Missouri woman pleads guilty in brazen plot to sell Graceland

A Missouri lady pleaded responsible Tuesday to a federal cost accusing her of concocting a brazen plot to defraud Elvis Presley’s household by making an attempt to public sale off his Graceland mansion and property earlier than a decide halted the mysterious foreclosures sale.

Throughout a listening to in entrance of a Memphis federal decide, Lisa Jeanine Findley pleaded responsible to a cost of mail fraud associated to the scheme. She beforehand pleaded not responsible to the two-count indictment, which additionally features a rely of aggravated identification theft that may now be dropped.

When requested by the decide if Findley was admitting guilt and accepting duty, she mentioned “Sure.” Findley will likely be sentenced on June 19. She would have confronted as much as 20 years if convicted, however she is anticipated to obtain lower than that underneath the plea deal.

Findley, of Kimberling Metropolis, falsely claimed Presley’s daughter Lisa Marie Presley borrowed $3.8 million from a bogus personal lender and had pledged Graceland as collateral for the mortgage before her death in January 2023, prosecutors alleged when she was charged in August 2024. She then threatened to promote Graceland to the very best bidder if Presley’s household did not pay a $2.85 million settlement, in line with authorities.

Findley posed as three totally different folks allegedly concerned with the faux lender, fabricated mortgage paperwork, and printed a fraudulent foreclosures discover in a Memphis newspaper asserting the public sale of Graceland in Might 2024, prosecutors mentioned. A decide stopped the sale after Presley’s granddaughter Riley Keough sued.

Consultants had been baffled by the try to unload one of the vital storied items of actual property within the nation utilizing names, emails and paperwork that had been shortly suspected to be phony.

In Might, a public discover for a foreclosures sale of the 13-acre property mentioned Promenade Belief, which controls the Graceland museum, owes $3.8 million after failing to repay a 2018 mortgage. Keough inherited the belief and possession of the house after the dying of her mom, Lisa Marie Presley. 

Keough filed a lawsuit claiming fraud, and a decide halted the proposed public sale with an injunction. Naussany Investments and Personal Lending — the bogus lender authorities say Findley created — mentioned Lisa Marie Presley had used Graceland as collateral for the mortgage, in line with the foreclosures sale discover. Keough’s lawsuit alleged that Naussany introduced fraudulent paperwork concerning the mortgage in September 2023 and that Lisa Marie Presley by no means borrowed cash from Naussany. 

Kimberly Philbrick, the notary whose title is listed on Naussany’s paperwork, indicated she by no means met Lisa Marie Presley nor notarized any paperwork for her, in line with the property’s lawsuit. The decide mentioned the notary’s affidavit brings into query “the authenticity of the signature.”

The decide halted the foreclosures sale of the beloved Memphis tourist attraction, saying Elvis Presley’s property may very well be profitable in arguing that an organization’s try to public sale Graceland was fraudulent.

Elvis purchased Graceland in 1957 and died there in 1977, and about 5 years later, the mansion was opened to the general public as a museum and vacationer attraction. A whole lot of 1000’s of vacationers go to the 17,552-square-foot mansion annually, which was named to the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations in 1991. Guests can then cease on the giant Presley-themed leisure complicated throughout the road.

Elvis and different members of the Presley household, together with Lisa Marie Presley and her son, Benjamin Keough, who died by suicide in 2020, are buried on the mansion’s grounds. 

Keough, who starred within the tv collection hit “Daisy Jones and the Six,” mentioned in a 2024 interview with CBS News that she plans to proceed working the beloved property and hold the mansion within the household. Keough and her husband Ben Smith-Peterson have a daughter, Tupelo, who’s Elvis’ first great-grandchild. 

“I feel, like, my intuition with the whole lot is all the time to do what my mom would have needed. Which is to maintain it a house,” Keough instructed CBS News final yr. “It was our household’s dwelling.”