Men Detained in Guthrie Case Seek $3.25 Million From Sheriff

Carlos Palazuelos was working a DoorDash shift south of Tucson when he noticed vehicles trailing his car. He pulled over to figure out what was going on. Deputies stepped out with guns pointed at him, arrested him, and left him sitting in the back of a patrol car for the next seven or eight hours. He was never charged with anything. Six months later, he and two of his relatives want Pima County to hand over $3.25 million.

The reason his name got pulled into a national story comes down to bad timing. The 84-year-old woman who vanished from her home near Tucson happens to be the mother of "Today" show co-anchor Savannah Guthrie. Palazuelos says the sheriff's office made him look like a kidnapper to the entire country, then quietly let him walk without ever telling anyone he was innocent.

The traffic stop that turned into an arrest

Palazuelos, 36, was pulled over on Feb. 10 in Rio Rico, about 60 miles south of Tucson. According to the notice of claim, deputies followed him first, then stopped him. When he stepped out of his vehicle, officers pointed guns at him and cuffed him. He later said nobody explained a thing for a couple of hours.

"They didn't even tell me what's going on till the detectives got here, like two hours [after] I got arrested," he said. "They told me I was being detained for kidnapping."

He was driving with his wife when it happened. He sat locked in a patrol vehicle while deputies searched his car, then moved on to the family home. When it was all over, he walked away with no charges and no explanation.

Who is filing, and how the money breaks down

Three people are named in the filing, which a Phoenix law firm submitted this week. In Arizona, a notice of claim is the step you have to take before you can sue a government agency, so this is the opening move, not the lawsuit itself.

Carlos Palazuelos is asking for $2.5 million for assault, false arrest, negligence, defamation, and false imprisonment. His brother-in-law, Daniel Maddox, wants $500,000 after he says he was forced to the ground, handcuffed, and held under armed guard outside the house. Josefina Maddox, his mother-in-law and the homeowner, is seeking $250,000 for damage done to her property. The claim targets the Pima County Sheriff's Department, Sheriff Chris Nanos, and Detective Earl Gieron.

What deputies did to the house

The filing does not go easy on the search. It says men in military gear pointed guns at Daniel Maddox, pulled him out of the home, and ransacked the place.

The damage list is specific: a broken front door and door frame, damaged paint, torn-up ceiling tiles, and a busted attic entrance. The family's attorney, Jesse Showalter, says the evidence used to get the search warrant was garbage. "Whatever this purported evidence was that the sheriff's department used to obtain the search warrant, it's wrong. It's not good evidence," he said.

The social media post at the center of it all

Here is the part that seems to bother Palazuelos most. On the day of the arrest, Sheriff Nanos posted on X that deputies had detained a subject during a traffic stop south of Tucson who was "being questioned in connection to the Nancy Guthrie investigation."

The sheriff's office also told reporters Palazuelos was a "person of interest." The claim argues that combination made him look guilty to millions of people already glued to the case. His lawyers say they asked the department to walk it back or state plainly that he had nothing to do with it. According to the notice, the answer was no.

"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," the notice reads.

Living under a cloud

Being cleared in private is not the same as being cleared in public, and that gap is the whole argument. The filing says the arrest was carried out in a "public fashion" meant to humiliate him and pull attention away from criticism of how the sheriff handled the case. His lawyers describe lasting reputational and emotional harm that has not faded.

Palazuelos says the fallout followed him home. He told a reporter that strangers started photographing his family and tailing their car. "People taking pictures of us or following us... we got home and there was this red truck following us. This morning it was there too, so it's been kind of scary for me and for my wife, my kids and everybody."

The sheriff is not backing off

Nanos has not apologized and has not cleared Palazuelos. He said there were more factors behind the detention than a single tip, but would not spell out what they were. He has also said nobody, Palazuelos included, has been officially ruled out.

Meanwhile, the case that started all this keeps running into walls. The department confirmed that testing on hair found at Guthrie's Catalina Foothills home did not point to a suspect. Detectives would not say where the hair was found or whom it belonged to.

Where the Nancy Guthrie case stands

Nancy Guthrie went missing from her home early on Feb. 1. The FBI is treating it as a kidnapping for ransom. Investigators found blood near her front doorstep, and the agency later released surveillance video showing a masked man on her porch that night.

This week marked six months since she was last seen. The sheriff's office says DNA and digital evidence have been under analysis the whole time. "This work is complex and time-intensive, but investigators continue to pursue every credible lead," the department said. Nanos put it more bluntly, saying "we're working this as hard as we can."

A guilty plea, but not the one everyone wants

There has been exactly one criminal conviction tied to the case, and it has nothing to do with the actual kidnapping. A California man pleaded guilty in July to sending fake ransom messages to the family.

Derrick Callella, 42, admitted in federal court to two felony counts of harassment by telecommunications device after posing as a kidnapper and contacting Guthrie's relatives. He is set to be sentenced Sept. 10. The FBI has said several ransom notes came in during the investigation, and at least three that surfaced in media reports were fake. Savannah Guthrie posted a video this week that read as an emotional plea, essentially begging whoever took her mother to say where to look.

What happens next

Under Arizona law, a settlement offer in a notice of claim has to stay open for 60 days. If the county does not respond in that window, the offer is treated as rejected, and the family can move forward with a real lawsuit.

For now, Palazuelos wants two things: money and his name back. Showalter says the family is after accountability. A representative for the sheriff's department and the county did not immediately respond to a request for comment when the claim went public.

The odd thing is that both stories are still hanging in the air at the same time. Nancy Guthrie is still missing. And the man the sheriff put on social media is still waiting for someone in a badge to say, out loud, that he had nothing to do with any of it.