In 2024, Republican candidate Heather Lappine lost the Pima County sheriff’s seat to incumbent Democrat Chris Nanos, the man currently responsible for finding Nancy Guthrie, by 481 votes in a recount. More than 487,000 people voted in the elections, making the margin of victory less than 0.1 percent.
There is no love lost between Lapine and her former boss, and you can count Lapine among those who believe that Sheriff Nanos is currently botching the Guthrie kidnapping case, which may soon turn into a murder case. Talk to Hollywood ReporterLapine, a former lieutenant of Nanos (literally – that was her rank), didn’t have anything nice to say about the Sheriff of America.
“He’s a tyrant,” Lapine says. “He’s trying to be too charming. Like when he did his quote.” [at the Guthrie press conference]“I’m not used to people hanging on my every word and trying to hold me accountable.” Then he put his hands on his hips because he was trying to be gentle. No one thinks you’re cute. You’re a 72-year-old man, and no one thinks you’re cute.
Okay, maybe some of Lapine’s complaints are a bit trivial. But not all of them.
After her loss, Lapine says she asked to be transferred to another district – any Of them. The application was rejected and she eventually moved to Phoenix, an hour and 40-minute drive from Tucson, where she found a new job.
It’s been a journey. Lapine claims that after his challenge for mayor Nanos transferred her to a correctional facility at the Pima County Adult Detention Center. Lapine had no experience in corrections (but 20 years as a street cop), and by then, prison was a very bad place — even for a prison.
“We’ve had too many deaths in prison because Nanos decided to come in and fire correctional officers just for not getting the coronavirus vaccine,” Lappin says. “They didn’t fire the deputies, they just fired the corrections officers.”
Nanos lost the city’s mayoral election in 2016 amid a RICO investigation. He won in 2020. That same year, COVID-19 began killing inmates, but so did the realities of a few staff members, Lappin says. “[The inmates] “They were literally locked in these rooms, just getting food. That’s it – no exercise, nothing,” she adds.
She says it was also difficult for remaining correctional officers to monitor drugs coming into prisons.
She confirms that Lapine will face these challenges within a few years, as a result of her presence on the ballot against Nanos. Her new job was hard and unfamiliar, and her nights were not much better than her days. Lappin says she was the target of 13 internal affairs investigations in just six months, each of which was allegedly an attempt by Nanos to discredit his political opponent.
She alleges that Nanos also attempted to “intimidate” Lapin at campaign events. “He sent two of his female leaders to my campaign events to try to intimidate me,” Lapine says. “He’s like a Mafia member, that’s what he is.”
“Right now, our focus is on this investigation, serving the victims and this community. Political comments are distracting from this active investigation, and that’s unfortunate,” Sheriff Nanos says. THR When asked to comment on the accusations in this story. “My focus remains on fairness and transparency.”
Nanos recently conducted interviews with select media outlets on the ground in Tucson. He has come into conflict with some conservative outlets.
After Nanos won by a razor-thin margin, Lappine said: “He kept following me.” The result of these efforts was Albin’s administrative leave, where she says she was essentially placed under “house arrest.” She sued for $2 million.
Now, Lappine tries not to talk about the Guthrie case, but she has criticized the sheriff’s work. (Lapine declined to comment on plans to run for Pima County sheriff in 2028, though she says she could from an eligibility standpoint.)
Earlier this month, Nancy Guthrie, an elderly and infirm mother today The show’s co-anchor, Savannah Guthrie, was violently taken from her home in Tucson, Arizona. More than three weeks into the investigation, law enforcement, which now includes the FBI, no longer has any real leads.
“A lot of Guthrie’s case is just the results of his really bad decisions, and the years he spent destroying his units,” Lappin says. “Three of our best homicide detectives, probably V [all of] Southern Arizona, they were removed from the homicide department because they supported me [in the election]”.
One popular criticism of Nanos, who to his credit has faced many of the issues head-on, is the reported rift between his office and the feds. It is not entirely clear who has primary jurisdiction as the details of the crime remain unknown. Lapine says she would have handled the case differently.
“Why didn’t you become a support agency and give this to the FBI? They have the resources. They could bring in hundreds and hundreds of people who control those lines of information. He’s trying to do this with 395 deputies — we don’t have the resources,” Lapine says.
In our phone call, Lapine reported on the latest developments in Nancy Guthrie’s case: a $1 million reward “for any information leading to her recovery,” Savannah Guthrie explained in a video Tuesday. A close family member said THR The Guthries wanted to get the reward on the first day, but law enforcement discouraged the idea in an effort to prevent fake tipsters.
“[Nanos’] “The ego doesn’t allow him to make the decision to give up on her because he thinks it will make him look bad,” Lapine says. “When you put your ego and your ego into perspective [image] “To the public about the health and safety of an 84-year-old woman, that’s a problem.”
