A Missouri woman was sentenced Tuesday to more than four years in federal prison for scheming to defraud Elvis Presley’s family by trying to auction off his Graceland home and property before a judge halted the brazen foreclosure sale.
U.S. District Judge John T. Fowlkes Jr. sentenced Lisa Jeanine Findley in federal court in Memphis to four years and nine months behind bars, plus an additional three years of probation. Findley, 54, declined to speak on her own behalf during the hearing.
Findley pleaded guilty in February to a charge of mail fraud related to the scheme. She also had been indicted on a charge of aggravated identity theft, but that charge was dropped as part of a plea agreement.
Findley, of Kimberling City, falsely claimed Lisa Marie Presley borrowed $3.8 million from a bogus private lender and had pledged Graceland as collateral for the loan before her death in January 2023, prosecutors said when Findley was charged in August 2024. Findley then threatened to sell Graceland to the highest bidder if Presley’s family didn’t pay a $2.85 million settlement, according to prosecutors.
Findley posed as three different people allegedly involved with the fake lender, fabricated loan documents and published a fraudulent foreclosure notice in a Memphis newspaper announcing the auction of Graceland in May 2024, prosecutors said. A judge stopped the sale after Riley Keough, Lisa Marie’s daughter, sued.
Experts were baffled by the attempt to sell off one of the most storied pieces of real estate in the country using names, emails and documents that were quickly suspected to be phony.
Graceland opened as a museum and tourist attraction in 1982 and draws hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. A large Presley-themed entertainment complex across the street from the museum is owned by Elvis Presley Enterprises. Presley died in August 1977 at the age of 42. Members of the Presley family, including Elvis, Lisa Marie and Benjamin Keough are buried on the property.
The public notice for the foreclosure sale of the 13-acre estate said Promenade Trust, which controls the Graceland museum, owed $3.8 million after failing to repay a 2018 loan. Keough inherited the trust and ownership of the home after her mother’s death.
After the scheme fell apart, Findley tried to make it look like the person responsible was a Nigerian identity thief, prosecutors said. An email sent May 25, 2024, to the AP from the same email as the earlier statement said in Spanish that the foreclosure sale attempt was made by a Nigerian fraud ring that targets old and dead people in the U.S. and uses the internet to steal money.
