Police have arrested a Missouri woman who prosecutors say conspired to steal the rights to Graceland from Elvis Presley’s family and extort millions of dollars.
Lisa Janine Findley, 53, was arrested Friday and is expected to be charged with mail fraud and aggravated identity theft, charges that carry sentences of two to 20 years in prison, according to federal prosecutors in Missouri.
The bizarre plan first came to light this spring in a legal battle filed by Presley’s granddaughter, actress Riley Keough, who has owned the 13.8-acre Memphis estate since her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, died in January 2023.
Keough called off the scheme in May. Since then, federal prosecutors in Missouri have put together a complex case against the alleged ringleader, including multiple false identities, forged signatures and foreclosure notices published in Memphis newspapers.
Prosecutors said Friday that Findley posed as three different people from a fictitious financial institution called Nowsunny Investments, then falsely claimed that Presley’s daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, Keough’s mother, borrowed $3.8 million from Nowsunny in 2018 and defaulted on the loan, using Graceland as collateral, prosecutors said.
As part of the scheme, prosecutors said Findlay forged Lisa Marie Presley’s signature on false loan documents and submitted multiple false documents, including a Los Angeles creditor’s bill and a Memphis deed of trust.
According to prosecutors, Findlay published a fraudulent foreclosure notice in the Memphis daily newspaper, The Commercial Appeal, announcing that Nowsany planned to auction Graceland to the highest bidder on May 23.
When plans for the auction became national news, Findlay “allegedly wrote letters to representatives of Elvis Presley’s family, Tennessee state courts and the media, falsely claiming that a Nigerian identity thief in Nigeria was responsible for the scheme,” prosecutors said in a press release.
“He orchestrated a scheme to fraudulently sell Graceland,” Department of Justice Criminal Division Chief Nicole M. Argentieri said after Findley’s arrest.
According to Argentieri, Findlay falsely claimed that Elvis Presley’s daughter had pledged the historic property as collateral for a loan that she was unable to repay before her death.
“As part of this brazen scheme, we allege that the defendants created numerous false documents in an attempt to extort a settlement amounting to $2.8 million from the Presley family,” she said.
An attorney for Keough, star of Amazon Prime’s “Daisy Jones and the Six,” did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Findlay is scheduled to be arraigned Friday in Kansas City, Missouri.
