Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos acknowledged through his attorney that he resigned from the El Paso Police Department in 1982 to dodge a three-day suspension for insubordination, a disclosure that directly contradicts sworn testimony he gave in a First Amendment lawsuit, where he stated he had never been suspended as a result of disciplinary action while working as a law enforcement officer.
The admission arrived in a 12-page letter dated April 21, written by Nanos' lawyer James Cool and addressed to the Pima County Board of Supervisors. The board had demanded answers from the sheriff on April 7, after allegations of perjury surfaced following his deposition. Nanos now faces a recall effort while simultaneously overseeing the months-long search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, who is believed to have been abducted from her Catalina Foothills home north of Tucson in the early hours of February 1.
The timing could hardly be worse. The sheriff responsible for one of the most high-profile missing-persons cases in recent memory is fighting questions about his own honesty under oath, and his own attorney's letter confirms the core factual problem.
Cool's letter attempted to thread a narrow needle. As Fox News reported, the attorney wrote:
"It is 100% correct that Sheriff Nanos was never suspended during his four decades of decorated and faithful service with the Pima County Sheriff's Department ('PCSD')."
That sentence carries a lot of weight, and a very careful qualifier. Cool went on to concede the rest:
"However, Sheriff Nanos was suspended more than forty years ago while employed by El Paso Police Department."
So Nanos was never suspended at the Pima County Sheriff's Department. He was suspended at a different agency. And when asked under oath whether he had ever been suspended as a law enforcement officer, he said no. His lawyer's explanation? Nanos "did not understand the question related to discipline with a different agency not governed by the Arizona Peace Officer's Bill of Rights."
That defense asks observers to believe that a career law enforcement official with four decades of experience misunderstood a straightforward deposition question about his own disciplinary history. The question was not about which state's officer bill of rights applied. It was about whether he had ever been suspended. He had been, repeatedly, at the El Paso Police Department, and he resigned in 1982 specifically to avoid further disciplinary action.
Sgt. Aaron Cross, president of the Pima County Deputies Association and the man who brought the First Amendment lawsuit that produced the deposition, was unsparing. He called Cool's letter "chock full of lies" and pointed out a glaring omission: "But did you notice it wasn't a sworn statement, as required?"
Cross has a point. The Pima County Board of Supervisors voted on April 7 to have Nanos answer their questions "under oath." What they received instead, two weeks later, was a lawyer's letter, unsworn, carefully hedged, and built to limit the sheriff's exposure rather than satisfy the board's demand for transparency.
Cool's letter included a copy of Nanos' 1984 resume, which showed the sheriff's career arc after leaving El Paso. He worked briefly in sales and then as a security guard before joining the Pima County Sheriff's Department as a corrections officer. His resume listed his hobbies as "boxing, fishing, pool, crosswords and physical exercise."
The resume is a minor curiosity. The larger issue is what the letter reveals about Nanos' pattern: leave one job under a disciplinary cloud, start fresh at another agency, build a long career, and then, when asked about it under oath, deny the disciplinary history existed. Whether that denial was a genuine misunderstanding or something more calculated is now a question the Board of Supervisors will have to resolve.
Cool's letter also attempted to go on offense. Nanos' lawyers accused both Cross and former PCSD Lieutenant Heather Lappin, Nanos' most recent election challenger, of "sustained findings of misconduct." County board members had previously questioned whether Nanos wrongfully targeted Lappin for investigation during the campaign. Both Cross and Lappin have pending lawsuits, though the specific details of those cases were not laid out in the letter.
The letter further argued that the sheriff should not have to answer all of the board's questions in a public setting and defended Nanos' handling of the department budget. It also downplayed concerns about retaliation against Cross and Lappin, a claim that rings hollow when the sheriff's own legal team is publicly accusing both of misconduct in the same document.
All of this plays out against the backdrop of a disappearance that has drawn national attention. Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie, went missing on January 31. She is believed to have been taken from her home in the Catalina Foothills. Doorbell camera video captured a masked intruder, and her back door was found propped open the following morning.
The FBI has advanced the investigation, reportedly zeroing in on two key dates before Guthrie went missing. Savannah Guthrie has put $1 million toward the combined reward for finding her mother. The discovery of a glove near Guthrie's home that matched the suspect seen on surveillance video marked one of the few concrete physical leads made public.
Nancy Guthrie's whereabouts remain unknown. The case has generated enormous public interest and intense scrutiny of the agencies handling it.
The Pima County Sheriff's Department has not escaped that scrutiny. The agency drew backlash over a misleading social media post about the case, and questions about the department's competence have only grown as the investigation stretches on without resolution.
Meanwhile, the public has fixated on various leads and suspects. A former FBI agent pushed back on the public's fixation with one person of interest, urging a broader view of the evidence. Separately, new doorbell footage revealed late-night traffic near the scene, adding to the volume of tips and leads investigators must sort through.
Cool's letter also included a March 11 note from the Justice Department to County Administrator Jan Lesher. That note, from the former U.S. attorney for Arizona under the Biden administration, stated there was "no federal predicate" for a criminal investigation into election-related allegations involving the sheriff's office.
Timothy Courchaine, the current U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, reinforced that position: "We have no further response to provide beyond what was already communicated in December 2024." The inclusion of this note in Cool's letter appeared designed to clear Nanos of one line of attack, but it does nothing to resolve the perjury question at the center of the board's demand.
The open questions are significant. What exact deposition question did Nanos claim to misunderstand? What specific allegations of perjury prompted the board's April 7 vote? What are the two dates the FBI has zeroed in on in the Guthrie case? None of these have been publicly answered.
The board asked for answers under oath. It got a lawyer's letter. The letter admitted the very conduct the deposition testimony denied. And the man at the center of it all remains in charge of a department handling a case that the entire country is watching.
Residents of Pima County deserve a sheriff whose word holds up under oath, not one whose attorney has to explain it away after the fact. When a kidnapping case stalls and the lead agency's credibility is in question, the people who pay the price are the victim, her family, and every taxpayer footing the bill for leadership that can't keep its own story straight.
