A Missouri woman with a long history of financial scams admitted Tuesday that she tried to steal Graceland from Elvis Presley’s family by posing as a fake investor, a scheme that created international intrigue before NBC News revealed her role.
Lisa Jeanine Findley pleaded guilty in federal court in Memphis, Tennessee, to a single count of mail fraud that carries a maximum of 20 years in prison. Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of up to four years and nine months behind bars.
“Wow,” Rasheed Jeremy Carballo, an immigrant from Belize who was drawn into Findley’s orbit, said when he was told of the guilty plea. Carballo, a former friend of Findley’s, testified as a government witness before a grand jury last summer.
Carballo recalled two FBI agents visiting him in Chicago after NBC News published its investigation of Findley in June. They came with a folder of photos of Findley and a copy of the article, he said, in which he described Findley’s talking to him about a foreclosure deal for Lisa Marie Presley’s house that would bring in millions of dollars.
“They said they had come to ask me what they had read in the news,” Carballo said Tuesday of the FBI agents. “That they wanted to make sure what I was telling them matched what they had read.”
The FBI declined to comment.
Carballo met Findley in Branson, Missouri, where she moved in 2023 after having lived in Oklahoma, Las Vegas and California. By then, she had a long record of romance scams, forged checks and bank fraud totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. She did time in federal prison for taking out false loans and was sent back after she violated terms of her release with more swindles, then hit the road, following a trail of lovers whom she met on internet dating sites and cheated out of money, according to court records.
Not long after Findley arrived in Missouri, the Graceland scam began.
It started with a bid by Naussany Investments, a bogus company run by people who did not seem to be real, seeking control over the Graceland estate over what the company claimed was an unpaid debt by Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’ only child, who died in 2023. The documents filed in a Memphis court were clearly forged, and a judge halted the proceedings after Presley’s daughter, Riley Keough, objected.
Posing as Naussany Investments executives, the scammers wrote to NBC News and other media outlets that they were dropping their attempt to steal Graceland. One person, who called himself Gregory Naussany, claimed he was part of a ring of Nigerian identity thieves.
But an NBC News investigation found that a trail of digital clues — including a fake Facebook profile, addresses, negative Google reviews and phone and fax numbers — led to Findley, a grandmother who was living near Branson. The fake Facebook account had been used as a weapon in a battle between a local nail salon and Carballo, a former employee.
Findley denied knowing about the Graceland case when NBC News confronted her at her front door in June. She claimed that her identification had been stolen. Asked about the digital clues that pointed to her, she replied, “I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about.”
Two months later, federal authorities charged Findley in the Graceland fraud. Prosecutors alleged that she forged names, signatures and notary seals to create fake loan documents.
Aked by a federal judge in Memphis on Tuesday whether she was admitting guilt and accepting responsibility, Findley said, “Yes,” The Associated Press reported.
She is scheduled to be sentenced June 18.
Findley’s guilty plea drew a gasp from Karen Virtudazo, the nail salon’s owner, who alleges that Findley and Carballo ran an online harassment campaign against her, which Carballo denied, saying it was all Findley. That dispute produced leads that helped NBC News tie Findley to the Graceland plot.
“I am happy and relieved that justice was served and that she was finally held accountable for her wrongful acts,” Virtudazo said. “Now we can rest knowing she will serve her sentence without the ability to defraud people in the future.”
