Riley Keough, the actress and granddaughter of Elvis Presley, is trying to stop a foreclosure auction of Graceland after claiming the company behind the sale committed fraud and may not even exist.
Keough filed a lawsuit, obtained by Rolling Stone, earlier this month. It seeks a permanent injunction against Naussany Investments and Private Lending LLC, a creditor that claims Keough’s mother, Lisa Marie Presley, put up the deed to Graceland as collateral for a $3.8 million loan.
But Keough’s lawsuit states that Naussany “appears to be a false entity created for the purpose of defrauding” the trust that owns Graceland (Keough became the main trustee after a complicated dispute with her grandmother, Priscilla, following Lisa Marie’s death last year). It alleges the documents pertaining to Lisa Marie’s alleged loan are “fraudulent” and contain “forgeries” of her signatures.
“Lisa Marie Presley never borrowed money from Naussany Investments and never gave a deed of trust to Naussany Investments,” the lawsuit states.
Furthermore, the lawsuit contains an affidavit from a Florida notary, whose signature appears on several documents pertaining to Lisa Marie’s alleged loan, including a promissory note and the deed of trust naming Graceland as a security. But the notary, Kimberly Philbrick, stated, “I have never met Lisa Marie Presley, nor have I ever notarized a document signed by Lisa Marie Presley.” (Philbrick was not sure why her signature appears on the documents.)
Naussany had scheduled the Graceland foreclosure sale for this Thursday, May 23, and Keough has since obtained a temporary restraining order to stop it (per CNN). A hearing on the matter is now scheduled for Wednesday.
A lawyer for Keough did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s request for comment. Elvis Presley Enterprises said, “There is no foreclosure sale. Simply put, the counter lawsuit [that] has been filed is to stop the fraud.”
As for Naussany Investments, Rolling Stone tried reaching out to a company email referenced in one of the exhibits included in Keough’s lawsuit, and did not receive an immediate response. Other news outlets were similarly flummoxed: CNN said its email returned an automated out-of-office response, while its attempts to contact Naussany by phone led to a disconnected line. NBC News said it was able to reach Kurt Naussany, named as a defendant, by email, but he claimed he left the firm in 2015 and shouldn’t be involved in the suit.
