A federal grand jury is set to begin hearing evidence this month in the scam to steal the Graceland estate from Elvis Presley’s family, sources say.
Two sources told NBC News they had been summoned to testify before a grand jury in the coming weeks in Memphis, Tennessee. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because the details of the criminal investigation are not public.
One of the sources who said they were subpoenaed has a connection to the case. The other is close to Lisa Holden, a woman in Branson, Missouri. NBC News has reported that Holden appeared to have connections to fake personas, post office boxes and phone and fax numbers associated with the Graceland scheme. Holden did not immediately respond to requests for comment Thursday.
The target of the federal investigation is unclear. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The U.S. attorney for the Western District of Tennessee, which would oversee the case after the state attorney general turned the investigation over to federal authorities in June, also did not respond, and neither did a spokesperson for Graceland.
The scheme made international headlines in May. It involved a company called Naussany Investments, which claimed that Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’ only child, owed millions of dollars in unpaid loans before she died. To collect on that debt, Naussany Investments sought control of Graceland through a foreclosure sale of the historic mansion. The documents Naussany Investments filed turned out to be forged, and a judge tossed out the case.
Afterward, a person claiming to represent the scammers wrote to media outlets, including NBC News, saying they were Nigerian identity thieves.
In an email to NBC News written in clunky Spanish, a person calling himself Gregory Naussany wrote from the Naussany Investments email address: “We sit back and laugh at you idiots and watch you make fools of yourselves.” The person added, “Come find us in Nigeria.”
But when NBC News followed the digital trail of the “Naussany” name and other names and contacts the scammers used in court filings, the clues led not to Nigeria but to a small town in Missouri and to Holden, who has also gone by the last names Howell, Findley and Sullins. More than half a dozen links seemed to separately connect Holden with the foiled scam at Graceland, NBC News found.
When a reporter knocked on Holden’s door in June, she denied knowing anyone named Naussany and said she did not know anything about a scam to steal Graceland.
“I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about,” she said.
