Carlos Palazuelos was out delivering food for DoorDash on Feb. 10 when his day went completely sideways. According to a legal filing, officers pulled him over at gunpoint, cuffed him, and held him for the better part of a workday. He was never charged with anything. Now he and two family members are coming for the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, and they want $3.25 million.
A Phoenix law firm filed what’s called a notice of claim this week against the department, Sheriff Chris Nanos, and Detective Earl Gieron. Think of it as the warning shot before an actual lawsuit. It lays out wrongful arrest, property damage, and a reputation that got dragged through the mud, all tied to the ongoing search for Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of TODAY co-anchor Savannah Guthrie.
A DoorDash Run That Ended at Gunpoint
Palazuelos lives in Rio Rico, a small town about 60 miles south of Tucson. He was driving with his wife when law enforcement stopped him, according to the filing. The claim says he was pulled over at gunpoint, handcuffed, and put in the back of a vehicle while deputies searched his car. He told reporters that nobody explained what was going on for about two hours, until detectives finally showed up and told him he was being detained for kidnapping.
He sat in custody for roughly seven to eight hours. Then they let him walk out, no charges, no explanation, nothing. He says he later learned the whole thing started with an anonymous tip claiming he looked similar to a masked person seen on surveillance footage outside Guthrie’s home.
Guns Pointed at a Man Who Got Up to Check a Noise
While Palazuelos was being held, deputies were also at a home in Rio Rico. That’s where Daniel Maddox was. According to the notice, he heard a loud noise and walked out of his room to see what was happening. When he stepped into the hallway, men in military gear pointed guns at him and told him to get down on the ground.
The filing says Maddox was then pulled out of the house, handcuffed, and held under armed guard at a van for several hours. He wasn’t charged with anything either. The document says his detention inside his own home caused him serious physical, mental, and emotional pain. He’s the second man named in the claim.
The Homeowner’s Wrecked House
The house belongs to Josefina Maddox, who is Palazuelos’ mother-in-law. She’s the third person in the filing, and her complaint is about her property. The claim says deputies executed a search warrant and left the place a mess. We’re talking a broken front door and door frame, damaged paint, busted ceiling tiles, and a damaged attic entrance.
The word her attorneys used was “ransacked.” On the day it happened, Josefina told a local station her frustration in plain terms. “They’re just invading my property,” she said. “They’re going in and out of my house taking a lot of pictures and everything. Like I told them, we’re not hiding anything.” No one at that address ended up facing charges connected to the case.
The Post That Made Him Look Guilty
Here’s the part that really burns the family. The sheriff’s office put out a social media post saying a person had been arrested and was being questioned in connection with the Nancy Guthrie investigation. Palazuelos was never named in that post, but between the timing and other statements from the department, his attorneys argue the public connected the dots fast. Suddenly a delivery driver looked like a kidnapping suspect to the entire country.
Months later, that cloud hasn’t lifted. Palazuelos says strangers started following his family and snapping photos of them. “Like yesterday, we went out dashing and we got home and there was this red truck following us,” he told a reporter. “This morning it was there too, so it’s been kind of scary for me and for my wife, my kids and everybody.” His lawyers say they asked the sheriff to retract the statements and publicly clear his name, and the department refused.
Breaking Down the $3.25 Million
The $3.25 million total isn’t one lump sum. It’s split three ways based on what each person went through. Palazuelos is asking for the biggest chunk at $2.5 million, which tracks with the arrest, the hours in custody, and the reputation damage he says he’s still dealing with. Daniel Maddox is seeking $500,000 for being cuffed and held under guard. Josefina Maddox is asking for $250,000 to cover the damage to her home.
The law firm handling it is Robbins Curtin Millea & Showalter. A notice of claim is required before you can sue a government agency in Arizona, so this is step one, not the finish line. The sheriff’s department has 60 days to respond. If they don’t settle or work something out in that window, an actual lawsuit can follow. When the notice went out, the department did not immediately comment on it.
The Sealed Warrant Nobody Will Explain
The strangest thing about this whole mess is that the family still doesn’t fully know why deputies zeroed in on Palazuelos. The search warrant that started it all is sealed. His attorneys say they were told it came down to an anonymous tip about him looking like the suspect on camera, but they can’t see the actual paperwork that convinced a judge to sign off.
The filing goes hard at that warrant, alleging it was built on “false or baseless evidence” and obtained through “deceptive or misleading representations,” and that the department lacked probable cause. Attorney Jesse Showalter didn’t mince words. “There’s no doubt at this point that it was a wrongful search and a wrongful arrest,” he said. “Whatever this purported evidence was that the sheriff’s department used to obtain the search warrant, it’s wrong. It’s not good evidence.”
For his part, Sheriff Nanos has said there were more factors behind the detention than just that single tip, but he wouldn’t spell them out. He’s also said no one has been officially ruled out of the investigation, including Palazuelos. That’s exactly the kind of statement that keeps the family stuck in limbo, cleared enough to be released but never cleared enough to move on.
Six Months In, Still No Nancy Guthrie
All of this is happening against the backdrop of a case that still has no answers. Nancy Guthrie vanished from her Catalina Foothills home north of Tucson in the early hours of Feb. 1. The FBI is treating it as a kidnapping for ransom and released images of a masked person walking up to her front door in the middle of the night. Her daughter, Savannah Guthrie, has made emotional public pleas asking anyone with information to come forward.
The notice of claim landed the same week the sheriff’s department confirmed another dead end. Investigators said hair found at Guthrie’s home was tested and did not point to a suspect. They wouldn’t say where the hair was found or whether it belonged to a man or a woman. The department said it has been analyzing DNA and digital evidence for the past six months. The claim also happened to arrive right around the point when Guthrie had been missing for exactly half a year.
There has been movement on one front. In July, a man from Hawthorne, California, pleaded guilty to sending a fake ransom note to Guthrie’s family. That’s not the same as solving the kidnapping, though. It’s someone taking advantage of a terrified family during the worst stretch of their lives, which is its own kind of ugly.
So here’s where things stand. A grandmother is still missing. A delivery driver, his relative, and a homeowner say they got swept up in the panic, roughed up, put on public display, and then left to clean up the wreckage on their own. The sheriff’s office has two months to decide how it wants to respond. And the one question the family keeps asking, what exactly made deputies come after them at gunpoint, is still locked behind a sealed warrant nobody will open.
