A Republican supervisor's bid to oust Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos collapsed Tuesday night when no one on the Board of Supervisors seconded his motion, but the board did not let the embattled sheriff walk away clean. In a 4-0 vote, with the Republican abstaining, supervisors referred perjury allegations against Nanos to the Arizona attorney general's office, a step that could ultimately force him from office if prosecutors pursue charges and secure a conviction.

The twin votes laid bare a county government in open conflict with its own elected sheriff, a man facing a no-confidence declaration from his deputies, accusations that he lied under oath about his disciplinary record, and mounting criticism over his handling of the disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie, the mother of "Today" co-host Savannah Guthrie.

The referral keeps the perjury question alive and puts it in the hands of state prosecutors. For taxpayers in Pima County, the saga has already meant additional legal costs, a stalled missing-persons investigation stretching past 100 days, and a sheriff's department whose own rank-and-file have declared they have no confidence in the man running it.

What happened at the board meeting

Republican Supervisor Steve Christy moved to declare the sheriff's office vacant and begin the process to replace Nanos immediately. He pointed out that Nanos had already missed a board deadline to answer questions under oath. Fox News Digital reported that no other supervisor seconded the motion, and it died on the spot.

Christy did not mince words about the timeline.

"He's already failed that request... so we're into the next phase."

With the ouster off the table for now, Democrat Supervisor Rex Scott offered an alternative: refer the perjury allegations to the state attorney general. The board approved that motion 4-0. Christy abstained.

Scott framed the referral as a response to a deeper leadership failure inside the department. He told the meeting that Nanos had done nothing visible to repair trust with his own people.

"My chief concern with what's been going on within the sheriff's department is that our elected sheriff has taken no discernible efforts to repair relationships and trust within our largest department. The most telling example of that was the unanimous vote of the Pima County Deputy's Organization declaring no confidence in his leadership."

That no-confidence vote from the deputies' union is a fact worth pausing on. When the officers who serve under a sheriff unanimously say they do not trust him, the problem is not a political disagreement. It is a breakdown in command.

The perjury allegations

The case against Nanos centers on testimony he gave under oath in a deposition during a lawsuit. In that deposition, Nanos stated that he had never been suspended as a law enforcement officer.

Records from El Paso, first obtained by the Arizona Republic and later posted publicly by the county, tell a different story. Those records show Nanos was suspended multiple times during his time with the El Paso Police Department and resigned in lieu of termination in 1982.

Nanos and his attorney submitted a written response to the board arguing the controversy stems from a misunderstanding, not perjury. His attorney contended that the sheriff's sworn testimony referred only to his Arizona career. The memo acknowledged that Nanos was never suspended during his decades with the Pima County Sheriff's Department but conceded he faced discipline earlier in Texas. It confirmed that Nanos resigned from the El Paso Police Department in 1982 rather than accept a proposed suspension following a dispute with a supervisor.

That distinction, "I meant Arizona, not my whole career", is the kind of parsing that may satisfy a defense attorney but raises obvious questions about candor under oath. A deposition question about whether someone has ever been suspended does not typically come with a geographic qualifier. The attorney general's office will now decide whether the gap between what Nanos said and what the records show rises to a criminal matter.

Nanos had been given a chance to appear before the board and answer questions under oath. He declined. Instead, he submitted a notarized statement after the deadline, a move that did little to satisfy supervisors already frustrated with his lack of cooperation.

Democrat supervisors join the pressure campaign

What makes the board's action notable is that the pressure is not coming exclusively from the Republican side. Democrat Supervisor Matt Heinz has been among the most vocal critics of Nanos. He told Fox News Digital last week that the situation amounts to long-overdue accountability.

"This is accountability for a guy who has evaded accountability for decades."

Heinz called Nanos a "public safety threat" and said the board had several options, including passing a resolution expressing a lack of confidence or referring the allegations for criminal investigation. The board chose the latter.

Heinz also disputed the characterization in Nanos' memo that the sheriff merely resigned in lieu of discipline. He pushed back on the framing, though the specific factual basis for his objection was not detailed. The New York Post noted that Nanos' own lawyer's memo confirmed multiple suspensions in El Paso and the 1982 resignation in lieu of disciplinary action, facts that sit uneasily beside the sheriff's sworn claim of a clean record.

Supervisors have also pointed to a rarely used Arizona law dating back to the 1800s as a possible path forward for removing an elected sheriff, though they did not invoke it Tuesday night. A perjury conviction, if one comes, would ultimately force Nanos from office without the board needing to use that statute.

The Nancy Guthrie investigation looms over everything

The perjury allegations did not arise in a vacuum. They surfaced against the backdrop of one of the most high-profile missing-persons cases in the country, the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, 84, from her Tucson home on Feb. 1. The investigation has now stretched past 100 days with few public breakthroughs, and more than $1.2 million in reward money is being offered for information.

Nanos has faced sharp criticism over the department's handling of the case. The sheriff clashed publicly with FBI Director Kash Patel over whether federal agents were initially sidelined from the investigation, a dispute that drew national attention and raised questions about interagency cooperation.

Heinz has called on Nanos to hand the investigation over to federal authorities entirely. He was blunt about the sheriff's refusal to do so.

"It's ridiculous. Almost every other jurisdiction would have done so by now."

The Guthrie case has also drawn scrutiny to the people working under Nanos. Concerns about the investigative leadership assigned to the case have added to the sense that the department is struggling under its current command.

Meanwhile, retaining outside legal counsel to navigate the board's disputes with Nanos is costing Pima County taxpayers additional money, Christy noted, an expense that flows directly from the sheriff's refusal to cooperate with the board's oversight.

A sheriff under siege from all sides

The picture that emerges from Tuesday's meeting is of an elected official who has managed to unite Republicans and Democrats against him, not through ideology, but through conduct. His own deputies say they have no confidence in him. His board has referred potential criminal charges to the state's top prosecutor. He declined to answer questions under oath and missed the deadline for a written response.

There have also been allegations that Nanos retaliated against a county official for cooperating with the FBI on the Guthrie case, a claim that, if substantiated, would deepen concerns about his willingness to put the investigation ahead of his own authority.

Separate from the board's actions, a political effort to recall the sheriff has also gained traction. An Arizona GOP candidate launched a recall campaign targeting Nanos over his handling of the Guthrie case, adding yet another front to the pressure on his office.

Nanos, for his part, has 50 years in law enforcement. His written response to the board framed the perjury allegations as a misunderstanding rooted in a decades-old personnel dispute in Texas. Whether the Arizona attorney general agrees with that characterization, or sees something more serious, will determine whether the sheriff keeps his badge.

What comes next

The referral to the attorney general's office means the perjury question is no longer just a local political fight. It is now a matter for state prosecutors to evaluate. If they find sufficient evidence, charges could follow. A conviction would remove Nanos from office.

For now, the sheriff remains in his post. The ouster motion failed. But the board's unanimous referral, with Democrats leading the charge, signals that the political ground beneath Nanos is eroding fast. The deputies who work for him have said publicly they do not trust him. The supervisors who oversee county government have sent his sworn testimony to prosecutors. And the case that put his department under a national spotlight, the disappearance of an 84-year-old woman from her Tucson home, remains unsolved past the 100-day mark, with $1.2 million in reward money and no answers.

When your own deputies, your own board, and the facts from your own personnel file all point the same direction, calling it a "misunderstanding" takes more than a notarized statement. It takes a prosecutor willing to look the other way.