A Missouri woman pleaded guilty to a charge of mail fraud connected to a cockamamie scheme that attempted to claim ownership of Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate and sell it in a foreclosure auction.
Lisa Jeanine Findley, who was arrested last August, entered her guilty plea in a Memphis federal court. She previously pleaded not guilty to a two-count indictment – the second count of aggravated identity theft will be dropped. Findley will be sentenced on June 19.
Findley – who used multiple aliases including Lisa Holden, Lisa Howell, Gregory Naussany, Kurt Naussany, Lisa Jeanine Sullins, and Carolyn Williams – posed as three different individuals affiliated with a fictitious private lender named Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC and claimed Presley’s daughter, the late Lisa-Marie Presley, borrowed $3.8 million in 2018 from Naussany Investments while pledging Graceland as collateral for the loan. After insisting that Presley failed to repay the debt, Findley allegedly fabricated loan documents with forged signatures for Lisa-Marie Presley and a Florida State notary public.
Findley then allegedly filed a false creditor’s claim with the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles, and a fake deed of trust with the Shelby County Register’s Office in Memphis. Findley also allegedly published a fraudulent foreclosure notice in The Commercial Appeal, a Memphis newspaper, announcing that Naussany Investments planned to auction Graceland to the highest bidder last May.
When Naussany Investments was sued by Elvis Presley’s family in Tennessee state court as part of an effort to stop the sale of Graceland, Findley allegedly submitted false court filings. But after the scheme attracted global media attention and a judge blocked the auction, Findley allegedly wrote to representatives of the Presley family, the Tennessee state court, and the media to claim falsely that a Nigerian identity thief was responsible for the scheme.
Presley bought the 13.8-acre property in 1957 and died at the estate in 1977; he is buried on its grounds, along with his parents, grandmother, daughter and grandson. Graceland welcomes approximately 600,000 visitors each year, and it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1991 and was named a National Historic Landmark in 2006.
Photo: Joseph Novak / Flickr Creative Commons
