TMZ boss says he was prepared to pay Nancy Guthrie ransom to help case but FBI ghosted him

TMZ founder Harvey Levin was prepared to pay a ransom note writer who claimed to know who kidnapped Nancy Guthrie — but the FBI “ghosted” him, he revealed in a stunning new interview.Levin said the same person has been emailing the outlet on and off in the months since Guthrie’s mysterious Jan.31 abduction — saying he’s willing to hand over information that could lead investigators directly to the suspects, for a price. “A month ago, I called the FBI and I said, ‘Look, I just have this sense this guy might be real,’” Levin said during a Saturday interview with CBS producer Anna Schecter, explaining that the sender has repeatedly demanded one bitcoin (about $60,000) in exchange for the information and has used the same IP address in all communications with TMZ. “And I said, ‘What if we do a documentary, and we put that money in the bitcoin address and follow the path and where it goes?’ And we’d obviously not do anything without you, but just because we have this sense it’s real, what if we do this?” he continued. According to Levin, federal agents promised to get back to him quickly – but then went radio silent. “I had made six calls and I felt they were ghosting us,” Levin said.  The agency eventually reached back out – but with a surprising request. “I did get a call back this week and they asked us to stand down, to not do the documentary.“I was told that they feel like they’re making progress in terms of identifying this person, and they think they can do that,” Levin claimed. The response, Levin said, raised even more questions about whether authorities believe the potential informant is credible. “If you’re asking me, how do I make sense of all of it? I’m having trouble,” he said. “On the one hand, if they think this guy is just a jerk trying to scam money, why are they spending all this time…trying to figure out who this guy is?” Levin wondered aloud during a separate interview with CNN ...