The only person convicted in the five-month disappearance of NBC host Savannah Guthrie's mother is a California man who sent the family fake ransom notes — and federal prosecutors gave him probation.
Derrick Callella, 42, of Hawthorne, pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in Tucson to two counts of harassment by telecommunications device, according to Breitbart. His plea deal calls for five years of probation on each count, served concurrently. No prison time. The charges carried a maximum of two years behind bars and a $250,000 fine. Callella, who was arrested in February and released on a $20,000 bond, has been ordered into residential drug treatment, ABC7 Los Angeles reported. He'll be sentenced September 10.
Meanwhile, the actual kidnapping of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie remains completely unsolved.
The elderly woman, who lived alone, was abducted from her Tucson home in the early morning hours of February 1. Security footage released by the FBI days later showed a masked man with a gun standing on her porch, staring directly into the camera. ABC7 reported that blood was found on the porch. No arrests have been made. No suspects have been publicly identified.
Savannah Guthrie broke down on air last month after reports surfaced that a ransom note claimed her mother was dead. "We are in agony, and we cannot be at peace. ... We love our mom. We'll never stop looking for her," she said from the Today desk. The FBI confirmed Wednesday that multiple ransom notes have been received over the course of the investigation. "Some have been deemed to be extortion attempts without legitimacy," the FBI's Phoenix field office said. "Other ransom demands may potentially be legitimate and are still being investigated as such."
So a family desperate for answers has spent months sorting through cruel hoaxes alongside genuine leads — and the one person caught preying on that agony faces no jail time.
President Trump has publicly threatened the kidnappers with the death penalty if they do not return Guthrie alive, Breitbart reported.
Five months in, the FBI and Pima County Sheriff's Office have a masked gunman on camera, blood on a porch, and no suspect in custody. The only conviction belongs to a man who added to the family's suffering from behind a phone — and the system let him walk.
What happens to working Americans who can't command network airtime or presidential attention when they face the same void?
