Tina Peters, a former election official in Colorado's Mesa County who promoted former President Donald Trump's election conspiracy theories and was responsible for a breach of voting-system security, was sentenced today to nine years in prison.
"Your lies are well-documented and these convictions are serious," 21st Judicial District Judge Matthew Barrett told Peters, according to The Colorado Sun. "I am convinced you would do it all over again. You are as defiant a defendant as this court has ever seen." Barrett said that "prison is the only place" for Peters.
"You are no hero," Barrett also said, according to Colorado Public Radio. "You're a charlatan who used, and is still using, your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that's been proven to be junk time and time again."
Peters reportedly will serve 60 days to six months in the Mesa County jail and then be transferred to the state Department of Corrections. "Peters was handcuffed and taken to jail immediately after she was sentenced," the Sun wrote.
Peters “compromised her own election equipment”
On August 12, "Peters was convicted of three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty, and failing to comply with the secretary of state," the Associated Press wrote at the time.
After the conviction, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said that "Tina Peters willfully compromised her own election equipment trying to prove Trump's big lie. She has been found guilty by a jury of her peers and will now face the consequences of her actions."
In October 2021, Peters was barred from supervising elections due to the leak of voting-system BIOS passwords to QAnon conspiracy theorist Ron Watkins. At the time, Mesa County District Court Judge Valerie Robison detailed how Peters brought a man into a meeting on a "trusted build" software update that is meant to ensure a secure chain of custody for the voting system.
During that meeting, video and photos were taken of a laptop that displayed passwords, which were later posted to an online social media site. Mesa County data was also leaked to Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO who spread false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
"Some of the facts in the case have never been disputed," Colorado Public Radio wrote in August after Peters' conviction. "Peters admits that in May 2021, she used the identity of a Fruita man named Gerald Wood to give a different man—Conan Hayes, a self-described data expert from California—access to county voting equipment, both to copy its hard drive and a few days later to attend a secure update of the machine's software. Hayes is a retired surfer with ties to Lindell and his campaign of spreading falsehoods about the country's election system."
Peters ran for secretary of state in 2022 but lost in the Republican primary.
Peters claims remorse but says, “I’m not a criminal”
Peters asked for leniency at her sentencing today. "I'm not a criminal and I don't deserve to go into a prison where other people have committed heinous crimes," Peters reportedly told the judge. She called herself remorseful and said, "I never expected that just doing an image which was completely legal, before and after the trusted build would've landed me here. I thought it was going to come out quietly."
The Colorado Sun reported that Peters gave "a rambling statement" describing "her belief that elections are being stolen as part of a vast national conspiracy. She claimed that Dominion Voting Systems are rigged in a garbled talk that sounded like her presentations on far-right podcasts."
Barrett reportedly interrupted Peters to tell her, "this is completely irrelevant."
