Mesa County Clerk and Colorado Republican candidate for Secretary of State Tina Peters reacts to early election results during a primary night watch party at a wide open saloon on June 28, 2022 in Sedalia, Colorado.
Mark Biscotti | Getty Images
Tina Peters, the former Republican Colorado county clerk who espoused a false conspiracy theory that former President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election due to ballot fraud, was sentenced Thursday to nine years in prison for crimes related to a breach of her county's voting system.
“You're not a hero,” state District Court Judge Matthew Barrett told Peters. “You are a charlatan who used and continues to use your previous position of office to distribute snake oil that has been proven to be undesirable time and time again.”
“Your lies are well documented, and these convictions are serious. I'm convinced you would do it again if you could,” Barrett told the 68-year-old former Mesa County employee, who is accused of using someone else's information. A security badge to allow another person to access the election system in her county.
The person who used that badge was affiliated with Mike Lindell, the CEO of My Pillow and a leading proponent of the claim that Trump's defeat for a second term was due to ballot fraud.
“You are as defiant a defendant as this court has ever seen,” Barrett told Peters.
“I didn't do anything intentionally to break the law. I just wanted to serve the people of Mesa County,” Peters, who requested probation, told the judge before sentencing him.
Tina Peters, a former clerk in Mesa County, Colorado, listens during her trial, Friday, March 3, 2023, in Grand Junction, Colorado.
Scott Crabtree | AP
“Ms. Peters has demonstrated time and time again that she does not believe she has done anything wrong,” Mesa County District Attorney Daniel Rubinstein told Barrett.
“She made statements to the court in the pre-sentence investigation report, making excuses, giving justifications, but she never admitted that she had done something wrong, and that this is not the way to handle this matter,” Rubinstein said.
“What does every 12-step program start with? It starts with admitting that you have a problem, that you didn't, and there's no goal of rehabilitating someone who doesn't think they've done anything wrong.”
Peters was immediately taken into custody after Barrett refused her attorney's request to remain free.
A jury convicted Peters in August of seven felony counts, including attempting to influence a public official, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, breach of duty, and failure to comply with requirements of the Secretary of State.
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Ryder Center for Health and Physical Education at Saginaw Valley State University in Saginaw, Michigan on October 3, 2024.
Jim Watson | AFP | Getty Images
Before her sentencing, Matt Crane, director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, told Barrett that Peters' false claims “in a real and specific way… have directly led to death threats and general threats to the lives and families of people who work in our elections.”
“I have willingly helped individuals in our country who believe that violence is a way to prove a point,” Crane said. “You deliberately lit a fire within others who chose threats as a means to achieve their goals.”
Shortly after Peters' sentencing, Republican presidential candidate Trump told attendees at a campaign rally in Michigan that in the 2020 election, “We won, we won, we really won.”
“It was a rigged election,” Trump said.
“That's why I'm doing it again,” said Trump, who faces Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, in this year's presidential race. “If I thought I lost, I wouldn't do it again.”
Trump is being criminally tried in federal court in Washington, D.C., and in state court in Atlanta, on charges related to his efforts to undo President Joe Biden's victory over him in the 2020 elections.
