Two Arizona men held at gunpoint and released without charges during the search for kidnapped 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie are now seeking $3.25 million from the Pima County sheriff they say wrongfully arrested them and publicly branded them as suspects.
Lawyers for Carlos Palazuelos, a delivery driver, and Daniel Maddox filed a notice of claim, a legal precursor to a civil lawsuit, against Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos, an unnamed detective, and the Pima County Sheriff's Department. The filing alleges wrongful arrest, property damage, and lasting reputational harm stemming from a February 10 operation that swept up both men during the early, frantic days of the Guthrie investigation. Neither man was ever charged. NBC News reported the notice was dated Monday. The sheriff's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the claim.
Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of "TODAY" co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, went missing from her home near Tucson early on February 1. The FBI has classified her disappearance as a kidnapping for ransom. Six months later, the case remains unsolved. No arrests have been made. And now the sheriff's department faces a multimillion-dollar reckoning, not from the people who took Nancy Guthrie, but from two men the department swept up and let go.
The notice of claim paints a stark picture of how law enforcement treated Palazuelos and Maddox on February 10. Deputies arrested Palazuelos at gunpoint and, according to the filing, "held him without probable cause for approximately seven to eight hours." His home was searched and left "ransacked," the claim states. He was released without charges.
Maddox's experience was no gentler. The filing states that men in military-style gear burst into his mother's home, pointed guns at him, and ordered him to lie on the floor of a hallway after he left his room to investigate a loud noise. He was placed in handcuffs and held "under guard" at a van outside for several hours. His mother, Josefina Maddox, owns the home and is also named in the claim, alleging property damage from the search.
The combined settlement demands total $3.25 million: $2.5 million for Palazuelos, $500,000 for Daniel Maddox, and $250,000 for Josefina Maddox. The notice describes physical, emotional, and reputational harm to all three claimants.
What makes the reputational claim particularly pointed is what Sheriff Nanos did after the detentions. The notice alleges that Nanos posted on social media that "the subject is currently being questioned in connection to the Nancy Guthrie investigation", a public statement that the claimants' lawyers say fueled suspicion against men who had nothing to do with the crime. The Washington Examiner reported the notice specifically accuses Nanos of stoking public suspicion through that post.
The filing goes further. It states that "despite requests by undersigned counsel, Sheriff Nanos and the PCSD have refused to retract their statements or to make clear that Carlos is innocent and had no involvement in the Guthrie case." In other words, the sheriff's department publicly linked these men to a high-profile kidnapping, then declined to publicly unlink them, even after releasing them without charges.
The claim lands at a moment when the Guthrie investigation appears stalled. Sheriff Nanos said this week that the case is still active and that "we're working this as hard as we can." The Pima County Sheriff's Office posted a statement Thursday on its official account saying that "the analysis of DNA and digital evidence has been underway for the past six months" and that "this work is complex and time-intensive, but investigators continue to pursue every credible lead."
Six months of DNA and digital forensic work with no public breakthrough is a long time for a case the FBI classified as a kidnapping for ransom. Investigators have previously pointed to DNA and video evidence as sources of hope in the investigation, but those leads have not yet produced an arrest.
The investigation has also been dogged by procedural questions from the start. An early four-day delay in the FBI's response may have cost investigators critical doorbell camera footage, a gap that has drawn scrutiny from retired law enforcement officials and the Guthrie family alike.
On Monday, the same day the notice of claim was dated, Savannah Guthrie released a video publicly pleading for information about her mother. She appeared to address whoever is responsible for the kidnapping directly.
"The world can be a cruel and unforgiving place, and I know that you have tried to do things the right way. So I'm asking you, begging you, to do the right thing now. Make the right choice. Help us find her. Tell us where to look for her."
"Our family is in agony," she said. The plea came nearly six months after her 84-year-old mother vanished.
The Guthrie family has offered a $1 million reward for information leading to Nancy Guthrie's recovery. The FBI has added $100,000 for information that conclusively advances the investigation. That $1.1 million sits unclaimed, a figure that, as retired FBI analysts have noted, may itself point to a tight circle of suspects unwilling or unable to come forward.
The case has also attracted bad actors. A California man pleaded guilty to sending fake ransom messages to the Guthrie family, a cruel sideshow that complicated an already difficult investigation and added to the family's anguish.
Meanwhile, the two men who were actually detained in the real investigation say they are still living with the fallout. Palazuelos spoke to Telemundo outside the home in Rio Rico, roughly 60 miles south of Tucson, and said he was not involved. His lawyers now argue that the sheriff's refusal to clear his name publicly has left a cloud over him that only a retraction or a courtroom can lift.
The Guthrie case demands urgency. An 84-year-old woman is missing, the FBI says she was kidnapped for ransom, and her family is begging for answers on national television. No one disputes that law enforcement should pursue every lead aggressively.
But aggressive investigation is not the same as reckless conduct. Detaining men at gunpoint, holding them for hours without probable cause, leaving a home ransacked, and then broadcasting their connection to the case on social media, all without ever filing charges, is not aggressive policing. It is the kind of conduct that erodes public trust in the very institutions that need community cooperation to solve a case like this one.
The notice of claim does not accuse Sheriff Nanos of indifference. It accuses him of something arguably worse: acting publicly and decisively against the wrong people, then refusing to correct the record when it became clear they were not involved. That is not a procedural technicality. That is a question of basic fairness, the kind of fairness that law enforcement officers expect for themselves and owe to the citizens they serve.
The sheriff's office says it is still working the case. The claimants' lawyers say the department owes their clients $3.25 million and a public statement of innocence. Both things can be true at the same time. An unsolved kidnapping does not give a sheriff's department a blank check to detain people without cause, damage their property, and smear them publicly without consequence.
Nancy Guthrie deserves to be found. Carlos Palazuelos and Daniel Maddox deserve to have their names cleared. So far, the Pima County Sheriff's Department has delivered neither.
