Missouri Woman Sentenced in Failed Scheme to Steal Graceland

A Missouri woman who tried to swipe Graceland from Elvis Presley’s heirs with forged loan documents might have “Jailhouse Rock” on the brain for years to come.

Lisa Jeanine Findley, 54, was sentenced Tuesday to 57 months in federal prison for mail fraud after a Memphis judge shut down what her own public defender called a “doomed from the start” con, NBC News reported.

Findley posed as a nonexistent lender to claim Presley’s Memphis estate — an American pop culture shrine that draws more than half a million visitors a year — should be seized in foreclosure.

The news outlet, which unraveled much of the scheme, reported that Findley impersonated a man named Kurt Naussany, a purported executive at “Naussany Investments,” to demand repayment of a $3.8 million loan allegedly secured by Graceland in 2018.

The forged documents included falsified signatures from Presley’s late daughter Lisa Marie and a Florida notary. Her granddaughter, actress Riley Keough, who inherited the estate in 2023, sued to block the foreclosure and a judge quickly ruled the claim a sham.

Findley, who has a history of financial scams, went to elaborate lengths to muddy the trail, even sending investigators an email claiming an “illegal from Belize” was responsible. Before her arrest, she also emailed reporters pretending the fraudsters were West African identity thieves and daring them to “come find us in Nigeria.”

The hoax was traced back to the Ozarks, where Findley had moved after a string of romance scams and bank fraud cases; she’s originally from Oklahoma.

She was arrested last August and struck a plea deal earlier this year, admitting to mail fraud while prosecutors dropped an aggravated identity theft charge.

Her court-appointed lawyer argued she never profited from the stunt and asked for leniency. Prosecutors countered that she only stopped once she was caught.

A lawyer representing Keough in the foreclosure case declined to comment, while Keough’s estate lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

— Holden Walter-Warner