Two Pima County supervisors told Fox News Digital they plan to move next week to vacate Sheriff Chris Nanos' office, citing allegations that he lied under oath about his disciplinary record at the El Paso Police Department, a confrontation that has now converged with growing fury over his handling of the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping investigation in Tucson, Arizona.
Supervisor Dr. Matt Heinz, a Democrat, and Supervisor Steve Christy, the board's only Republican, said Nanos missed a deadline to answer the board's questions under oath. Instead, Heinz said, the sheriff sent a notarized statement after the deadline had passed, "swearing to the veracity of the report under penalty of perjury." Both supervisors say that statement contains falsehoods contradicted by public records from El Paso.
The allegations against Nanos are not new rumors. They stem from a deposition in a lawsuit filed against the sheriff by the president of the county deputies union. In that deposition, Nanos said under oath that he had never been suspended as a law enforcement officer. Records from El Paso, first obtained by the Arizona Republic and later posted to the Pima County Board of Supervisors' website, tell a different story.
Those records show Nanos was suspended multiple times during his tenure at the El Paso Police Department in the 1970s and 1980s. The alleged infractions ranged from tardiness to violations of department orders, off-duty conduct, and negligently firing a gun. The records also indicate he resigned in lieu of "termination", not, as his attorney characterized it, in lieu of "discipline."
Nanos' attorney offered a narrower version of events. The attorney said the sheriff resigned from El Paso in 1982 at the rank of corporal, following a dispute with a supervisor over the towing of vehicles. The supervisor recommended a three-day suspension for insubordination. Nanos appealed to the chief, who sided with the supervisor. Rather than accept the suspension, the attorney said, Nanos offered to resign and the chief accepted.
That account does not address the multiple other suspensions and disciplinary actions described in the public records. And it does not explain why Nanos told a court, under oath, that he had never been suspended.
Heinz was blunt. "He lied under oath to the board about his separation from El Paso PD," the supervisor said Wednesday. "And we will consider referring his perjury to the [attorney general] for prosecution."
Christy said the board has some authority to act under an 1873 Arizona law. He framed the situation as past the point of negotiation:
"He's already failed that request. The timeline for him to provide that is over. So there's no going back... It's too late for that. So we're into the next phase of if he doesn't resign, then we will move toward, or at least two of us on the board will move toward, vacating his office."
Christy added that unless Nanos resigns or retires "in an honorable fashion" before next week's board meeting, he will support any effort to vacate the office.
The five-person board does not need a majority to ask the state attorney general to investigate the perjury allegations, Heinz said. A single member can make the referral. But a unanimous vote would add weight. If an investigation leads to charges and then a conviction, Nanos would be forced to step down.
Heinz offered a fallback if the full board declines to vacate the office: "I'm pretty sure that they will want to do something meaningful like a resolution expressing lack of confidence and the referral for prosecution." The board has retained outside counsel rather than relying on the county attorney's office, a move that adds to the taxpayer tab.
Nanos is not only facing pressure from the board. The Pima County Deputy's Organization, representing more than 300 members, unanimously voted no confidence in the sheriff and called for his resignation. The union said its vote was driven by revelations about Nanos' previously undisclosed disciplinary history in El Paso, where he was allegedly suspended eight times and resigned amid allegations including insubordination and consistent inefficiency.
"Sheriff Chris Nanos should resign immediately to restore trust, accountability, and operational effectiveness to the Pima County Sheriff's Department," the union said in a statement.
Separately, Arizona Republican congressional candidate Daniel Butierez launched a formal recall effort against Nanos, citing disgust with his handling of the Guthrie case. Butierez said he must gather roughly 120,000 signatures within 120 days to trigger the recall process. He claimed officers within the department were afraid to start the effort themselves.
All of this unfolds against the backdrop of an investigation that has produced no arrest and no resolution more than 13 weeks after 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, mother of "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie, disappeared from her home in Tucson's Catalina Foothills neighborhood. She was last seen on a Saturday night. A combined reward now exceeds $1.2 million.
Photos released earlier in the investigation showed an armed individual reaching toward a Google Nest camera at Guthrie's front door. Blood evidence on the porch suggested a single attacker carried her away, and the circumstances of the case have drawn national attention and sharp scrutiny of how the sheriff's department has managed the probe.
FBI Director Kash Patel publicly challenged Nanos' account of cooperation between the two agencies. Speaking on the podcast "Hang Out with Sean Hannity," Patel said the FBI offered help immediately but was rebuffed.
"What we, the FBI, do is say, 'Hey, we're here to help. What do you need?' And for four days, we were kept out of the investigation."
Nanos fired back in a statement Tuesday, insisting the FBI had been involved from the start. He said a member of the FBI Task Force was notified and present at the scene, and that the Guthrie family also contacted the Bureau. "While the FBI Director was not on scene, coordination with the Bureau began without delay," Nanos said. He also said the Pima County Sheriff's Department lab and the FBI Laboratory in Quantico "have worked in close partnership from the outset."
But critics point to specific decisions that raise questions about the department's priorities. Federal investigators wanted DNA tests performed at the FBI's Quantico lab from the beginning. Instead, a hair sample recovered inside Guthrie's home was sent to a private lab in Florida. The choice of forensic labs became its own controversy as weeks turned into months without answers.
The sheriff's department has also been criticized for releasing the home as a crime scene too quickly and for failing to deploy resources such as a search plane or cadaver dogs early in the investigation. A parking ban near Guthrie's home in the Catalina Foothills remained in place weeks after the abduction, even as broader investigative momentum appeared to stall.
What makes the push to oust Nanos notable is that it crosses party lines. Heinz is a Democrat. Christy is a Republican. Both reached the same conclusion independently: the sheriff's conduct, past and present, has become untenable.
Heinz described the effort as "accountability for a guy who has evaded accountability for decades and is himself a public safety threat." He urged Nanos to hand over leadership of the Guthrie investigation to the FBI, arguing that nearly every other local jurisdiction in the country would have done so weeks ago.
"Almost every other local jurisdiction would have done so by now. Actually, it usually happens within days because then the FBI covers the vast majority of the cost of the investigation instead of the county or city. So, aside from maybe NYC, LA, [Chicago], Houston and some other large cities, any other jurisdiction would have asked for the FBI to take the lead."
That point carries a fiscal dimension taxpayers should notice. When local agencies hand major cases to the FBI, the federal government absorbs most of the cost. By keeping the investigation in-house, the Pima County Sheriff's Department, and Pima County taxpayers, continue to foot the bill. Key details about the night Guthrie vanished have trickled out through her family rather than through the department leading the case.
Nanos did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment on the supervisors' latest moves. His attorney's statement addressed only the 1982 resignation from El Paso and did not engage with the broader record of suspensions and disciplinary actions.
The sheriff's troubles extend beyond the Guthrie case and the perjury allegations. Records previously revealed that Nanos was caught with a loaded gun at a TSA checkpoint, an incident that adds to a pattern of conduct that his critics say disqualifies him from leading a major law enforcement agency.
Several facts remain unresolved. The exact contents of the notarized statement Nanos sent to the board have not been made public. It is unclear whether any supervisors beyond Heinz and Christy will support vacating the office, three votes on the five-member board would constitute a majority. The specific 1873 Arizona law the supervisors are invoking has not been identified by statute number in public reporting. And the court case that produced the deposition, the lawsuit from the deputies union president, lacks a publicly cited case number or filing date.
What is clear: a sheriff facing perjury allegations, a no-confidence vote from his own deputies, a bipartisan push from county supervisors, and a formal recall campaign is still running a kidnapping investigation that has gone nowhere in more than three months.
Nancy Guthrie is still missing. The FBI tip line remains open at 1-800-CALL-FBI.
When everyone from your own deputies to both parties on the board to the FBI director is telling you to step aside, the question isn't whether you should go, it's what you're still protecting by staying.
