CPR coated every day of the Peters’ trial. You’ll be able to learn our explainer of the case right here, and make amends for particular person days right here.
Up to date on Oct. 3, 2024, at 2:30 p.m.
Tina Peters is headed to jail.
The previous Mesa County Clerk was sentenced to 9 years of incarceration, most of which can be served within the Colorado Division of Corrections.
Peters’ attorneys indicated they plan to enchantment.
twenty first Judicial District Choose Matthew Barrett preceded his sentence with a blistering critique of her actions and perspective, calling Peters an attention-seeking former official who solely thinks about herself.
“You’re no hero,” Barrett instructed Peters. “You are a charlatan who used, and remains to be utilizing, your prior place in workplace to hawk a snake oil that is been confirmed to be junk time and time once more.”
Barrett handed down the sentence in entrance of a packed courtroom that included supporters of Peters, a number of uniformed sheriff’s deputies and native elected officers. An overflow crowd gathered simply exterior the courtroom, streaming the proceedings on their telephones from ft away.
In August, Peters was discovered responsible by a jury of Mesa County residents on seven counts, together with 4 felonies, after she helped facilitate unauthorized entry to county voting tools that she was alleged to safeguard looking for voter fraud. Her supporters have by no means proven that the machines had been concerned in any type of election manipulation.
Throughout Thursday’s listening to, the prosecution argued that Peters ought to face the utmost penalty for many, if not all, of the fees.
“I don’t assume anyone on this room would make a straight-faced argument that Mrs. Peters has demonstrated any respect for the legislation,” twenty first Judicial District Legal professional Dan Rubinstein mentioned. He famous that she continues to argue she by no means did something incorrect.
“Ms. Peters has made this neighborhood a joke. She’s made respecting legislation enforcement a joke, made respecting courtroom orders a joke. She’s not accepted any accountability and considers this a badge of honor,” mentioned Rubinstein.
Courtesy of Larry Robinson/The Grand Junction Each day Sentinel
Forward of sentencing, Peters requested for probation. She mentioned she acknowledged the jury’s resolution to seek out her responsible on a lot of the counts, however that the jury wasn’t allowed to listen to different proof she needed to current. That proof was largely tied to conspiracies in regards to the county’s Dominion Voting Machines, which had been dominated inadmissible.
“I am not a legal and I do not deserve to enter a jail the place different individuals have dedicated heinous crimes,” Peters instructed the choose tearfully. She confirmed the choose footage of her deceased husband and her son, a Navy Seal who died within the line of obligation. She requested for probation partially to have the ability to preserve visiting her 95-year-old mom in Virginia.
“I am remorseful. Sure sir, I actually am,” mentioned Peters. “I by no means anticipated that simply doing a picture which was utterly authorized, earlier than and after the trusted construct would’ve landed me right here. I believed it was going to come back out quietly.”
However Barrett mentioned his sentence was not nearly punishment and the acceptance of accountability but in addition deterrence. A stiff sentence, Barrett mentioned, would guarantee different elected officers respect the tasks of their workplace.
“I am satisfied you’ll do it over again if you happen to may,” Barrett mentioned. “You’re as defiant a defendant as this courtroom has ever seen.”
Impression statements current dueling views of Peters
The prosecution and protection had been every given an hour to make their case forward of Barrett’s sentencing resolution.
Mesa County Commissioner Cody Davis mentioned the estimated value of Peters’ actions to Mesa County taxpayers was $1.4 million. That features Peters’s wage whereas she was barred from the elections workplace, in addition to quite a few recounts the county paid for to show their elections had been correct.
Whereas Davis defined the efforts to persuade the general public that Peters’ claims had been unfaithful, Barrett interjected to ask what the hand depend and different recounts confirmed.
“I need to know, what was the distinction?” Barrett requested.
“They had been an identical,” Davis mentioned, of the votes, noting {that a} hand depend in addition to a tabulation by a special voting machine firm confirmed the election tallies had been correct. “No materials distinction.”
“No materials distinction in any respect,” Barrett echoed.
Davis additionally mentioned Peters’ harm to the county went past the finances, to its broader repute.
“Individuals from throughout Colorado and different states now affiliate Mesa County, not with our pure magnificence or agriculture, however with the notorious actions of Ms. Peters. Her conduct has made this county a nationwide laughing inventory, overshadowing our accomplishments and our values,” Davis concluded.
Tom Hesse/CPR Information
Former Republican Mesa County Commissioner Scott McInnis referred to as for Peters to face the implications of her actions; he referred to her as a shame and mentioned all of her allegations of fraudulent votes quantity to nothing.
“They’ve by no means produced not one fraudulent vote, your Honor, not one fraudulent vote in Mesa County. Regardless of all these allegations, regardless of all these research,” mentioned McInnis.
Peters’ protection offered character witnesses from her life, one who spoke tearfully about her as a good friend and a gold-star mom who misplaced her son in a army accident.
“She is just not a risk to the neighborhood, she’s not a risk to the state,” mentioned California pastor Dave Bryan, who requested Barrett to not sentence Peters to jail time, however as an alternative to order her to serve probation at his church in California. “She’s by no means been a risk to some other human being and (a jail sentence) may solely smack of political vindication.”
Former Republican Elbert County Clerk Dallas Schroeder additionally testified in assist of Peters; he implored the choose to not incarcerate her for “trying to find the reality.”
“That’s tyranny at its worst when persons are afraid to have the ability to arise and say what they honestly imagine and to research issues,” mentioned Shroeder. Schroeder was sued by the state over copies he made from Elbert County’s election machine laborious drives across the identical time as Peters.
Screenshot from KREX livestream
Barrett questioned Schroeder on why Peters wanted to do greater than audit and depend the ballots.
“You need to consider it in a clearer approach than truly going again and what the machine instructed you the outcomes had been after which counting the ballots your self?” Barrett requested.
Schroeder mentioned it nonetheless is sensible for clerks to have the chance to see all the things that is happening inside the elections system.
The sentence is the fruits of a multi-year investigation and authorized struggle
Peters was discovered responsible of three felony counts of making an attempt to affect a public servant and one depend of conspiracy to commit legal impersonation. She was additionally convicted of first-degree official misconduct, violation of obligation, and failure to adjust to an order from the Secretary of State, all misdemeanors.
The investigation started a bit greater than three years in the past when photographs taken throughout a safe replace of Mesa County’s voting tools surfaced on-line. On the identical time, a duplicate of Mesa County’s laborious drive was displayed and mentioned at a “cyber symposium” hosted by Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO who has been on the heart of false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
Over the course of a prolonged trial, prosecutors laid out a timeline demonstrating that Peters had begun assembly with election conspiracy theorists in early 2021 about assumed “irregularities” in voting totals. In response, Peters and others hatched a plan to herald an unauthorized individual to look at a software program replace of Dominion Voting Machines. The plot concerned creating safety credentials for an area man named Gerald Wooden and utilizing these credentials to assist one other man acquire entry to voting tools.
That man was retired surfer Conan Hayes, who clandestinely joined the software program replace and made copies of delicate data that ended up on-line. That deceit was what the jury discovered Peters responsible of.
Editor’s Be aware: An earlier model of this story incorrectly described Scott McInnis as a former Mesa County Clerk. He is a former county commissioner who was in workplace on the time the election safety breach got here to mild.