An Arizona county assessor says she was scolded by the sheriff overseeing the search for Nancy Guthrie after her office sent a tip about the case to the FBI, according to a new report.
Guthrie is the 84-year-old mother of “Today” co-host Savannah Guthrie. She is believed to have been abducted from her home in the Catalina Foothills neighborhood on Feb. 1.
The official, Suzanne Droubie, told the Arizona Republic that the sheriff scolded her after techs in her office, which is responsible for property records in Pima County, sent data to the FBI.
“It was inferred that we were creating a lot of additional work for the sheriff’s department, due to us providing this information to the FBI, and then them having the responsibility to follow up on all of those leads that were provided,” she told the paper.
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Droubie was out of office Tuesday and could not immediately be reached by Fox News Digital.
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She did not discuss specifics about the tip in the interview but said the FBI had requested information, which her staff provided. Then she had a tense conversation with the sheriff.
“It seemed like he was very stressed, very frustrated,” Droubie told the paper. “I wouldn’t categorize it as yelling, per se, as much as kind of scolding and expressing frustration with all of the leads he was receiving, their obligation to follow up on them, and that my office was, was actually being more harm than good by providing more leads that they just had to follow up with.”
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A spokesperson for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said she could not comment.
“We are not authorized to provide any information or comment regarding these claims,” she wrote in an email.
Last week, the sheriff and FBI Director Kash Patel traded barbs over each other’s handling of the case. There has been tension since early on, when the FBI wanted to send DNA evidence to its lab in Quantico and the sheriff sent it to a contracted lab in Florida instead.
Eleven weeks later, the Florida lab sent the sample over to the FBI for more advanced testing. It’s now been more than 14 weeks since Guthrie’s suspected abduction.
Separately, the Pima County Board of Supervisors is expected to address concerns about unrelated allegations of perjury against Nanos at tonight’s meeting. Two supervisors, Dr. Matt Heinz and Steve Christy, told Fox News Digital last week they plan to move to vacate the sheriff’s office under a rarely invoked state law.
“I will make, second and/or support any motion or efforts to vacate,” Christy reiterated Tuesday morning, 100 days after Guthrie’s disappearance.
