Suspect in Graceland fraud pleads guilty in connection with scheme
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(MEMPHIS, Tenn.) — A Missouri woman has pleaded guilty in connection with what prosecutors called a “brazen” attempt to fraudulently put Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate up for auction.
Lisa Findley pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud in U.S. District Court in Memphis, Tennessee, on Tuesday. As part of a plea deal, prosecutors agreed to dismiss one count of aggravated identity theft that was previously filed against her.
When asked if she understood what she was pleading guilty to, Findley said, “yes.” She did not make a statement explaining her conduct.
Prosecutors are recommending Findley receive a 57-month federal prison sentence. She is due back in court for sentencing on June 19.
Findley, 53, initially pleaded not guilty to the charges in the wake of her arrest last year. The trial had been scheduled to start in mid-April before Tuesday’s change of plea hearing.
The mail fraud charge carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
Federal prosecutors said Findley formed a “brazen scheme” to try to “extort a settlement from the Presley family.”
As part of the scheme, prosecutors said Findley forged the signatures of Elvis Presley’s late daughter Lisa Marie and Florida notary Kimberly Philbrick in order to claim that Lisa Marie did not pay back a $3.8 million loan from a purported company called Naussany Investments that listed Graceland as collateral.
Philbrick spoke exclusively to ABC News, telling “Good Morning America” in August 2024 and “IMPACT x Nightline” in October 2024 that she never notarized anything for Lisa Marie Presley and has no idea how her name got involved in the scheme.
Naussany Investments, an unregistered entity that prosecutors said Findley was behind, filed public notices in May 2024 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 eleventh hour that prevented such an auction from taking place, citing an affidavit from Philbrick that stated her signature was forged and she never met Lisa Marie.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(LOS ANGELES) — Southern California was struck by a 3.9 magnitude earthquake near Malibu, California, on Sunday evening, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries from the earthquake.
The earthquake occurred just after 8:15 p.m. PT over 7 miles west-northwest of Malibu at a depth of 14 kilometers — or approximately 8.5 miles deep.
The USGS initially reported the magnitude as 4.0.
Southern California residents in Malibu, parts of Los Angeles, the San Fernando Valley, Agoura Hills, Thousand Oaks, Camarillo, South Bay communities and Long Beach reported feeling the tremor.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(NEW YORK) — America’s fourth and eighth grade students’ sliding reading scores worsened in 2024, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which has been dubbed the nation’s report card.
“The nation’s report card is out and the news is not good,” National Center for Education Statistics Commissioner Peggy G. Carr said on a call with reporters on Tuesday.
“Students are not where they need to be or where we want them to be,” she said. “Our students, for the most part, continue to perform below the pre-pandemic levels, and our children’s reading continues to slide in both grades and subjects.”
“And, most notably, our nation’s struggling readers continue to decline the most,” Carr added.
The report card, released every two years by the Department of Education, is the largest assessment of students’ performance in public and private schools across all 50 states and Washington, D.C. It paints a grim picture of scores in critical subjects, underscoring urgent challenges for schools, policymakers and families seeking to improve performance.
Compared to 2022, this year’s average reading scores dropped by 2 points for both fourth and eighth grade assessments, according to the NCES data conducted between January and March 2024. That adds to the 3-point decrease for both grades in 2022. Forty percent of fourth graders read below NAEP basic levels, and about a third of eighth graders read below the basic level.
“The continued declines in reading scores are particularly troubling,” National Assessment Governing Board member Patrick Kelly said, adding: “Reading is foundational to all subjects, and failure to read well keeps students from accessing information and building knowledge across content areas.”
Despite the decline in reading, there was some recovery in math in 2024, but the increase has not returned students to pre-pandemic levels.
Mathematics scores climbed by 2 points for fourth graders and did not change for eighth graders from the 2022 findings. As ABC News reported two years ago, the 2022 declines in math were the largest drops in NAEP’s history.
But Peggy Carr stressed this is not solely a pandemic story. Reading scores have been declining since 2017. Among the lowest-level achievers, scores are now at the worst point since 1992.
The report card does not provide causes for the declines in scores. On the call with reporters, officials said data shows there has been a decline in students who say they’re reading “for enjoyment,” and teachers are not focusing as much on “essay responses” to questions.
The pandemic exacerbated the problems facing education in reading, math and history, according to NAEP’s 2022 assessments. Fourth grade and eighth grade students saw their largest declines ever in math, and eighth grade students received the lowest history scores since 1994, when the history assessment was first administered.
NCES data also found that while chronic absenteeism has decreased since the last assessment, student attendance is contributing to the dismal numbers. NCES defines chronic absenteeism as missing at least 10% of the school year.
“The data are clear: Students who don’t come to school are not improving,” Carr emphasized on the call.
The call also outlined a bleak outlook for the country’s lowest-performing students.
“There’s a widening achievement gap in this country and it has worsened since the pandemic, especially for grade eight,” Carr said.
It’s important to note NAEP is a challenging assessment, according to Carr. Students’ results are scored as basic, proficient or advanced. Below basic scores do not mean a child can’t read; however, Carr noted it is still worrying that scores continue to fall.
This comes as the K-12 education debate turned political during the pandemic when schools shuttered for in-person learning and parents were exposed to their child’s curriculum. Conservatives have made it a culture wars issue and denounced public schools for indoctrinating kids with inappropriate gender and critical race theory.
Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, the Chairman of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told ABC News that these results hurt vulnerable children the most, as the previous administration kept schools shuttered longer than the public health guidance.
The chairman of the Education and Workforce Committee, Rep. Tim Walberg of Michigan, said the report exposes the nation’s failing education system.
“This is clearly a reflection of the education bureaucracy continuing to focus on woke policies rather than helping students learn and grow,” the Republican congressman wrote in a statement to ABC News.
NCES officials on the call also warned that if President Donald Trump delivers on his pledge to shutter the Department of Education, they’re unsure if it will impact future assessments.
“We don’t know what will happen to NCES or NAEP,” Carr said when asked by ABC News. “We are hopeful that people will see the value in these data and what we are doing for the country.”
n this aerial view, a steel truss from the destroyed Francis Scott Key Bridge that was pinning the container ship Dali in place was detached from the ship using a controlled detonation of explosives in the Patapsco River on May 13, 2024 in Baltimore, Maryland
(WASHINGTON) — Nearly a year since the catastrophic collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge after a container ship struck one of its piers, the National Transportation Safety Board is recommending that the owners of nearly 70 bridges across the United States conduct vulnerability assessments of the risk of collapse from a vessel collision.
Such an assessment could have prevented the deadly Key Bridge collapse, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said Thursday.
If the Maryland Transportation Authority had conducted a vulnerability assessment, it “would have known the risk and could have taken action to safeguard the Key Bridge,” Homendy said during a press briefing announcing the recommendation.
“Had they done that, the collapse could have been prevented,” she said.
Homendy said the MDTA was unable to provide the NTSB with the data needed to conduct the agency’s own vulnerability assessment of the Key Bridge.
“We asked them for that data,” Homendy said. “They didn’t have it. We had to develop that data ourselves, with the help of our federal partners at the Federal Highway Administration.”
ABC News has reached out to the MDTA for comment.
Homendy said the vulnerability assessments were recommended to bridge owners by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials twice: in 1991 and then in 2009.
The Federal Highway Administration started requiring vulnerability assessments of new bridges in 1994, the NTSB said. The Key Bridge was built before that requirement.
The 68 bridges that the NTSB recommends for assessment are those designed before the guidance was established and do not have a current vulnerability assessment, the NTSB said.
They include iconic landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge in California, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in Virginia, the Brooklyn Bridge in New York and the Mackinac Bridge in Michigan.
“Today’s report does not suggest that the 68 bridges are certain to collapse,” the NTSB said in a press release Thursday. “The NTSB is recommending that these 30 bridge owners evaluate whether the bridges are above the AASHTO acceptable level of risk. The NTSB recommended that bridge owners develop and implement a comprehensive risk reduction plan, if the calculations indicate a bridge has a risk level above the AASHTO threshold.”
The container ship Dali struck one of the piers on the Key Bridge early on the morning of March 26, 2024, triggering the bridge to collapse and killing six construction workers who were filling potholes on it. Two other workers survived the incident.
The crash affected entry into the Port of Baltimore for weeks as the debris blocked entry for other ships. Dozens of federal, state and local agencies responded to remove approximately 50,000 tons of steel, concrete and asphalt from the channel and from the Dali.
A preliminary report released by the NTSB in May found that the Dali experienced two power blackouts while docked, 10 hours before the collision that toppled part of a bridge span.
The NTSB said Thursday its final report on the Key Bridge collapse will be released this fall.
