Maybe Lisa Jeanine Findley was thinking along the lines of 'go big or go home.' Or maybe she was just thinking that this was one hell of a get-rich-quick scheme. But trying to steal Graceland? GRACELAND! As in the home of the King of Rock and Roll (not to mention the topic of the wonderful eponymous Paul Simon song, which is, of course, today's earworm - and one of the few earworms I've actually been happy to have earworming around in my brain).
Here's what Lisa Jeanine Findley, "also known as Lisa Holden, Lisa Howell, Gregory Naussany, Kurt Naussany, Lisa Jeanine Sullins, and Carolyn Williams" was up to:
[She allegedly] falsely claimed Presley’s daughter pledged the property as collateral for a loan she failed to pay before she died last year, prosecutors said. She fabricated loan documents and then published a bogus foreclosure notice in a Memphis newspaper announcing that Graceland would be auctioned off to the highest bidder in May, prosecutors said.
...In May, a public notice for a foreclosure sale of the 13-acre (5-hectare) estate said Promenade Trust, which controls the Graceland museum, owes $3.8 million after failing to repay a 2018 loan. Riley Keough, Presley’s granddaughter and an actor, inherited the trust and ownership of the home after the death of her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, last year.
Keough filed a lawsuit claiming fraud, and a judge halted the proposed auction with an injunction. Naussany Investments and Private Lending said Lisa Marie Presley had used Graceland as collateral for the loan, according to the foreclosure sale notice. Keough’s lawsuit alleged that Naussany presented fraudulent documents regarding the loan in September 2023 and that Lisa Maria Presley never borrowed money from Naussany. (Source: PBS)
Just in the nick of time, the "brazen scheme" was discovered - among other things, the notary whose name was on the documents as attesting to Lisa Marie Presley's signature found out she was implicated and affidavited an immediate 'no way.' So in May, Tennessee authorities put the kibosh on the auction and whistled in the Feds.
Lisa-0f-the-many-names-including-an-awful-lot-of-Lisas, if convicted, is facing some quality time (20 years+) in the pen.
And Graceland is saved to continue it's role as a monument to Elvis and a primo tourist attraction that's on plenty of bucket lists. (It's not on mine, but if I were anywhere near Memphis, I'd sure give it a whirl. Who wouldn't want to see where Elvis made those peanut butter, bacon and banana sandwiches? His Jungle Room man cave? The place where the King is buried?)
What astounds me here is why someone with larceny in their heart and mind would go for such a prominent target to swindle. Surely there are no-name folks with no-name heirs whose estates could have been more easily stolen. But the foreclosure notice for Graceland, placed in a Memphis newspaper, was bound to attract plenty of attention. And some of that attention would surely have made its way to the daughter of the other Lisa, the real Lisa, Lisa Marie Presley: Riley Keough. (Lisa Marie Presley's estate - a.k.a., the Elvis Presley estate - was left to Riley Keough, and to Lisa Marie's other daughters, who are teenagers. Riley Keough - not a bad actress, by the way - is the prime in terms of overseeing the estate on behalf of her half sisters. The overall estate is estimated as being worth over $700M.)
Seriously, if Graceland were up for auction because Lisa Marie Presley used it as collateral for a measly $3.8M loan she didn't repay, the news would have made headlines all over the world. Guarantee it would have played on al the national news networks. No way someone wouldn't have uncovered the ruse. And someone, of course, did.
Lisa Jeanine Findley's defense so far is the ever popular, I'm the victim of a Nigerian identity thief. The supposed Nigerian identity theft is no doubt a prince, but, let's face it, a king is always going to trump a lowly prince. Let alone some a.k.a. dumb bunny who tried to swindle Elvis' heirs.
Talk about fools rush in...
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