Tina Peters was sentenced to nine years in prison for crimes related to violations of her county’s voting system
Former Colorado Republican county clerk Tina Peters promoted the bogus conspiracy theory that former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election because of ballot fraud, and she was sentenced Thursday to nine years in prison for offenses pertaining to a vote system breach.
Judge Matthew Barrett of the state district court said to Peters, “You are no hero.” “You’re a charlatan who used and still sells a snake oil proven to be junk time and time again from your previous office position.”
“Your falsehoods are extensively recorded, and they are really substantial convictions. If you could, Barrett told the 68-year-old former Mesa County clerk accused of exploiting another person’s security credential to let someone else access her county’s voting system, you would do it all over again.
The individual wearing the credential connected with Mike Lindell, the CEO of My Pillow and a strong advocate of the theory that vote fraud was the reason Trump lost a second term.
“You’re as rebellious a defendant this court has seen,” Barrett told Peters.
Before his punishment, Peters, who had asked for probation, told the court, “I have never done anything with intent to violate the law. I have simply wanted to help Mesa County residents.
Rubenstein sent a statement to the Court in the pre-sentence investigation report
“Ms. Peters has demonstrated repeatedly that she does not think she did anything wrong,” Mesa County District Attorney Daniel Rubenstein told Barrett.
She sent in a statement to the court in the pre-sentence inquiry report, providing reasons and excuses, but she never once admitted that she did anything wrong, that this was not the way to handle things, Rubenstein said.
“What does every twelve-step program begin with? It begins with realizing you have a problem, and she has not done that; rehabilitation serves no use for someone who believes they did nothing wrong.”
Peters was taken into arrest right after once Barrett turned down her attorney’s plea for her to stay free.
In August, a trial jury found Peters guilty of seven felonies
A trial jury found Peters guilty in August of seven felony counts, attempt to influence a public worker, conspiracy to conduct criminal impersonation, breach of duty, and non-compliance with secretary of state policies.
Colorado County Clerks Association head Matt Crane told Barrett before she was sentenced that Peters’s false accusation “in a real and specific way… have led directly to death threats and general threats to the lives and the families of the people who work in our elections.”
“She has freely helped people in our nation who feel that violence is a means of expression,” Crane added. “She has deliberately stoked a fire within others who choose threats as a means of gaining their way.”
Trump: It was a rigged election
Not long after Peters was convicted, Trump, the Republican presidential contender, assured participants at a campaign event in Michigan that “We won, we won, we did win.”
Trump said, “It was a rigged election.” “That’s why I’m repeating this. Should I believe I lost, Trump, running for vice president Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, would not be running once again.
Charges relating to Trump’s attempts to reverse President Joe Biden’s triumph over him in the 2020 election are driving criminal prosecution in both federal court in Washington, D.C., and state court in Atlanta.
