Lisa Findley, a woman from the Ozarks with a known history of petty crime, was sentenced to 57 months in federal prison last month after pleading guilty to mail fraud. The charge stemmed from a bizarre scheme in which she attempted to secure a $3 million payoff using a fake loan backed by a fraudulent mortgage on Graceland, the former home of Elvis Presley.
Using at least four different alter egos, Findley attempted to convince lawyers for the estate of the late Lisa Marie Pressley1 and of her daughter, actress Riley Keough2, that a non-existent company called Naussany Investments & Private Lending, LLC, had loaned Lisa Marie $3,800,000 secured by the iconic home.
Findley supported the scheme by forging the signatures of Lisa Marie and a real Florida notary on fake loan documents. She even went so far as to threaten foreclosure. While attorneys for the Presley estate grew suspicious minds, Findley escalated her efforts by filing a creditor’s claim against the estate in California and separately recording a fraudulent Note and Deed of Trust in Tennessee land records. Despite making little progress, she pressed the matter by publishing a Notice of Foreclosure Sale in the Memphis Commercial Appeal.
While the Pressley attorneys rushed to obtain an injunction to keep the Jungle Room in the family’s domain, reporters and law enforcement began to close in on what proved to be an easy web to unweave. Perhaps feeling caught in a trap, Findlay’s alter egos abruptly disclaimed any connection to the loan and directed attention to a third alter ego. After some token resistance, this alter ego confessed in an email written in Spanish – don’t ask me why – to that he was really a Nigerian scam artist and that the authorities should seek him in that fine African nation.
This final effort to by Findlay was … not successful. Despite asking the judge to don’t be cruel, she will now spend a blue Christmas in a federal penitentiary for the next several winters.
In all seriousness, this scheme highlights both the growing prevalence of “imposter” frauds and the lengths and doggedness which fraudsters will pursue them. While this imposter chose very poorly in her attempted fraud target, the methods used should be a warning to all real estate professionals of what kind of methods they might run across in a scam. You could see how a less ambitious scheme could have been a little more credible and come closer to success.
[1] Daughter of the King of Rock and Roll, and wife to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson! Plus, her mom was on Dallas! Pure royalty.
[2] Keough was great in the Amazon mini-series ‘Daisy Jones and the Six.’ Definitely worth the watch if you have not seen it.
[3] Foreclosures can proceed non-judicially in Tennessee, which means creditors may in many circumstances sell property without court oversight.
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