Woman accused of trying to illegally auction off Graceland will remain in custody
Jared Kofsky/ABC News
(MEMPHIS, Tenn.) — Lisa Findley, the Missouri woman facing federal charges in connection with an alleged attempt to illegally auction off Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate, will remain locked up while her case is pending.
Findley, 53, appeared in U.S. District Court in Memphis Friday afternoon for the second week in a row for what was expected to be a detention hearing, but public defender Tyrone Paylor told Magistrate Judge Annie Christoff that Findley would be waiving her right to the hearing.
Christoff asked Findley if she understood that this meant that she would remain in custody.
“Yes,” replied Findley, who sat at the edge of the jury box, handcuffed and wearing jail-issued clothing.
Findley was arrested in Missouri on Aug. 16 on charges of mail fraud and aggravated identity theft. She was transported to Tennessee several weeks ago.
Paylor formally entered a not guilty plea on Findley’s behalf Friday. He declined to comment to reporters as he left the courtroom.
Federal prosecutors allege that Findley formed a “brazen scheme” to try to “extort a settlement from the Presley family.”
She allegedly forged the signatures of Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis Presley’s late daughter, and Florida notary Kimberly Philbrick on documents that claimed Lisa Marie took out a $3.8 million loan from a purported company called Naussany Investments prior to her death and listed Graceland as collateral.
Naussany Investments, an unregistered entity that Findley is accused of creating, filed public notices in May stating that it would auction off Graceland at the front of the Shelby County Courthouse.
A Shelby County chancellor issued a temporary injunction at the time that prevented such an auction from taking place, citing an affidavit from Philbrick that stated that her signature was forged and that she never met Lisa Marie.
Philbrick testified before a federal grand jury in August and also spoke exclusively to ABC News, telling GMA3 anchor Eva Pilgrim that she had no idea how her name became associated with the attempt to sell Graceland.
(MEMPHIS, Tenn) — Graceland, the iconic Memphis home of the late Elvis Presley, is one of America’s most recognized residences, only second to the White House. That’s why the announcement of its public auction in May caused shock and confusion among the legendary musician’s fans.
Ultimately, this incident highlighted the rising issue of alleged deed fraud.
The scandal began last spring when Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC filed a lawsuit and announced a foreclosure sale for Graceland, claiming that Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’ daughter who died in 2023, had borrowed $3.8 million and used the property as collateral.
The actor Riley Keough, Lisa Marie’s daughter, responded by filing a countersuit, seeking to enjoin the auction alleging fraud and claiming that Naussany Investments was nonexistent and had no rights to the property. This allegedly criminal plot to steal Graceland from under America’s nose caused outrage among Elvis fans.
The Memphis mansion is significant and widespread because it has been hallowed ground for generations of Elvis fans, from lovestruck teenagers in the 1950s to those inspired by his legacy today.
“People have been trying to take from Elvis since Elvis was Elvis,” Joel Weinshanker, managing partner of Elvis Presley Enterprises, told “GMA3” co-anchor Eva Pilgrim. “Elvis was a human being. He was a really good human being. He treated people really well. He lived here. He loved it here. He died here. He’s buried here. His parents are buried here. His daughter is buried here. Pick on somebody else. Have a heart, have a conscience. And even if you don’t have a heart or have a conscience — know that you won’t get away with it.”
The mansion was also home to Lisa Marie, Elvis’ only child. Her life in the spotlight and tragic death have fascinated the public since the day she was born — as the King of Rock and Roll’s princess.
Shortly after Elvis died in 1977, Lisa Marie became the sole heir to her father’s financially troubled estate, which at the time included only a few million dollars in cash and Graceland. Lisa Marie’s life seemed to stabilize when she married musician Danny Keough at the age of 20.
They had two children, Riley and Benjamin Keough. However, that stability didn’t last. She struggled with drug addiction, marriages to Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage, and the tragic 2020. suicide of her son Benjamin.
“We could all feel it coming,” Riley Keough said in Lisa Marie memoir “From here to the Great Unknown.” “We all knew my mom was going to die of a broken heart.”
Lisa Marie fiercely defended her family’s legacy. One of her last actions was to approve director Baz Luhrmann’s Oscar-nominated 2022 film “Elvis,” insisting that it highlight how her father’s musical success was rooted in his appreciation for Black culture.
“He loved gospel music and would sit outside of the blues bars,” Lisa Marie said in an interview with ABC News. “He was influenced by and raised by this. We had this conversation with Baz that it was, you know, shown that that is — that’s where he got his influence from, that’s where it started for him.”
Lisa Marie made her final public appearance at the Golden Globes on Jan. 10, 2023, when Austin Butler won the best actor award for his portrayal of Elvis. Two days later, she died. Her cause of death was reported as complications from bariatric surgery she had undergone several years earlier.
Her funeral was held at Graceland with fans lining the streets, hauntingly reminiscent of how they grieved her father more than 45 years earlier.
“She was buried alongside her father and alongside her son at Graceland,” ABC’s Chris Connelly said. “You know, the home that she loved best.”
In a shocking revelation last May, a secret entity known as Naussany Investments claimed that Lisa Marie used Graceland as collateral to take out a $3.8 million loan and had not repaid it.
Consequently, the mysterious company announced its intention to auction the property off.
“It was not thoroughly implausible to imagine that Graceland might be on the block because of something that Lisa Marie had done when she was in arrears,” Connelly said.
Keough took her role as trustee of the estate seriously, with her lawyer Bradley Russell who filed a countersuit.
In the countersuit, Riley claimed that her mother did not borrow anything and that the loan documents are forgeries.
The investigation into the alleged fraud ranged far from the iconic mansion to Florida, where they an unlikely savior in notary Kimberly Philbrick lives. An alleged fake notary seal emerged as the potential smoking gun.
“We sent our private investigator out to find the notary public who allegedly notarized these documents in 2018 to interview her and to get an affidavit from her saying that this never happened, she never notarized anything,” Russell said.
When a private investigator approached Philbrick at her workplace in Holly Hill, Florida, Philbrick said she was shocked to discover fraud had been committed in her name. She alleged that she knew right away something was off; she swore in an affidavit that it wasn’t her signature.
“Had I ever met Lisa Marie Presley? Did I sign the document? Did I notarize it? No, no, no,” Philbrick said.
Based on Philbrick’s affidavit, Keough’s lawyers hurried into court to prevent the sale of Graceland. A judge issued a temporary injunction the day before it was scheduled to be auctioned.
It took nearly three months longer to locate the alleged mastermind. In mid-August, Lisa Findley was arrested in the Ozarks. She was apprehended on Aug. 16, the 47th anniversary of Elvis’ death. Federal prosecutors charged the Missouri woman with mail fraud and aggravated identity theft.
They alleged that Findley exploited the public and tragic events in the Presley family for her personal gain.
Investigators allege that Findley used aliases to create fraudulent loan documents and that she published a fake foreclosure notice in a Memphis newspaper, announcing plans to auction off Graceland to the highest bidder. Findley has pleaded not guilty and is in jail awaiting trial. She and her attorneys did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.
Keough expressed her intention to preserve Graceland as both a museum and a home, just as her mother would have wanted.
“Still to this day, people going through the house, and there’s just this, like sort of love that just doesn’t stop,” Keough said on WABC’s Live with Kelly and Mark in 2023. “And I really love that.”
ABC News Studios’ “IMPACT x Nightline: Stealing Graceland” streams on Hulu beginning Thursday, Oct. 31.
ABC News’ Ely Brown, Sasha Pezenik, Jared Kofsky and Josh Margolin contributed to this report.
(LOS ANGELES) — At least one person is dead after a Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus was hijacked with the driver being forced to drive at gunpoint before police were able to apprehend the suspect, according to authorities.
The incident began at approximately 12:45 a.m. when the Los Angeles Police Department received radio calls to a disturbance on a bus in the area of Manchester Street and Figueroa Street in southern Los Angeles, said Deputy Chief Donald Graham in a briefing to the media Wednesday morning. Initial reports said that there was a potential assault with a weapon before officers discovered the bus stopped at 117th St and Figueroa St.
However, when the LAPD tried to make contact with the people on the bus, the bus started to pull away from the responding officers which led to an hourlong pursuit into the downtown area, officials said.
The bus eventually ended at Alameda St. and 6th Street at approximately 2:10 a.m. after police deployed multiple spike strips and were able to puncture a tire on the right side of the vehicle. On the bus there were two passengers, the driver and suspect.
A SWAT team was immediately called in to assist in the hostage situation and were able to get on the bus and rescue two people, the driver and a passenger, Graham said in his briefing to the media.
The suspect surrendered immediately and was brought into custody. However, when police were clearing the bus, a fourth person was found on with multiple gunshot wounds.
The victim was taken to a local hospital where he later died from his injuries. Two other patients declined treatment, authorities said.
(WASHINGTON) — Four Russian military aircraft passed through the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone on Monday, the North American Aerospace Defense Command said.
All four aircraft remained in international airspace and did not enter either American or Canadian sovereign airspace, NORAD said in a press release. There was no intercept, it added.
“This Russian activity in the Alaska ADIZ occurs regularly and is not seen as a threat,” NORAD said.
Monday’s detection is the fifth such incident in September so far, according to NORAD’s public statements noting detections. NORAD did not specify what type of Russian aircraft were involved. The command identified Russian IL-38 maritime patrol aircraft inside the Alaska ADIZ earlier this month.
The ADIZ begin at the limit of national airspace — in this case that of the U.S. and Canada. Such zones require “the ready identification of all aircraft in the interest of national security,” NORAD said.
The command “employs a layered defense network of satellites, ground-based and airborne radars and fighter aircraft to track aircraft and inform appropriate actions,” it said in its press release.
“NORAD remains ready to employ a number of response options in defense of North America,” it added.
