Former Mesa County Clerk of Court Tina Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison

CPR covered every day of Peters' trial. You can read our explanation of the case Hereand find out about individual days Here.

Updated October 3, 2024 at 2:30 p.m

Tina Peters is sent to prison.

The former Mesa County clerk was sentenced to nine years in prison, most of which he will serve in the Colorado Department of Corrections.

Peters' lawyers said they plan to appeal.

21st Judicial District Judge Matthew Barrett preceded his ruling with a sharp criticism of her actions and attitude, calling Peters an attention-seeking former official who thinks only of himself.

“You’re not a hero,” Barrett told Peters. “You are a charlatan who has taken advantage of, and continues to take advantage of, your former position in office to sell a snake oil that has proven time and time again to be trash.”

Barrett announced the verdict in front of a packed courtroom that included supporters of Peters, several uniformed sheriff's deputies and local elected officials. A packed crowd gathered just outside the courtroom and streamed the proceedings on their cellphones from just a few feet away.

In August, a jury of Mesa County residents found Peters guilty of seven counts, including four felonies, after she helped facilitate unauthorized access to county voting machines she was supposed to protect in search of voter fraud. Their supporters have never proven that the machines were involved in any kind of election manipulation.

During Thursday's hearing, prosecutors argued that Peters faces the maximum sentence for most, if not all, of the charges.

“I don't think anyone in this room would argue directly that Ms. Peters has shown any respect for the law,” said Dan Rubinstein, United States Attorney for the 21st Judicial District. He noted that she continues to argue that she never did anything wrong.

“MS. Peters has made a joke of this community. She has made a joke of respect for law enforcement, a joke of respect for court orders. She has taken no responsibility whatsoever and considers this a badge of honor,” Rubinstein said.

Courtesy of Larry Robinson/The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

Before sentencing, Peters applied for probation. She said she recognized the jury's decision to find her guilty on most counts, but that the jury would not be allowed to hear any further evidence she wanted to present. This evidence was largely related to conspiracies about the county's Dominion voting machines, which were ruled illegitimate.

“I am not a criminal and I do not deserve to go to a prison where other people have committed heinous crimes,” Peters told the judge through tears. She showed the judge pictures of her late husband and her son, a Navy Seal who died in the line of duty. Among other things, she applied for parole so that she could continue to visit her 95-year-old mother in Virginia.

“I am remorseful. Yes, sir, I really am,” Peters said. “I never thought that simply creating a completely legal before and after image would have gotten me here. I thought it would come out quietly.”

But Barrett said his sentence was not just about punishment and taking responsibility, but also about deterrence. A harsh sentence, Barrett said, would ensure that other elected officials respect the responsibilities of their office.

“I have no doubt you would do it again if you could,” Barrett said. “You are as defiant a defendant as this court has ever seen.”

Impact statements present conflicting views from Peters

The prosecution and defense were each given an hour to present their arguments before Barrett announced the verdict.

Mesa County Commissioner Cody Davis said the estimated cost of Peters' actions to Mesa County taxpayers was $1.4 million. That includes Peters' salary while she was barred from elective office, as well as numerous recounts the county paid to prove its elections were accurate.

As Davis explained efforts to convince the public that Peters' claims were untrue, Barrett interjected, asking what the hand count and other recounts showed.

“I want to know, what was the difference?” asked Barrett.

“They were identical,” Davis said of the votes, noting that a hand count and tabulation by another voting machine company confirmed the election tallies were accurate. “No significant difference.”

“Not a significant difference at all,” Barrett repeated.

Davis also said the damage Peters did to the county went beyond budget and damaged its reputation in general.

“People across Colorado and other states have come to associate Mesa County not with our natural beauty or agriculture, but with the infamous actions of Ms. Peters. “Your behavior has made this county a national laughing stock and has overshadowed our accomplishments and values,” Davis concluded.

Tom Hesse/CPR News

Former Mesa County Republican Commissioner Scott McInnis called on Peters to face the consequences of her actions; He called her a disgrace and said all her allegations of voter fraud were meaningless.

“You have never cast a fraudulent vote, your honor, not a single fraudulent vote in Mesa County. Despite all these allegations, despite all these studies,” McInnis said.

Peters' defense presented prominent witnesses from her life, one who spoke tearfully about her as a friend and a Gold Star mother who lost her son in a military accident.

“She's not a threat to the community, she's not a threat to the state,” said California pastor Dave Bryan, who asked Barrett not to sentence Peters to prison but instead order her to serve probation at his church in California. “She was never a threat to another human being and (a prison sentence) could only smack of political justification.”

Dallas Schroeder, a former Republican county clerk in Elbert County, also testified in support of Peters; He pleaded with the judge not to jail her for “seeking the truth.”

“This is tyranny at its worst, when people are afraid to stand up and say what they really believe and investigate things,” Shroeder said. Schroeder was sued by the state over copies he made of the Elbert County voting machine hard drives around the same time as Peters.

Screenshot from the KREX live stream

Barrett asked Schroeder why Peters needed to do more than just examine and count ballots.

“Do you want to evaluate it in a clearer way than actually going back and looking at what the machine told you about the results and then counting the ballots yourself?” Barrett asked.

Schroeder said it still makes sense for employees to have the ability to see everything that's going on in the election system.

The verdict is the culmination of several years of investigation and litigation

Peters was found guilty of three counts of attempting to influence a public official and one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation. She was also convicted of first-degree official misconduct, dereliction of duty and failure to obey an order of the Secretary of State, all misdemeanors.

The investigation began a little more than three years ago when images captured during a secure update to Mesa County's voting equipment surfaced online. At the same time, a copy of the Mesa County hard drive was put on display and discussed at a “cyber symposium” hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell that was at the center of false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite

Over the course of a lengthy trial, prosecutors presented a timeline showing that Peters began meeting with election conspiracy theorists in early 2021 about alleged “irregularities” in the election results. In response, Peters and others hatched a plan to bring in an unauthorized person to observe a Dominion Voting Machines software update. The conspiracy involved creating security credentials for a local man named Gerald Wood and using them to give another man access to voting machines.

That man was retired surfer Conan Hayes, who secretly joined the software update and made copies of confidential information that then leaked online. The jury found Peters guilty of this deception.

Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Scott McInnis as a former Mesa County Clerk. He is a former county commissioner who was in office when the election security breach came to light.