A Missouri woman has been sentenced to nearly five years in federal prison for attempting to defraud the family of Elvis Presley by trying to auction off Graceland, the iconic estate in Memphis. Lisa Jeanine Findley, 54, received a sentence of four years and nine months, along with three years of supervised probation, from U.S. District Judge John T. Fowlkes Jr. during a hearing on Tuesday.

Findley pleaded guilty in February to a charge of mail fraud. She had initially faced an additional charge of aggravated identity theft, which was dismissed as part of a plea agreement. During the sentencing, Findley chose not to speak on her own behalf.

Prosecutors revealed that Findley falsely claimed that Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis's daughter, had borrowed $3.8 million from a fictitious private lender and had used Graceland as collateral for the loan before her death in January 2023. Findley threatened to sell the estate to the highest bidder unless the Presley family paid a $2.85 million settlement.

To carry out her scheme, Findley impersonated three individuals allegedly connected to the fake lender, created forged loan documents, and published a fraudulent foreclosure notice in a Memphis newspaper announcing an auction of Graceland scheduled for May 2024. However, the auction was halted by a judge after Riley Keough, Presley’s granddaughter, filed a lawsuit claiming fraud.

Experts expressed disbelief at the attempt to sell such a well-known property using documents and identities that were quickly deemed suspicious. Graceland has been a museum and tourist attraction since 1982, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually.

The foreclosure notice claimed that Promenade Trust, which manages the Graceland museum, owed $3.8 million after failing to repay a loan from 2018. Following the death of her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, Keough inherited the trust and ownership of Graceland.

Keough's lawsuit alleged that the bogus lender, Naussany Investments, presented fraudulent documents regarding the loan in September 2023, asserting that Lisa Marie Presley had never borrowed money from them. Kimberly Philbrick, a notary whose name appeared on the documents, stated she had never met Lisa Marie Presley and did not notarize any documents for her.

The judge noted that the notary's affidavit raised questions about the authenticity of the signatures involved. In his ruling to stop the auction, he indicated that the Presley estate could successfully argue that the auction attempt was fraudulent.

After the scheme unraveled, Findley attempted to shift blame onto a fictitious Nigerian identity thief, according to prosecutors. An email sent in May 2024 claimed that a Nigerian fraud ring was responsible for the foreclosure attempt, targeting deceased individuals in the U.S.

In court, prosecutors emphasized the need for a substantial sentence to deter Findley from future criminal conduct and to protect the public. They described her actions as a "brazen scheme" to extort money from the Presley estate. Judge Fowlkes remarked that it would have been a "travesty of justice" if the auction had proceeded, labeling the scheme as highly sophisticated.