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(MEMPHIS, Tenn) – Graceland, the iconic home in Memphis of the late Elvis Presley, is one of America’s most recognized residences, after the White House. Therefore, the announcement of the public auction in May caused shock and confusion among the fans of the legendary musician.

Ultimately, this incident highlighted the growing problem of alleged deed fraud.

The scandal began last spring when Naussany Investments & Private Lending LLC filed a lawsuit and announced a foreclosure sale for Graceland, alleging that Lisa Marie Presley, Elvis’ daughter who died in 2023, had borrowed $3.8 million and bought the property used as collateral.

Actor Riley Keough, Lisa Marie’s daughter, responded by filing a countersuit, attempting to ban the auction over alleged fraud, claiming that Naussany Investments did not exist and had no rights to the property. This allegedly criminal plot to steal Graceland from under America’s nose caused outrage among Elvis fans.

The Memphis mansion is important and widespread because it has been hallowed ground for generations of Elvis fans, from lovesick teenagers in the 1950s to those inspired by his legacy today.

“People have been trying to take something away from Elvis since Elvis was Elvis,” Joel Weinshanker, managing partner of Elvis Presley Enterprises, told GMA3 co-host Eva Pilgrim. “Elvis was a human being. He was a very good person. He treated people very well. He lived here. He loved it here. He died here. He is buried here. His parents are buried here. His daughter is buried here. Choose someone else. Have a heart, have a conscience. And even if you don’t have a heart or a conscience, know that you can’t get away with it.”

The mansion was also home to Lisa Marie, Elvis’ only child. Her life in the spotlight and her tragic death have fascinated audiences since the day she was born – as the princess of the King of Rock and Roll.

Shortly after Elvis died in 1977, Lisa Marie became the sole heir to her father’s financially troubled estate, which at the time included only a few million dollars in cash and Graceland. Lisa Marie’s life seemed to stabilize when she married musician Danny Keough at the age of twenty.

They had two children, Riley and Benjamin Keough. However, that stability did not last. She struggled with drug addiction, marriages to Michael Jackson and Nicolas Cage, and the tragic suicide of her son Benjamin in 2020.

“We all felt it coming,” Riley Keough said in Lisa Marie’s memoir “From Here to the Great Unknown.” “We all knew my mother would die of a broken heart.”

Lisa Marie fiercely defended her family’s legacy. One of her final actions was to endorse director Baz Luhrmann’s Oscar-nominated 2022 film “Elvis,” saying it highlighted how her father’s musical success was rooted in his appreciation of Black culture.

“He loved gospel music and often sat outside the blues bars,” Lisa Marie said in an interview with ABC News. “He was influenced and raised by this. We had a conversation with Baz that showed that’s where he got his influence from, that’s where it started for him.”

Lisa Marie made her last public appearance at the Golden Globes on January 10, 2023, when Austin Butler won Best Actor for his portrayal of Elvis. She died two days later. Her cause of death was reported as complications from a bariatric surgery she had undergone several years earlier.

Her funeral was held at Graceland with fans lining the streets, eerily reminiscent of how they mourned her father more than 45 years earlier.

“She was buried next to her father and next to her son in Graceland,” ABC’s Chris Connelly said. “You know, the house she loved most.”

In a shocking revelation last May, a secret entity known as Naussany Investments claimed that Lisa Marie used Graceland as collateral to take out a $3.8 million loan and had failed to pay it back.

Therefore, the mysterious company announced its intention to auction the property.

“It wasn’t entirely implausible to imagine that Graceland would get in trouble because of something Lisa Marie did when she was behind on her payments,” Connelly said.

Keough took her role as administrator of the estate seriously, along with her attorney Bradley Russell, who filed a countersuit.

In the countersuit, Riley alleged that her mother had not borrowed anything and that the loan documents were forgeries.

The investigation into the alleged fraud stretched from the iconic mansion to Florida, where she finds an unlikely savior in notary Kimberly Philbrick. An alleged fake notary seal emerged as the potential smoking gun.

“We sent out our private investigator to find the notary who allegedly notarized these documents in 2018, to interview her and get an affidavit from her stating that this never happened and that she never notarized anything ” said Russell.

When a private investigator approached Philbrick at her workplace in Holly Hill, Florida, Philbrick said she was shocked to discover that fraud had been committed in her name. She claimed she knew right away something was wrong; she swore in an affidavit that it was not her signature.

“Did I ever meet Lisa Marie Presley? Did I sign the document? Did I notarize it? No, no, no,” Philbrick said.

Based on Philbrick’s statement, Keough’s attorneys rushed to court to prevent the sale of Graceland. A judge issued a preliminary injunction the day before it was to be auctioned.

It took almost three months longer to locate the alleged mastermind. In mid-August, Lisa Findley was arrested in the Ozarks. She was arrested on August 16, the 47th anniversary of Elvis’ death. Federal prosecutors charged the Missouri woman with mail fraud and aggravated identity theft.

They alleged that Findley exploited the public and tragic events in the Presley family for her personal gain.

Investigators allege that Findley used aliases to create fraudulent loan documents and that she published a false foreclosure notice in a Memphis newspaper announcing plans to auction Graceland to the highest bidder. Findley has pleaded not guilty and is in jail awaiting trial. She and her attorneys did not respond to ABC News’ request for comment.

Keough expressed her intention to preserve Graceland both as a museum and as a home, just as her mother would have wanted.

“To this day, people go through the house, and there’s just this, a kind of love that just doesn’t stop,” Keough said on WABC’s Live with Kelly and Mark in 2023. “And I really love that.”

ABC News Studios’ IMPACT x Nightline: Stealing Graceland will stream on Hulu starting Thursday, October 31.

ABC News’ Ely Brown, Sasha Pezenik, Jared Kofsky and Josh Margolin contributed to this report.