An inmate at Pima County Jail has filed a lawsuit against Sheriff Chris Nanos and his department, claiming deputies endangered his life by ignoring COVID-19 quarantine protocols. Christopher Michael Marx filed the suit in the US District Court for the District of Arizona on March 5, seeking $1,350,000 and a formal apology.
Marx alleges a sheriff's deputy moved freely between jail units, including one housing an inmate quarantined with COVID-19, without taking basic sanitation precautions. According to the lawsuit, the deputy "did not wipe down his body" while rotating between the units, exposing other inmates to the virus.
"This deputy was going back and forth working both units … our unit was on lockdown because this deputy was working both units."
Marx claims this conduct violated Article Two of the Arizona State Constitution, the Declaration of Rights, and amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. Beyond the seven-figure payout, he wants Nanos and the department to guarantee that deputies "properly disinfect their bodies while working between quarantined units."
The lawsuit lands on Nanos at a particularly inconvenient moment. The sheriff is already facing pointed criticism over his department's handling of the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie. Nancy Guthrie was reported missing on Feb. 1, and a months-long investigation has produced, according to critics, no real leads.
Sgt. Aaron Cross, president of the Pima County Deputies Organization, offered a blunt assessment of the situation to the New York Post:
"It is a common belief in this agency that this case has become an ego case for Sheriff Nanos."
When the people inside your own agency are saying that publicly, the problem isn't external perception. It's internal confidence. Cross's statement suggests a department where rank-and-file deputies have lost faith in the leadership directing their work.
Marx is not a sympathetic plaintiff by any stretch. He was found guilty of shoplifting in late 2024, according to Newsweek. He's an inmate suing the county for over a million dollars because a deputy allegedly walked between two units without sanitizing. The claim itself reads like the kind of jailhouse litigation that floods federal courts every year.
But that's precisely what makes the broader picture worth watching. When a sheriff's department can't keep a routine COVID protocol complaint from escalating to federal court, and simultaneously can't produce results in a high-profile missing persons case involving a nationally known family, the question stops being about any single incident. It becomes a question about competence.
The Pima County Sheriff's Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit. That silence is becoming a pattern.
The demands in the suit are worth listing plainly:
The money is one thing. The apology demand tells you something about the nature of the complaint. Marx isn't just alleging negligence. He's alleging indifference.
"This put my life in jeopardy with their action, constantly."
Pima County sits in southern Arizona, a region that has dealt with enormous strain on law enforcement resources in recent years. Sheriffs in border-adjacent counties are expected to manage routine jail operations, complex investigations, and the downstream consequences of border policy failures, all at once. That's a real challenge, and it deserves honest acknowledgment.
But resource strain doesn't excuse basic institutional dysfunction. If deputies are rotating between quarantined and non-quarantined units without following sanitation protocols, that's a supervision failure. If a months-long missing persons investigation has stalled to the point where your own sergeants are calling it an "ego case" in the press, that's a leadership failure.
Marx may or may not have a meritorious legal claim. Federal courts will sort that out. What can't be sorted out in a courtroom is the growing chorus of voices, from inmates to deputies to the families of missing persons, all pointing at the same office and asking the same question.
Who's running this department?
