By ALANNA DURKIN RICHER and JONATHAN MATTISE
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Missouri woman has been arrested on charges alleging she orchestrated a scheme to conduct a fraudulent sale of Elvis Presley’s Graceland property in Memphis, the Justice Department said Friday.
Lisa Jeanine Findley, 53, of Kimberling City, Missouri, is accused of scheming to steal the Presley family’s ownership interest in Graceland, prosecutors said, falsely claiming that Presley’s daughter pledged the property as collateral for a loan she failed to pay before her death.
“As part of the brazen scheme, we allege that the defendant created numerous false documents and sought to extort a settlement from the Presley family,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
An attorney for Findley, who used multiple aliases, was not listed in court documents and a telephone number was not immediately available in public records. An email seeking comment sent to an address prosecutors say Findley had used in the scheme was not immediately returned.
A judge in May halted the foreclosure sale of the beloved Memphis tourist attraction, saying Elvis Presley’s estate could be successful in arguing that a company’s attempt to auction Graceland was fraudulent.
The Tennessee attorney general’s office had been investigating the Graceland controversy, then confirmed in June that it handed the probe over to federal authorities.
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