The accused "imposter" behind a phony ransom demand in the Nancy Guthrie case pleaded guilty to harassing her family with a phony ransom payment Thursday in a federal court in Tucson, Arizona.Guthrie is the 84-year-old mother of "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie, and she vanished from her home in the city's Catalina Foothills neighborhood in the early hours of Feb.1.
The following day, ransom demands were sent to local media — and investigators continue to look into their authenticity.The FBI quickly deemed messages from Derrick Anthony Callella, a 42-year-old man from Hawthorne, California, as a hoax, and he was arrested within days of Guthrie's suspected abduction and indicted on online harassment charges.He is expected to receive a sentence of five years on federal probation at a formal sentencing later, according to the Tucson-based KVOA-TV.FBI SAYS NANCY GUTHRIE ABDUCTION DEMANDS MAY BE ‘LEGITIMATE’ AS CASE STILL PROBED AS KIDNAPPING FOR RANSOMDerrick Callella pleaded guilty in a scheme to extort bitcoin from the Guthrie family after Nancy Guthrie's disappearance.(Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty Images/Obtained by Fox News)He was accused of contacting Guthrie's other daughter, Annie Guthrie, and son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni, from a spoofed phone number on Feb.
4 and asking, "Did you get the bitcoin were [sic] waiting on our end for the transaction." He also allegedly placed a nine-second call to the family afterward."Through the course of the investigation, it was found that Callella was acting as an imposter, trying to take advantage of the ongoing situation," federal prosecutors said in a statement after the suspect's first court appearance in mid-February.FOX TRUE CRIME IS NOW ON FACEBOOKNancy Guthrie, 84, has been missing from her Arizona home since Jan.31, 2026.
(Don Arnold/WireImage/Getty Images)According to court documents, investigators have not linked him to a Feb.2 ransom demand sent to local media and TMZ.
They did, however, allegedly link the s...