{"id":384788,"date":"2026-07-03T09:31:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T09:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/384788\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T09:31:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T09:31:15","slug":"nancy-guthrie-case-california-man-pleads-guilty-to-fake-ransom-note","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/384788\/","title":{"rendered":"Nancy Guthrie case: California man pleads guilty to fake ransom note"},"content":{"rendered":"

(NewsNation<\/a>)\u00a0\u2014\u00a0A California man was sentenced to five years of probation after pleading guilty to sending a fake ransom note to the family of Nancy Guthrie,<\/a> who has been missing since February.<\/a><\/p>\n

Derrick Callella, 42, admitted to two federal felony counts of transmitting communications containing a demand for ransom, reported KOLD<\/a>-TV. His sentencing is set for September 10.<\/p>\n

The FBI said Callella texted two of Guthrie\u2019s family members Feb. 4. He also allegedly made a nine-second call to a family member.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you get the bitcoin were [sic] waiting on our end for the transaction,\u201d one text allegedly read, according to court documents.<\/p>\n

Minutes later, investigators said cellphone data showed Callella made a nine-second call to a Guthrie family member.<\/p>\n

\t
\n\t\tNancy Guthrie update: FBI asserts some ransom notes \u2018potentially legitimate\u2019\t<\/a><\/p>\n

According to court documents, Callella later admitted he had been following the case on television and found the family\u2019s contact information online, saying he sent the messages \u201cto see if the family would respond.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department of Justice will protect victims and families at all costs, and grief profiteers will be held accountable,\u201d U.S. Attorney Timothy Courchaine said after Callella\u2019s arrest.<\/p>\n

Guthrie, 84, has been missing from her Arizona home since February in what investigators believe was an abduction. Authorities have searched for nearly six months but have not publicly identified any suspects or persons of interest, and no arrests have been made in her disappearance.<\/p>\n

Callella\u2019s messages are separate from other ransom notes that surfaced during the investigation.<\/p>\n

Retired FBI agent Jason Pack said investigators cannot definitively dismiss any ransom communication until they determine who sent it and what happened to Guthrie.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t know what happened to Miss Nancy. Law enforcement is still looking for Miss Nancy,\u201d Pack told \u201cElizabeth Vargas Reports.\u201d<\/a> \u201cUntil they have answers to that question, I don\u2019t see how you can definitively say a note is or is not legitimate until you know exactly what happened. You don\u2019t know who sent it yet.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pack\u2019s comments come after the FBI\u2019s Phoenix Field Office issued a statement saying some ransom demands \u201cmay potentially be legitimate and are still being investigated as such,\u201d while others have been deemed illegitimate \u201cextortion attempts.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement follows comments an FBI agent made to the news outlet Reuters<\/a> saying the three Nancy Guthrie kidnapping notes recently highlighted in the media are fake.<\/p>\n

The agent said the three debunked messages included two ransom notes<\/a> sent to media outlets in early February, just days after Guthrie was reported missing. Then, a third note was sent out last week.<\/p>\n

NewsNation has not confirmed Reuters\u2019 report.<\/p>\n

NewsNation\u2019s\u00a0Taylor Delandro contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(NewsNation)\u00a0\u2014\u00a0A California man was sentenced to five years of probation after pleading guilty to sending a fake ransom…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5661,7,9,8],"class_list":["post-384788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-author","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}