MAGA Election Clerk Sentenced to Prison

Former Mesa Clerk Tina Peters was sentenced today in Colorado

The former Mesa, Colorado Clerk who was in charge of administering the 2020 election in that county was sentenced today to 9 years in prison for tampering with voting data. Peters is a close ally and friend of Mike Lindell and was carrying out her efforts to attempt to prove that Donald Trump won the 2020 election due to fraud with voting machines.

Peters was convicted by a jury in August of 7 of the 10 criminal counts against her. Peters allowed access to confidential voter data to private individuals affiliated with Lindell, one was entered into the offices using the identity of authorized software engineer with the county.

Peters remained unrepentant and unapologetic during and after the trial, asserted that she did nothing wrong. Law enforcement investigators, prosecutors, a jury and a judge disagreed. After she was convicted, she claimed that the Deep State rigged her trial because the judge didn't allow her to present evidence that people in Serbia rigged our 2020 election.

Defense Witnesses

Peters called a Pastor from California as her first witness who asked the court to sentence her to a program run by a church. He likely annoyed the court by weaving into his plea the suggestion that she was unjustly convicted and prosecuted for political reasons.

Peters next called Douglas Frank ("Dr. Frank"), who Mike Lindell made a movie about based on his "findings" about the machines called, "Scientific Proof." He likely did Peters no favors by defiantly suggesting that Peters was a "patriot," and that officials with the state government are to blame for the entire case and are covering up their misconduct. The judge interrupted him at one point and made it clear that he could continue to make that argument but it wasn't helping. He concluded by saying that the whole case should be thrown out.

Alex Schroeder testified next for Peters. He was a former clerk in another county and current County Commissioner. He claimed that there was a government conspiracy in Colorado to prosecute Peters to send a message to try and intimidate other clerks around the state to keep them from coming forward with evidence of fraud. He complained about Dominion voting machines and said they should have never been certified. When the judge asked him why the hand recount showed exactly the same results as the machines, Schroeder said that didn't matter to him and clerks should still have to right to conduct their own forensic examination of the voting machine software.

Prosecution Witnesses

The state called Gerald and Wendy Wood as witnesses against Peters. Peters was convicted of using Gerald Wood's ID badge to give access to Mike Lindell's associate to election files. When the story first broke, many people in the community thought he was involved since Peters stole his identity. His wife Wendy was upset that Peters continues to lie about his involvement and has never apologized or shown any remorse. 

Gerald spoke about his reputation being ruined and his house repeatedly being searched by law enforcement with all his electronic items seized for years. He noted that anyone who Googles his name will think he was a notorious criminal even though he was only a victim. He also talked about how much money Peters has raised and continues to take in from GiveSendGo and book deals off the case, while she continues to appear on right-wing podcasts to make solicitations.

County Commissioner Cody Davis testified that Peters' fraudulent activities cost taxpayers of Mesa County $1.4 million as a result of the chaos she caused and investigations that had to be initiated. He said that the county went back and conducted a hand count of all the ballots and that the results were identical to the numbers provided by the machines on the 2020 election day. He concluded by saying that "Ms. Peters has made this county a national laughingstock."

The testimony of former Republican Congressman Scott McInnis was especially devastating. He recounted how Peters turned off her office's security cameras late on a Sunday night and hacked election office computers with an outside person unauthorized to be in there. He said that she never once went to any state investigator or law enforcement about her theories and instead went to Mike Lindell to have his group assist her "investigation" to prove fraud. 

Peters' Statement

Peters asked the judge to sentence her to probation while continuing to maintain her innocence. She called the accusations against her "vile." She complained about the victims and state officials asking for prison time, and said that she was a "child of God" and that God doesn't like people "messing with his children." She continued to maintain that the election was stolen and votes were "flipped" despite the fact that she presented no evidence. The judge finally cut her off and said he wasn't going to allow her to continue to present her conspiracy theories at a sentencing hearing.

At one point the judge got a little upset after Peters challenged him to read the "reports" that she submitted about fraud. He told Peters than he did read them. Peters seemed surprised and then remarked that she was glad he read them because that meant that he must agree with her. The judge scolded her not to claim that he agreed with her theories when he never said that. 

Peters then said that she has to sleep on a special magnetic mattress because of a car accident so she should not be sentenced to prison because they don't have those mattresses in prison.

She then claimed that everything she did was simply to prove that there was NOT election fraud and she was just trying to reassure people who thought that there were. This seemed pretty preposterous since she was one of the leading voices in the election fraud conspiracy movement almost from day one. Peters said if judge put her on probation and ordered her to stop talking about the 2020 election she would be willing to do that. 

Judge Barrett obviously disagreed. He said Peters "remained defiant, which is her right, but certainly not helpful." He then said that her "lies were well documented, and I am convinced if given the opportunity you would do this again." He said it was obvious to him that she "craves attention" and fame, loved being flown around the country on private jets by Lindell, and "never took her job as clerk seriously." Barrett said Peters "was no hero, you are a charlatan."