The effort to remove Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos from office collapsed Tuesday night when not a single member of the Board of Supervisors seconded a Republican colleague's motion to declare the sheriff's seat vacant. But the board did not let Nanos walk away clean. In a 4-0 vote, supervisors approved referring perjury allegations against the sheriff to the Arizona attorney general's office, a move that could still end his career if prosecutors decide the evidence warrants charges.
The failed ouster and the perjury referral cap weeks of mounting pressure on Nanos, whose troubles now extend far beyond one contested deposition. A high-profile missing-persons case, a unanimous no-confidence vote from his own deputies, and records showing a disciplinary history he allegedly concealed under oath have converged into a political crisis that the sheriff has so far survived, but barely.
Republican Supervisor Steve Christy made the motion to vacate the sheriff's office and begin replacing Nanos immediately. He argued the sheriff had already blown a deadline to answer questions from the board under oath. Fox News Digital reported that no supervisor seconded Christy's motion, and it died on the floor.
Christy told the board that the sheriff's failure to comply made further deliberation pointless.
"He's already failed that request... so we're into the next phase."
Democrat Supervisor Rex Scott then offered an alternative: refer the perjury allegations to the state attorney general. The board approved it 4-0, with Christy abstaining. The referral stops short of removing Nanos but puts the question of whether he lied under oath into the hands of state prosecutors.
The perjury allegations stem from a deposition in a lawsuit, during which Nanos stated 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 publicly by Pima County, tell a different story. Those records show Nanos was suspended multiple times and resigned from the El Paso Police Department in 1982 in lieu of termination.
The New York Post reported that the El Paso records cited multiple suspensions for insubordination, consistent inefficiency, excessive force, off-duty gambling, and attendance issues, a record that sharply contradicts the sheriff's sworn testimony.
Nanos pushed back in a written response to the board, arguing the controversy stems from a misunderstanding rather than perjury. His attorney said the sheriff's testimony referred only to his Arizona career. The memo does confirm, however, that Nanos resigned from El Paso in 1982 rather than accept a proposed suspension following a dispute with a supervisor.
Instead of appearing before the board to answer questions in person under oath, Nanos submitted a notarized statement, and did so after the deadline the board had set. That refusal to sit for live questioning frustrated supervisors on both sides of the aisle.
As we previously reported, county supervisors had been building toward this confrontation for weeks, citing both the perjury allegations and the broader collapse of confidence in Nanos' leadership.
The bipartisan nature of the criticism is striking. Scott, a Democrat, made the motion that actually passed. His remarks cut directly at the sheriff's standing within his own department.
"My chief concern with what's been going on within the sheriff's department is that our elected sheriff has taken no discernible efforts to repair relationships and trust within our largest department. The most telling example of that was the unanimous vote of the Pima County Deputy's Organization declaring no confidence in his leadership."
A unanimous no-confidence vote from the deputies' own union is not a minor bureaucratic complaint. It means the rank-and-file officers who work under Nanos have formally declared they do not trust him to lead.
Democrat Supervisor Matt Heinz went further, telling Fox News Digital last week that the board should have acted sooner. He called the situation what it is: a long-overdue reckoning.
"This is accountability for a guy who has evaded accountability for decades."
Heinz disputed the characterization that Nanos simply resigned from El Paso in a routine career move. He also noted that a perjury conviction would ultimately force the sheriff from office, even if the board's own effort fell short Tuesday night. Heinz called on Nanos to hand the investigation over to federal authorities, saying the delay was indefensible.
"It's ridiculous. Almost every other jurisdiction would have done so by now."
Supervisors pointed to a rarely used Arizona law dating back to the 1800s as a possible path forward for removing an elected sheriff, a measure of how few tools the county has when an officeholder refuses to step aside voluntarily.
The perjury controversy did not arise in a vacuum. It landed on top of intense public anger over the disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, the mother of "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie, who vanished on Feb. 1. The investigation has now stretched past 100 days with no resolution. More than $1.2 million in reward money is being offered for information that leads to answers.
The case sparked tension between Nanos and the FBI, including a public clash with FBI Director Kash Patel over whether federal agents were initially sidelined from the investigation. That dispute raised questions about whether local pride or institutional turf wars slowed the response during the most critical early hours.
As Savannah Guthrie publicly pleaded for help finding her mother near the 100-day mark, the political pressure on Nanos only intensified. The case has drawn national attention and placed Pima County law enforcement under a microscope it was plainly not prepared for.
The outside legal counsel the county has retained to navigate the sheriff controversy is costing taxpayers additional money, a fact that adds insult to the broader institutional failure.
Meanwhile, forensic analysis of the Guthrie case has raised disturbing questions about what happened in the early stages of the investigation and whether missteps compromised the search for the missing woman.
Even with the ouster vote behind him, Nanos faces a separate and potentially more dangerous political threat. Republican congressional candidate Daniel Butierez has launched a recall campaign against the sheriff, driven by frustration with the Guthrie investigation and broader leadership failures. Newsmax reported that organizers claim bipartisan volunteer support and are working to meet Arizona's steep signature threshold, roughly 122,230 valid signatures, equal to 25 percent of the votes cast in the last sheriff's race.
Butierez has not been subtle about his assessment. He said Nanos "has been an embarrassment" to Tucson and Pima County.
The Washington Examiner reported that the recall campaign has about 120 days to gather roughly 120,000 signatures, with organizers aiming to hit the mark faster using approximately 500 volunteers. Critics have pointed not only to the Guthrie case but also to Nanos' admission that reopening the crime scene early in the investigation was likely a mistake, a concession that did little to reassure a public already losing confidence. When asked about the recall, Nanos told 13 News, "I would always honor the will of the people."
The scrutiny extends beyond one case. Nanos has faced questions about his amended resume, and the deputy no-confidence sentiment reported as far back as 2024 suggests the rot in his department's morale is not new. It simply took a nationally watched missing-persons case to force the issue into the open.
Separate from the perjury and recall controversies, records have revealed that Nanos was caught with a loaded gun at a TSA checkpoint, another episode that raises basic questions about the judgment of the man running Pima County's largest law enforcement agency.
The board's referral to the attorney general's office now puts the perjury question in the hands of state prosecutors. If they pursue charges and secure a conviction, Heinz said, Nanos would be forced from office. That process could take months, or longer. In the meantime, the recall campaign moves forward on a parallel track, and the Guthrie investigation remains unsolved.
The open questions are significant. What will the attorney general's office do with the referral? Can recall organizers hit the 122,000-signature threshold in a county where political campaigns rarely generate that kind of grassroots energy? And will the FBI or any federal agency take a larger role in the Guthrie case, as Heinz and others have demanded?
Nanos remains in office. His deputies have said publicly they do not trust him. Both Republican and Democratic supervisors have taken formal action against him. The records from El Paso sit in the public file, contradicting what he told a court under oath. And an 84-year-old woman is still missing.
Accountability delayed is not accountability delivered. The people of Pima County are still waiting for both.
