A man has pleaded guilty to felony harassment charges in a US federal court for sending fake ransom notes posing as a kidnapper of “Today” show co-host Savannah Guthrie’s missing elderly mother.
Derrick Callella, 42, pleaded guilty to two counts of harassment by telecommunications device, marking the only criminal conviction to date stemming from the disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie from her home in Tucson, Arizona, five months ago.
The charges carry a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
But the plea agreement with prosecutors calls for Callella, a resident of Hawthorne, California, to serve five years on probation, according to a US Attorney’s Office spokesperson. Formal sentencing was set for 10 September.
The plea deal, entered in US District Court in Tucson, leaves Ms Guthrie’s fate unknown and the underlying kidnapping case as yet unsolved.
Savannah and Nancy Guthrie
Ms Guthrie, in frail health with limited mobility, was last seen alive on 31 January at her home.
A friend contacted family members the next day, when she did not show up to church as expected, and relatives entering her home found her gone.
A search of her residence showed she had left behind essential items such as her wallet, cellphone, hearing aid and medication.
Blood found on Ms Guthrie’s front porch was hers, DNA tests confirmed later.
Mr Callella was arrested on 5 February, four days after Guthrie was reported missing.
By then, according to court records and FBI public statements, local media had received a ransom note on 2 February demanding payment in bitcoin and setting deadlines for payment.
In entering his guilty plea, Mr Callella admitted that he called and sent text messages to Ms Guthrie’s family on 4 February inquiring about a bitcoin transfer, and “he acknowledged that he knew an earlier ransom demand had been made,” the US Attorney statement said.
“Callella also admitted that his actions were meant to harass the family by seeking information about the investigation into the missing person’s disappearance,” the statement said.
The guilty plea came a day after the FBI field office in Phoenix said on X that investigators have received “several” ransom notes in the course of the investigation, some deemed to be “extortion attempts without legitimacy,” others being treated as potentially genuine.
The FBI said Ms Guthrie’s disappearance continues to be investigated as a kidnapping-for-ransom case.
Last week, celebrity news site TMZ.com reported receiving an email from someone claiming to know the identities of the abductors and to have video of the “main guy” involved in her kidnapping, as well as of Ms Guthrie on the day she died.
An FBI official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an active probe, told Reuters on Tuesday that the latest TMZ letter and two ransom notes reported by media in February have since been deemed by investigators to not be credible.