A woman named Lisa Jeanine Findley was arrested and accused of a brazen effort to foreclose on Elvis Presley’s home in Memphis.
Federal authorities arrested a Missouri woman on Friday and accused her of orchestrating a brazen effort to shake down the Presley family by threatening to fraudulently foreclose on Graceland, Elvis’s home in Memphis, which is now a popular tourist attraction.
The authorities said that they had arrested Lisa Jeanine Findley, 53, of Kimberling City, Mo., on charges of mail fraud and aggravated identity theft.
“The defendant orchestrated a scheme to conduct a fraudulent sale of Graceland, falsely claiming that Elvis Presley’s daughter had pledged the historic landmark as collateral for a loan that she failed to repay before her death,” said Nicole M. Argentieri, the principal deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department.
The arrest was made on the anniversary of the death of Elvis Presley, who was found unresponsive at Graceland on Aug. 16, 1977, and pronounced dead soon after at a hospital in Memphis. He was 42.
If convicted, Ms. Findley faces a mandatory minimum of two years in prison for aggravated identity theft and a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for mail fraud. A spokesman for the Justice Department said Friday afternoon that she had been detained and was in the custody of the U.S. Marshals pending extradition to Memphis.
Exactly who was behind the threat to sell Graceland, a popular and lucrative tourist attraction that draws 600,000 visitors a year, had been a mystery.
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Source: Music - nytimes.com
