Ex-Colorado county clerk jailed for 9 years in voting data breach
DENVER, Colorado: A judge sentenced a Colorado county clerk to nine years in jail for a data-breach scheme spawned from the rampant false claims about voting machine fraud in the 2020 presidential race.
District Judge Matthew Barrett also told former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters that she never took her job seriously.
“I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could. You’re as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen,” Barrett told her in handing down the sentence. “You are no hero. You abused your position and you’re a charlatan,” he was quoted by The Associated Press as saying.
Jurors found Peters guilty in August for allowing a man to misuse a security card to access the Mesa County election system and for being deceptive about that person’s identity.
The man was affiliated with My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell, a prominent promoter of false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election from former President Donald Trump.
Peters has been unapologetic about what happened.
Before being sentenced, Peters insisted that everything she did to try to unroot what she believed was fraud was for the greater good.
Colorado County Clerks Association director Matt Crane told the court it was impossible to overestimate the damage Peters has done to other election workers in Colorado and elsewhere.
Crane said her actions led to death threats and other threats against the families of the staff who worked during the 2020 elections. He, his wife, and his children were among those threatened.
County Commissioner Cody Davis estimated at the sentencing hearing that in Mesa County, Peters’ actions cost the local government US$1.4 million in legal fees and lost employee time.
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.
She was found not guilty of identity theft, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, and one count of criminal impersonation. Yet she continued to accuse on social media Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems, which made her county’s election system, and others of stealing votes.