The Pima County Board of Supervisors voted on March 24 to compel Sheriff Chris Nanos to submit a sworn statement addressing allegations that he misrepresented his employment history and retaliated against a political rival, a formal step that could end with his removal from office under Arizona law.
The vote came nearly two months after 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, mother of NBC Today Show host Savannah Guthrie, was taken from her $1 million Tucson home in the early hours of February 1. No arrests have been made. No suspects have been named. And the sheriff tasked with leading the investigation now faces scrutiny on multiple fronts that have nothing to do with finding a missing woman.
The board acted under A.R.S. § 11-253, an Arizona statute that allows county supervisors to demand a sworn accounting from an elected official. If Nanos fails to comply, the law is blunt: he can be "removed from office by the board and the office declared vacant. The board may then fill the vacancy." The Daily Mail reported the full scope of the allegations and the board's action.
Pima County Supervisor Matt Heinz requested the discussion after a report by The Arizona Republic found that Nanos misstated his previous work experience. His resume listed employment with the El Paso Police Department through 1984. Records obtained by The Arizona Republic showed he left in 1982, after a series of suspensions.
In a December 2025 deposition, Nanos testified that he had never been suspended at work. That claim collided with what the records showed.
The Pima County Deputy's Organization, the sheriff's department labor union, went further. In a Facebook post, the union alleged that a FOIA request of Nanos' personnel file revealed he "did not disclose that he resigned in lieu of termination, listing 'personal reasons and better paying job' instead." The union added: "Lying on your application would prohibit anyone from being hired."
Heinz did not mince words at the meeting. He told the board he found the revelations deeply troubling:
"I was disturbed by, saddened by, the sheriff apparently, when moving from El Paso, Texas, to Pima County, was not completely straightforward with the process."
He followed that with a sharper point about what the allegations mean for public confidence:
"You can't lie on your job applications, you can't lie under oath. This is about accountability and preventing further erosion of public trust in the county government and in county law enforcement."
That framing, accountability and trust, is precisely what has been draining from the Pima County Sheriff's Office since the Guthrie case began. Deputies within the department have unanimously urged Nanos to resign, a remarkable vote of no confidence from the people who work under him every day.
A spokesperson for the Pima County Sheriff's Office told KOLD that Nanos intends to cooperate with the board's demand. The statement was carefully lawyered:
"In response to the Board's decision today, Sheriff Nanos will comply with A.R.S. § 11-253 to provide a report to the Pima County Board of Supervisors."
The spokesperson added that Nanos "has always been transparent and will provide a report once more direction is provided by the Pima County Administrator." The office then shut down further comment, citing the matter as legal in nature.
"Always been transparent" is a phrase that will land differently depending on where you sit. For the board members who just invoked a removal statute, for the deputies who voted no confidence, and for a family still waiting to learn what happened to an 84-year-old woman, the sheriff's track record on transparency is exactly what is in question.
A former SWAT chief has publicly criticized Nanos over what he described as a bungled search effort, claiming the vast majority of the department had lost confidence in the sheriff's leadership.
The board's formal action is not the only threat to Nanos' tenure. Daniel Butierez, an Arizona Republican, has launched a formal recall effort targeting the sheriff. As the Washington Examiner reported, organizers must collect roughly 120,000 valid signatures to force either a special recall election or Nanos' resignation. Butierez has said he is aiming for 135,000 and claims to have nearly 500 volunteers and five notaries ready to go.
Butierez has not been subtle about his reasons. He called Nanos "an embarrassment to Tucson and to Pima County with this Nancy Guthrie case," adding: "Everyone's pretty disgusted, Democrats and Republicans."
That bipartisan anger is worth noting. This is not a partisan hit job. The frustration cuts across party lines, driven by a simple question that still has no answer: Where is Nancy Guthrie?
As Just The News reported, if enough valid signatures are gathered and verified, Nanos would have five days to agree to a special recall election or step down. Butierez claimed that Pima County officers had already delivered a "unanimous vote of no confidence" against the sheriff.
Nanos, for his part, told 13 News: "I will always honor the will of the people." Whether that statement ages well depends on what happens next.
The sheriff has also acknowledged that reopening the crime scene at Guthrie's Tucson home early in the investigation was likely a mistake, a concession that only fed the perception of mismanagement.
Two months have passed since Nancy Guthrie was taken from her home. No suspect. No arrest. No public indication that the investigation is closing in on anyone. For the Guthrie family, every day without answers is another day of anguish.
Meanwhile, the sheriff who is supposed to be leading that investigation is now fighting for his own political survival on two separate fronts, one statutory, one electoral. The board wants a sworn statement about his employment history. Recall organizers want 120,000 signatures. His own deputies want him gone.
Separate questions have also been raised about Nanos' decision-making on evidence handling in the Guthrie case, including controversial choices about where forensic evidence was sent for analysis.
The allegations about Nanos' El Paso history are not trivial details from four decades ago. If he resigned in lieu of termination and then listed "personal reasons" on a subsequent application, as the deputies' union alleges based on FOIA records, that is a pattern of evasion that followed him into the office he now holds. If he testified under oath in December 2025 that he had never been suspended, and records show otherwise, that is a potential credibility problem that extends well beyond a job application.
Supervisor Heinz put it plainly: you cannot lie on your job application, and you cannot lie under oath. Those are standards that apply to every deputy, every officer, every public employee in the county. The question the board is now asking, under the weight of an Arizona statute that carries real teeth, is whether they apply to the sheriff, too.
Nanos says he will comply with the board's demand. The details of what he submits, and whether it satisfies the supervisors, will determine whether A.R.S. § 11-253 becomes a footnote or a mechanism for removal. The recall effort runs on a parallel track, with a 120-day clock and a high signature threshold.
The Arizona Daily Star reported that the effort could ultimately see Nanos removed from office. That outcome is no longer theoretical. The legal pathway exists. The political will appears to be building. And the one thing that might have insulated Nanos from all of it, a successful resolution of the Nancy Guthrie case, remains nowhere in sight.
An 84-year-old woman is still missing. The man in charge of finding her cannot even give a straight account of his own résumé. That tells you everything about where Pima County stands right now.
