News
Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters sentenced to prison
GRAND JUNCTION — Former Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters was sentenced Thursday to 9 years behind bars by a decide who labeled her a “charlatan” for her position in a 2021 breach of her personal county’s election system.
Peters will serve 60 days to 6 months within the Mesa County jail earlier than she is transferred to the state Division of Corrections.
Peters was handcuffed and brought to jail instantly after she was sentenced.
As deputies eliminated her from the courtroom, Peters on the final instantaneous raised her shackled fingers, fluttered a wave and a blew a kiss to her supporters within the packed courtroom.
Twenty-first Judicial District Choose Matthew Barrett handed down the sentence after saying Peters had discovered a approach to revenue off of lies and would proceed to take action if she remained out of jail.
“Your lies are well-documented and these convictions are critical,” he mentioned. “I’m satisfied you’ll do it yet again. You might be as defiant a defendant as this courtroom has ever seen.”
Based mostly on the seriousness of her crimes and the harm they brought about to belief in voting nationwide “jail is the one place” for Peters, Barrett mentioned. He added that the harm she brought about is “unmeasurable.”
Peters, 68, was convicted Aug. 12 of three counts of trying to affect a public official; conspiracy to commit prison impersonation; official misconduct; violation of obligation; and failure to adjust to an order of the Secretary of State.
The jury acquitted Peters of three counts: conspiracy to commit prison impersonation, prison impersonation and identification theft.
Peters didn’t testify throughout her trial, however in a rambling assertion earlier than sentencing, she used her time to put out her perception that elections are being stolen as a part of an unlimited nationwide conspiracy. Her garbled protection appeared like the numerous shows she had made on far-right, election-denier podcasts.
Barrett stopped her at one level telling her, “that is utterly irrelevant.” He had informed her 4 attorneys that quite a few instances throughout her trial once they tried to lift problems with voter fraud.
Barrett additionally referred to as out Peters for mendacity when she demonstrated her notorious videotaped try to kick a police officer in 2022. That incident had nothing to do together with her trial, however she included it in a litany of lies she mentioned have been a part of the case towards her.
She bent over and kicked a leg within the air to point out how having her arm pulled had brought about that involuntary motion. Barrett referred to as that assertion “preposterous.” There was tittering all through the courtroom over her demonstration.
Peters veered from making an attempt to settle these outdated scores to creating bids for sympathy by invoking the reminiscence of her Navy Seal son who died in a parachute accident throughout a navy demonstration when Peters was working for workplace. She spoke about her father dying whereas she was in jail and her 95-year-old mom needing her now. She accused twenty first District Legal professional Dan Rubinstein of stealing her late husband by convincing him to file for divorce. Rubinstein has denied having something to do together with her divorce.
Peters bid for leniency: “I’ve lived my life with religion and honesty”
At one level in her assertion, Peters tearfully begged the decide for mercy.
“Your honor, I don’t deserve to enter a jail the place different individuals have dedicated heinous crimes,” she mentioned. “I’m not a prison. I’ve lived my life with religion and honesty.”
Peters provided the opportunity of going to a faith-based program in northern California the place she would work to assist individuals.
A minister from the Church of Glad Tidings who recognized himself as Pastor Dave Bryan had spoken in her protection. He informed Barrett that he might “take this large hairball” from Colorado by taking Peters out of the state to serve probation.
“It’s my commentary {that a} storm is simply getting began with this trial,” he mentioned. “Tina Peters has realized her lesson and won’t be concerned in Colorado politics anymore.” He made that assertion earlier than Peters mentioned throughout her assertion that officers have failed to know that the election programs are fraudulent.
Peters informed Choose Barrett that jail can be tough for her as a result of she must sleep on a magnetic mattress for well being issues together with fibromyalgia and a earlier bout of lung most cancers that left her wanting breath at instances.
Those that spoke in Peters’ protection included Douglas Frank, who recognized himself as a Ph.D. physicist who has been “modeling elections” since he was a young person.
Frank was on the crux of Peters’ prison saga when it started in 2021. He got here to Mesa County after she started questioning the outcomes of a Grand Junction municipal election. Voters had rejected a slate of right-wing candidates, and Peters mentioned on the time she didn’t suppose that was potential.
She agreed to a plan hatched with Frank and different national-level election fraud conspiracy theorists who needed to attempt to present that Dominion Voting Methods ballot-counting gear fraudulently tallied votes. They wanted a county clerk who would give them entry to a Dominion system and Peters accommodated them.
“They discovered a straightforward mark,” testified Matt Crane, govt director of the Colorado County Clerks Affiliation who spoke for the prosecution Thursday.
Crane identified that Peters by no means bothered to complete her county clerk credentialing and she or he left a coaching session for brand spanking new clerks early. He mentioned he doesn’t consider she understood the system that she sought to undermine.
He mentioned whereas her actions have brought about different clerks and election officers across the state to obtain loss of life threats, “she has benefited from lies and willful ignorance.” He mentioned her lies have been changed into a way of revenue for her as she shills for donations on right-wing podcasts.
“A instrument slightly than a sufferer”
Frank additionally participates in these podcasts. He got here to Mesa County on the invitation of Peters and her pal, Sherronna Bishop, who was not an elected official and didn’t stay in Mesa County. Bishop was a Silt make-up artist who had served as U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert’s marketing campaign supervisor earlier than the 2 had a falling out.
Bishop then grew to become concerned with individuals who consider that elections are fraudulent.
Frank and Bishop provided Peters a approach to show, previous to the 2022 mid-term election, that Mesa County’s election system was able to switching votes.
They employed Conan Hayes, a former professional surfer from California who Frank mentioned in the course of the sentencing was a “federally licensed, white-hat hacker.” Hayes traveled to Grand Junction to repeat the voting system laborious drive. Hayes’ task was to repeat the confidential data earlier than and after a normal improve to the system, referred to as a trusted construct. Trusted builds are carried out with the oversight of the Secretary of State’s Workplace previous to elections.
To get Hayes into the safe a part of the clerk’s workplace and into the trusted construct, Peters first needed to perform an elaborate scheme so he would have the required credentials.
Trial testimony had laid out the main points of that scheme. Peters pretended to rent an area man, Gerald Wooden, as a pc advisor for the elections workplace. Peters obtained credentials for Wooden by skipping a few of the steps usually taken for a brand new rent. She informed totally different events concerned within the elections division that he was both a state worker, a contractor or a brand new worker within the motorized vehicle division.
Wooden’s badge was then utilized by Hayes to entry the room the place the “brains” of the voting system are situated and the place Peters had ordered safety cameras to be turned off previous to the breach. Hayes made copies of the laborious drive previous to the trusted construct. He then attended the trusted construct with representatives of Dominion and the Secretary of State’s Workplace who had been informed he was a county worker.
Wooden and his spouse, Wendy Wooden, spoke on the sentencing for the prosecution, laying out how Peters’ actions and lies had broken their lives. Wendy Wooden cried as she informed the decide that Peters and her co-conspirators had considered her husband as “a instrument slightly than a sufferer.”
Confidential information posted to web sites trafficking in political conspiracy theories
The confidential data that Hayes obtained from the voting system was unveiled throughout an election-conspiracy convention in South Dakota placed on by MyPillow CEO and election-denier Mike Lindell. Lindell had flown Peters and a few of her fellow conspiracy theorists to the convention. He promised that he had proof of election fraud. No proof was introduced.
However the data stolen from Mesa County’s voting system turned up on right-wing conspiracy web sites the place it set off alarm bells with state and county election officers. Peters asserted throughout her sentencing that she had not accredited that launch.
Not one of the data revealed within the breach was ever used to show election fraud. However within the nationwide election-conspiracy world it was held up because the Holy Grail that confirmed Dominion Voting Methods was monkeying with election outcomes. That assertion was based mostly on the truth that some information had been faraway from the system — a normal methodology of doing an improve that features putting in new information, in accordance with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Workplace.
Mesa County — and your entire state — was in an uproar within the wake of Peters’ actions.
Jena Griswold, the Colorado Secretary of State, scrambled to place a substitute clerk in place to supervise the workplace and the upcoming election. Mesa County needed to pay substitute clerk, former Secretary of State Wayne Williams, to run the Mesa County election whereas nonetheless having to pay the absent Peters. The county additionally needed to change its election gear.
Mesa County Commissioner Cody Davis, a Republican, addressed that within the sentencing. He mentioned county staff have spent months making an attempt to tally the monetary value of Peters’ crimes. He mentioned they estimate it value $1.4 million in legal professional and employees time, hand counting ballots to show the subsequent election was honest, and making an attempt to employees a clerk’s workplace that was in disarray.
“We needed to rent designated election officers whereas Ms. Peters was gallivanting across the nation,” he informed Choose Barrett.
Peters was in hiding for greater than a month after the Lindell convention. From her hiding place, which she revealed in the course of the sentencing was in Texas, she continued to hold out clandestine plots and plans to cowl up what she had accomplished. In trial testimony, it was revealed that she requested an elections workplace worker to steal the election pc from the safe room. She had her fellow conspirators purchase and use “burner” telephones that couldn’t be tracked. She had them use encrypted message programs to speak.
When Peters returned from hiding, she grew to become an icon for the election-denier crowd — domestically and throughout the nation. She grew to become often known as “Hero Tina” and “Clerk Peters,” labels that her social media followers nonetheless use. She unsuccessfully ran for Secretary of State.
A Lindell-produced documentary referred to as “Choice Code” that centered on her election breach was launched in 2022.
She appeared at Mar-a-Lago with former President Donald Trump. She spoke at conferences with Lindell and different conspiracy theorists. She was a daily visitor on Steve Bannon’s “Conflict Room” podcast earlier than he was sentenced to jail for ignoring a congressional subpoena. She went on quite a few right-wing podcasts asking for cash for her protection — pleas that continued all through her trial and sentencing.
Testimony in her trial confirmed that the tentacles of her crime reached into the highest echelons and inside circles of the election-deniers near Trump — former New York Metropolis Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Trump Nationwide Safety Adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, and Overstock.com founder and CEO Patrick Byrne.
Byrne was on the cellphone with Hayes gleefully celebrating the breach when Hayes was accessing the Mesa County system.
Former Mesa County Commissioner Scott McInnis, a Republican, addressed all that unfavourable publicity when he mentioned that Peters’ actions additionally sullied his county’s status.
He mentioned the commissioners checked each allegation that Peters’ made and located that none have been correct. He referred to as her “a shame” to the county.
Peters laughed audibly when McInnis, a former U.S. Congressman, mentioned that. Choose Barrett took observe of the disruption.
Peters attorneys tried to cease sentencing with an eleventh hour submitting
The FBI has been concerned within the investigation associated to Peters’ case, however neither Bishop nor Hayes have been charged in reference to the breach.
FBI spokesperson Vicki Migoya mentioned she will be able to’t verify or deny any ongoing investigation which may result in federal prices towards Peters’ co-conspirators.
Two of Peters’ former staff have already been convicted for his or her elements within the breach. Belinda Knisley, Peters’ former deputy clerk, pleaded responsible to a few misdemeanors in reference to the breach and was sentenced to 2 years of probation. Sandra Brown, a former elections supervisor, pleaded responsible to a felony and was sentenced to 2 months in jail. Each agreed to testify towards their former boss.
Of their testimony, they every referenced Peters saying “I’m fucked,” and “I’m going to jail” after authorities started digging into the breach.
Peters’ actions resulted in a tightening of state legal guidelines associated to county clerks. It’s now a felony to tamper with voting gear or to knowingly publish confidential details about voting programs. Key card entry and video surveillance is required for all voting programs. Crane identified that county clerks should additionally now be credentialed inside six months of taking workplace or they are often faraway from workplace.
One among Peters’ 4 attorneys, John Case, mentioned after the listening to Thursday that he plans to file an attraction of Peters’ sentence by midday Friday.
Barrett had earlier turned down a protection request for a keep of sentence in order that Peters might stay free whereas appeals transfer by means of the system.
He additionally turned down a movement filed by protection attorneys in the course of the night time earlier than the sentencing asking that he delay the listening to based mostly on new proof that had come to gentle. Peters had been reported to authorities two weeks previous to her trial as a result of she violated a time period of her bail. She had taken a movie crew to the clerk and recorder’s workplace and spoke to staff of the workplace in entrance of the constructing. She was restricted from doing that.
In denying the protection movement, Barrett identified that the details about the incident wouldn’t have helped Peters’ case.
Barrett commented on the finish of the sentencing that he was incarcerating Peters instantly as a result of “jail is the place we ship of us who’re a hazard to all of us.”
“You’re a charlatan,” he mentioned greater than as soon as. “You used your place to hawk snake oil.”