Jeanine Sullins and Carolyn Williams, “directed a scheme to effect a fraudulent sale of Graceland, falsely claiming that Elvis Presley’s daughter had mortgaged the historic site as collateral for a loan she failed to repay before her death”.
Argentieri is telling a strange story was launched in Maywhen a company called Naussany Investments & Private Lending (NIPL) claimed that Lisa Marie Presley, who died in early 2023 at the age of 54, borrowed $3.8 million from the company in 2015, using the title to Graceland as collateral. Citing the unpaid debt, NIPL announced a foreclosure auction of the house, causing a public uproar. globally.
Immediately after the auction was advertised, the actor Riley Keough, Elvis’s niece and the trustee for the property, filed a 61-page lawsuit claimed that the documents NIPL used to justify its claim were forged. The court agreed and blocked the sale; in a subsequent message to Daily mailA representative for NIPL said they would withdraw “any prejudicial claims.”
The Washington Post report that a person identifying himself as Kurt Naussany first contacted Keough’s legal team on July 14, 2023, using an email address—[email protected]—that FBI agents Christopher Townsend said had been created earlier that day. In the email, Naussany threatened to seize Graceland if he did not receive a response within 10 days. When asked for more information about the alleged loan, Naussany responded with a document that Townsend later determined was a forgery. According to the DOJ, Naussany demanded a payment of $2.85 million to settle the debt. (Vanity Fair Keogh’s representatives have been contacted for comment, but have not yet received a response as of publication time.)
After Keough refused to comply with “Naussany’s” demands, he filed a debt collection action in Los Angeles and proceeded to foreclose on the property the following year. When Keough’s lawsuit prevented the foreclosure, public attention turned to the person behind NIPL, a company with little public presence in the states where it claimed to operate. A self-described identity thief based in Nigeria has suggested arrive New York Times that his “network of ‘worms'” was behind the scam, while CNN reported that someone speaking a language primarily spoken by Ugandans had contacted them to claim responsibility.
But according to one NBC June ReportThe prime suspect is believed to be Findley, a grandmother from Branson, Missouri “with a decades-long criminal record for romance fraud, check forgery and bank fraud totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars, which landed her in state and federal prison.”
According to NBC, which said it discovered Findlay through email accounts used to post “negative reviews of people and businesses she didn’t like,” a former roommate of Findlay’s went to the FBI after Findlay allegedly described the scam in detail, claiming she “would get a few million dollars.”
When contacted by NBC, Findlay did not state any connection to the Graceland case, and sent a cease and desist order letter to reporter Zadrozny BrandyBut according to the Justice Department, which arrested Findlay on Friday, Findley was actually behind the scheme, allegedly impersonating at least three different people as she allegedly tried to “extort the Presley family.”
“Findley allegedly forged loan documents in which Findley forged the signatures of Elvis Presley’s daughter and a Florida notary,” the DOJ said in a statement. “Findley then allegedly filed a false creditor’s claim in the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles and a false deed of trust with the Shelby County Register in Memphis. Findley also allegedly published a fraudulent foreclosure notice in The Commercial Appeal, one of Memphis’ daily newspapers, announcing that Naussany Investments planned to auction Graceland to the highest bidder on May 23.”
Prosecutors have filed charges against Findlay that include mail fraud and aggravated identity theft. If convicted of aggravated identity theft, she faces a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison. If convicted of mail fraud, she could face up to 20 years in prison.
