A 42-year-old California resident admitted in federal court on Thursday that he targeted the family of NBC “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie with phony ransom demands tied to the disappearance of her 84-year-old mother, Nancy Guthrie.
Derrick Callella of Hawthorne, California, pleaded guilty to two counts of harassment using a telecommunications device. He faces up to two years in prison and a $250,000 fine when sentenced on September 10, 2026, before U.S. District Judge John C. Hinderaker.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona, Callella called and sent text messages to members of the Guthrie family on February 4, 2026, shortly after Nancy Guthrie vanished from her Tucson-area home.
Derrick Callella obtained the phone numbers of Annie Guthrie and Tommaso Cioni. He called and texted them, referencing an earlier ransom demand and pressing about a Bitcoin transaction.
One text read: “Did you get the bitcoin were waiting on our end for the transaction.”
Callella admitted he knew a prior ransom demand had already been made. His actions, prosecutors say, were intended to harass the family and fish for information about the ongoing investigation into Nancy’s disappearance.
FBI agents later determined multiple ransom communications in the case were fakes or extortion attempts by sick individuals looking to exploit a family in unimaginable pain. This was one of them.
While this lowlife from California now faces sentencing for his depraved hoax, Nancy Guthrie is still missing after more than five months. The real perpetrators remain at large. The family continues to suffer.
Nancy Guthrie disappeared from her Arizona home on January 31. Investigators later recovered blood at the residence and surveillance footage allegedly showed a masked individual near the home shortly before she vanished. Despite months of investigation, she has not been found.
The guilty plea comes only days after investigators disclosed that several widely publicized ransom communications connected to the case were determined to be fraudulent, though the FBI has indicated it continues evaluating other extortion-related communications as part of its ongoing investigation.
All three kidnapping-related messages that have surfaced in news media reports about the disappearance of “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie’s elderly mother have been deemed by federal investigators to be fake communications, an FBI official told Reuters on Tuesday.
The FBI assessment of inauthenticity pertains to the two ransom notes reported in early February, days after 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie vanished, and a third, more recent message from someone claiming to know the kidnappers’ identities, the official said.
“None of the ransom notes are believed to be genuine,” the FBI official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss details of an active investigation.
A second law enforcement source familiar with the matter confirmed the FBI assessment of the ransom notes.
The disclosure that the FBI has discounted the veracity of the three notes – two of which were widely reported to have been communications from kidnappers – seemed to raise doubts about investigators’ fundamental premise that Nancy Guthrie was abducted for ransom to begin with.
Jim Hᴏft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016.
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