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(Pima County Sheriff’s Office/Charles Sykes/Invision/AP photo)
The FBI has arrested a Los Angeles man for allegedly sending texts to the family of Nancy Guthrie asking for a ransom payable in bitcoin.
Fox News’s Bill Melugin reported Thursday that the texts allegedly sent by Derrick Callella were to see if the family “would respond.”
Melugin added, “His text messages are *not* believed to be connected to the ransom demand.”
Melugin retweeted the criminal complaint, writing, “Feds say he tried to use a VOIP app which they were able to quickly get around via an emergency disclosure request to their mobile carrier, then they found his IP address and linked it to his California address.”
The complaint states that Callella sent the text on or about Feb. 4 “with intent to abuse, threaten, or or harass any specific person.”
According to The New York Post, Callella, “who is in his mid-forties, texted Guthrie’s daughter, Annie, and son-in-law, Tommaso Cioni about the missing elderly woman on Wednesday, according to the complaint filed in Arizona federal court.”
One of his alleged messages read, “Did you get the bitcoin were [sic] waiting on our end for the transaction.”
On Wednesday night, Today Show host Savannah Guthrie and her siblings released a video pleading for the safe return of their missing 84-year-old mother.
At a press conference in Arizona Thursday, the FBI announced that it arrested one person on Thursday morning for allegedly writing a fake ransom note for profit.
Heith Janke, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Phoenix division, added, “My next message is to those impostors who are trying to take advantage and profit from this situation. We will investigate and ensure you are held accountable for your actions.”
Also, Thursday, TMZ reported on the unverified ransom note that outlet received Tuesday. It wasn’t clear if this was a separate ransom letter from the one allegedly involved in Callella’s arrest.
“So, the FBI just revealed some things about the letter we received that we have not talked about yet,” TMZ editor Harvy Levin said. “That second deadline is Monday — they’ve just announced that as well. We’re not going to say what gets triggered on each deadline, but the first one, the demands change, and the second one is much more serious.”
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