Month: February 2025

A Missouri woman pleaded guilty on Tuesday to federal charges in connection with what prosecutors called a “brazen” attempt to fraudulently put Elvis Presley’s Graceland estate up for auction.

Lisa Jeanine Findley is accused of concocting a plot to defraud Presley’s family by trying to auction off his Graceland mansion and property, before a judge halted the mysterious foreclosure sale. Findley, 53, initially pleaded not guilty to the charges in the wake of her arrest last year. The trial had been scheduled to start in mid-April before Tuesday’s change of plea hearing.

Findley pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud in U.S. District Court in Memphis, Tennessee; as part of a plea deal, prosecutors agreed to dismiss one count of aggravated identity theft that was previously filed against her. Prosecutors are recommending Findley receive a 57-month federal prison sentence; she is due back in court for sentencing on June 19.

Federal prosecutors said Findley, of Kimberling City, formed a “brazen scheme to try to extort a settlement from the Presley family.” As part of the scheme, prosecutors said Findley forged the signatures of Elvis Presley’s late daughter Lisa Marie and Florida notary Kimberly Philbrick in order to claim that Lisa Marie (before her death in January 2023) did not pay back a $3.8 million loan from a purported company called Naussany Investments that listed Graceland as collateral for the loan. Findley then threatened to sell Graceland to the highest bidder if Presley’s family didn’t pay a $2.85 million settlement, according to authorities, and posted as three different people allegedly involved with the fake lender, fabricated loan documents, and published a fraudulent foreclosure notice in a Memphis newspaper announcing the auction of Graceland in May 2024.

A judge stopped the sale after Presley’s granddaughter, actress Riley Keough, filed a lawsuit claiming fraud, and a judge halted the proposed auction with an injunction. Keough inherited the trust and ownership of the home after the death of her mother, Lisa Marie Presley.

Elvis bought Graceland in 1957, and died there in 1977; the mansion was opened to the public five years later as a museum and tourist attraction. Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit the 17,552-square-foot mansion each year, which was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.  Elvis and other members of the Presley family, including Lisa Marie Presley and her son, Benjamin Keough, are buried on the mansion’s grounds.

Keough said in a 2024 interview with CBS News that she plans to continue running the property and keep it in the Presley family: “I think, like, my instinct with everything is always to do what my mother would have wanted. Which is to keep it a home. It was our family’s home.”

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered a new trial for Oklahoma death row inmate Richard Glossip, in light of allegations that the state withheld evidence related to its main witness. The ruling is a major win for Glossip, whose conviction in the 1997 murder-for-hire plot of Barry Van Treese has been called into question by the state attorney general after new evidence emerged in recent years. Glossip has been scheduled for execution nine times, and has eaten his ‘last meal’ three times – only to have his execution stayed.

In a 5-3 ruling authored by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the high court ruled in favor of Glossip and reversed a decision of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals that upheld his conviction and death sentence.  Sotomayor was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Neil Gorsuch did not take part in the court’s consideration of the case.

Glossip, now 62, was convicted of commissioning the murder of Barry Van Treese, owner of the Best Budget Inn motel in Oklahoma City where Glossip was a manager. All parties agree Van Treese was fatally beaten with a baseball bat by maintenance worker Justin Sneed, who eventually became the star witness for the prosecution. Sneed, who was a methamphetamine addict, confessed to the murder but avoided capital punishment by accepting a plea deal that involved testifying that Glossip paid him $10,000 to do it.  While Glossip admitted to helping Sneed cover up the murder after it occurred, he denied knowing Sneed planned to kill Van Treese or encouraging him to do so.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the majority: “We conclude that the prosecution violated its constitutional obligation to correct false testimony .. Had the prosecution corrected Sneed on the stand, his credibility plainly would have suffered. That correction would have revealed to the jury not just that Sneed was untrustworthy (as amicus points out, the jury already knew he repeatedly lied to the police), but also that Sneed was willing to lie to them under oath. Such a revelation would be significant in any case, and was especially so here where Sneed was already ‘nobody’s idea of a strong witness.’”

Don Knight, an attorney for Glossip, called the ruling “a victory for justice and fairness in our judicial system. We are thankful that a clear majority of the court supports long-standing precedent that prosecutors cannot hide critical evidence from defense lawyers and cannot stand by while their witnesses knowingly lie to the jury. Rich Glossip, who has maintained his innocence for 27 years, will now be given the chance to have the fair trial that he has always been denied.”

Gentner Drummond, Oklahoma’s attorney general, said his office will review the decision and “determine the most appropriate course of action to ensure justice is secured for all involved. Our justice system is greatly diminished when an individual is convicted without a fair trial, but today we can celebrate that a great injustice has been swept away. I am pleased the high court has validated my grave concerns with how this prosecution was handled, and I am thankful we now have a fresh opportunity to see that justice is done.”

Editorial credit: Aashish Kiphayet / Shutterstock.com