GRAND JUNCTION – Former Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters has been sentenced to nine years behind bars for her role in a 2021 breach of her own county’s election system.
Peters will first serve 60 days to six months in the Mesa County jail before she will be transferred to the state Department of Corrections.
Peters was handcuffed and taken to jail immediately after she was sentenced.
As deputies removed her from the courtroom, Peters at the last instant raised her shackled hands and fluttered a wave and blew a kiss to her supporters in the packed courtroom.
Twenty-first Judicial District Judge Matthew Barrett handed down the sentence after referring to Peters as “a charlatan” who had found a way to profit off lies and would continue to do so if she remained out of prison.
“Your lies are well-documented and these convictions are serious,” he said. “I am convinced you would do it all over again. You are as defiant a defendant as this court has ever seen.”
Based on the seriousness of her crimes and the damage they caused to trust in voting “prison is the only place” for Peters, Barrett said.
Peters on Aug. 12 was found guilty of seven of 10 counts related to the breach of the Mesa County election system.
Peters, 68, was convicted of three counts of attempting to influence a public official; conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation; official misconduct; violation of duty; and failure to comply with an order of the Secretary of State.
The jury acquitted Peters of three counts: conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, criminal impersonation and identity theft.
In a rambling statement in her defense, Peters used her time before Judge Barrett to lay out 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 stopped her at one point telling her, “this is completely irrelevant” as he had told her four attorneys numerous times during her trial.
She also made bids for sympathy by invoking the memory of her Navy Seal son who died in a parachute accident during a military demonstration when Peters was running for office. She accused 21st District Attorney Dan Rubinstein of stealing her late husband by convincing him to file for divorce.
She rambled through a long list of allegations that officials have lied about her for the past three years.
“Your honor, I don’t deserve to go into a prison where other people have committed heinous crimes,” she said. “I’m not a criminal. I have lived my life with faith and honesty.”
Peters offered the possibility of going to a faith-based program in northern California where she would work to help people.
A minister from the Church of Glad Tidings who identified himself as Pastor Dave Bryan had spoken in her defense. He told Barrett that he could “take this big hairball” from Colorado by taking Peters to California to serve probation.
“It is my observation that a storm is just getting started with this trial,” he said. “Tina Peters has learned her lesson and will not be involved in Colorado politics anymore.”
He made that statement before Peters spoke and accused other people of lying about her and saying that other officials fail to understand that the election systems are fraudulent.
Peters broke down and cried toward the end of her statement. She said prison would be difficult for her because she needs to sleep on a magnetic mattress for health problems including fibromyalgia and a previous bout of lung cancer that left her short of breath at times.
