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Graceland is headed for foreclosure as Elvis Presley’s granddaughter fights sale and alleges fraud
Elvis Presley’s Graceland Mansion, a popular tourist attraction and the singer’s final resting place, is at the center of a court fight as it appears to be headed for a foreclosure auction later this week. But Elvis’ granddaughter, actor Riley Keough, is fighting back with a lawsuit that alleges fraud.
According to an apparent foreclosure notice, the estate — which was built in 1939 — is set to be auctioned off at the Shelby County courthouse in Memphis, Tennessee, on Thursday.
The foreclosure is allegedly occurring because Elvis’ daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, used Graceland as collateral to secure a $3.8 million loan from a company called Naussany Investments and Private Lending in 2018, but she failed to pay it off before she died last year.
Keough, who starred in last year’s hit show “Daisy Jones and the Six,” is the heir to the estate.
In a lawsuit, Keough claims Naussany Investments “appears to be a false entity created for the purpose” of defrauding her family. The lawsuit also says Keough’s mother “never borrowed money” from the company, or gave them a deed of trust to Graceland, and further alleges that documents claiming otherwise “are forgeries.”
The lawsuit includes a sworn affidavit from the notary public whose name appears on the deed of trust, saying in part, “I did not notarize this document.”
A judge will consider those allegations in a hearing Wednesday, after an attorney for Keough says a temporary restraining order was granted Monday, according to CBS affiliate in Memphis WREG.
“You want to keep the status quo and make sure nothing changes — make sure nobody is harmed,” said Jessica Levinson, a CBS News legal contributor. “And the biggest harm would come from an illegitimate sale of Graceland.”
CBS News reached out to two people who appeared to be affiliated with the investment and lending company, and they said they would send our questions to their attorneys.
Elvis Presley Enterprises manages Graceland and said in a statement that the foreclosure claims are “fraudulent.” In a social media post, Presley’s ex-wife, Priscilla Presley, uploaded a photo of Graceland that was captioned, “It’s a scam!”
In 1957, at the age of 22, Elvis bought Graceland for $102,500. At the time he purchased it, the mansion was 10,266 square feet, and Elvis bought 13.8 acres of the farm around the house. Today, the Graceland mansion is 17,552 square feet.
Graceland, where Elvis died in 1977, was named to the American National Register of Historic Places in 1991. Over 600,000 people visit Graceland — named after Grace, an aunt of one of the original owners — each year.
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The Pentagon freed two prisoners Wednesday from Guantánamo Bay, marking the second and third releases this week from the notorious wartime detention camp.
Mohammed Farik bin Amin and Mohammed Nazir bin Lep were repatriated to Malaysia, where both are nationals, according to the United States Department of Defense. The men had been held by the U.S. since 2003 and imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay since 2006, for their ties to al Qaeda and an Indonesian extremist group called Jemaah Islamiyah.
The repatriation of Amin and Lep came as part of a plea deal and an agreement with the government of Malaysia, Defense officials said. Each pleaded guilty before a U.S. military commission to various war crimes, including murder, intentionally causing serious bodily injury, conspiracy and destruction of property. They also provided deposition testimony that can be used against a different prisoner, Encep Nurjaman, who is believed to be the “mastermind” responsible for al Qaeda attacks in Bali and Jakarta between 2002 and 2003.
Their conditions for release from Guantánamo Bay call for an additional five-year period of confinement for each prisoner, to be served either in the country where they are repatriated or a third-party sovereign nation.
Amin and Lep’s releases were announced one day after the Pentagon said another prisoner, Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu, was freed from incarceration at Guantánamo Bay and repatriated to Kenya. Detained by the U.S. for 18 years without criminal charges, Bajabu was the first prisoner freed from the camp in roughly a year. U.S. defense officials said a review board determined in December 2021 that detaining Bajabu “was no longer necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the national security of the United States.” The board recommended with that determination that Bajabu be transferred out of Guantánamo Bay.
“The United States appreciates the support to ongoing U.S. efforts toward a deliberate and thorough process focused on responsibly reducing the detainee population and ultimately closing the Guantanamo Bay facility,” the Defense Department said in statements on the releases of all three prisoners.
The latest repatriation efforts leave 27 prisoners still detained at Guantánamo Bay. Of them, 15 are eligible for transfer, three are eligible for evaluation by the review board, and seven are being tried through the military commissions process. Only the final two prisoners have been convicted and sentenced by military commissions, according to the Pentagon.