Graceland scheme suspect pleads guilty to defrauding Elvis Presley's family
A Missouri woman has changed her plea in a case revolving around her role in a scheme to defraud Elvis Presley’s family of millions of dollars and sell the Graceland estate in Memphis.
On Tuesday, Lisa Jeanine Findley, 53, pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and is scheduled to be sentenced June 18, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice. She faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
Findley was arrested in Missouri in August and charged with mail fraud and aggravated identity theft. The charges were in connection with an attempted fraudulent scheme and orchestrating fake aliases, court filings and business entities in an attempt to foreclose on the Graceland estate.
According to court documents: Findley falsely claimed Elvis' daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, had pledged the Memphis estate as collateral for a loan she failed to repay before her 2023 death. Findley then threatened to foreclose on Graceland and auction it if Elvis' family did not pay or settle the claim.
Findley's last court appearance was in January. At the time, the Department of Justice was still organizing its final pieces of evidence which included 56 gigabytes and 54,000 pages of evidence.
Lisa Findley was accused of making numerous fake aliases in fraud scheme
According to a 30-page criminal complaint filed with the initial charges, Findley had created several aliases, including Lisa Holden, Lisa Jeanine Sullins, Lisa Howell, Gregory Naussany, Kurt Naussany and Carolyn Williams.
The aliases known as Gregory Naussany, Kurt Naussany and Carolyn Williams were associated with a fraudulent entity created by Findley called Naussany Investments and Private Lending.
In May, Graceland nearly went to public auction after a public notice for a foreclosure sale was posted in The Commercial Appeal, part of the Paste BN network.
Later that month, Shelby County Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins blocked the pending foreclosure sale from Naussany Investments. The Shelby County Chancery Court ruling came about after Riley Keougg filed a lawsuit against Naussany Investments claiming the sale was fraudulent and included forged documents.
Keough, Elvis Presley's granddaughter, inherited the Graceland estate via The Promenade Trust in May 2023, following the death of her mother, Lisa Marie Presley.
Findley's criminal history includes falsifying social security numbers
The case took an increasingly bizarre series of turns following the Shelby County Chancery Court injunction. First, with an email from the alias, "Gregory Naussany," of Naussany Investments claiming to drop the case. The email was riddled with grammatical errors.
Then on May 25, The Commercial Appeal was contacted by an email with an address associated with "Kurt Naussany." The author of the email, which was written in Spanish, claimed to be the "Yahoo Ring Leader of Nigeria" and took credit for the fraudulent actions associated with the Graceland case.
Several media outlets including the New York Times and The Daily Memphian received similar emails, each varying in details and each written in a different language.
Findley has a history of scams and fraudulent activity dating back to 2002. According to court records, she was charged and found guilty for falsifying social security numbers between May 2002 to October 2004. In that span, she falsified more than $194,000 in checks.
In March 2006, she was arrested in California on charges for fraud and embezzlement. Those charges were in relation to bank fraud from a February 2006 case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma. She was sentenced to 20 months in prison on October, 2006. Findley had a five-year supervised released beginning on June 2, 2008, which was revoked after a conviction in Oklahoma for forged documents. She received an 12-month prison sentence and 48-month supervised released, beginning on Oct. 31, 2011, according to court records.
Findley has been in federal custody since her arrest in August 2024.